I thought it fabulous when my nephew Tom made the JV squad at 119, less than what his father had weighed in at that age, perhaps, due to my sister-in-law’s being a size 5, and DNA comes from two directions. It’s a double helix, after all.

As I’d not attended a match for decades, Tom promised to remind me how the sport works. He’d not want old Aunt Cindi yelling from the bleachers something like, “Run, Tom, run!” how you might cheer for football.

“You gotta’ try doing the moves,” he insisted. “If I just tell you, you won’t get it.”

“Me?”

“I’ll let you win sometimes.”

Him being 119 -- that’s what the coach said, but they fudge -- Tom had no weight advantage, sorry to say, as Nutra Slim doesn’t do it by itself. Height-wise, pretty even. As for muscles, well, we have a different mix, according to Dr. Janie on PBS. Dr. Janie doesn’t have my mix, though.

Anyway, I told myself, even if I wasn’t planning to make JV, I’d not be a pushover. As Dr. Janie points out just before the pledge break, we can maximize our multifold capabilities.

“Can’t wear this,” I noted to my coach-to-be, referring to my Coldwater Creek outfit. They’d had a sale and I’d gone with greens for their mix-and-match possibilities. “I heard that the Greeks wrestled naked,” Dr. Janie says that listening is one of our strengths.

“We wear singlets,” his answer

“Just?”

He looked at me. “Well, for sure a...” uncomfortable with how to finish.

You mean your jockstrap, I could have told him. Your aunt in the bleachers can see the shape of what’s under it. Wrestling’s an obvious sport, one might say, except I didn’t say it.

For me, a sports bra would have been by the book, but under my Led Zeppelin t-shirt -- I never actually saw them, but once had some of their records -- but the one I’d chosen for my instructional session better showed my nipps. I doubt he’d even heard of the band.

The Takedown

The playroom was the best place for the lesson, we figured. Good rug and not as much to break.

I’d found my tennis shorts and he had a pair of gym ones. He should wear his singulars, I told him, to get ready for tournaments.

“Singlets, Aunt Cindi.”

His gym shorts over his underpants don’t disguise everything. Not that I noticed, of course, but I couldn’t not, either. They just didn’t show its presence as well as do singlets, but then again, with singlets, you’re not on the mat with him, your eyes not a foot away.

He had me stand on the center of the rug.

“Circle around to start, Aunt Cindi,” showing me how. “Shake yourself down to stay loose,” showing me that as well.

“Kind of loosey-goosey?” I suggested, but he missed it.

“So here’s a takedown. It’s worth two points.”

“That’s not very many.”

“Well, it’s what you get.”

“So take me down, Hulk Hogan,” not the type of challenge I regularly make, but he might be impressed that I know the name of a famous wrestler.

The next thing I knew, I was tumbling backward, my legs I knew not where.

“Called a ‘single-leg sweep,’” Tom the Sweeper. “It’s easy, once you know how.”

“You should have warned me.”

“Coach says that if you get the first takedown, the odds are 85 percent that you’ll get the pin.”

“Eighty-five?”

“Or there’s the ‘fireman’s carry,” proposed the now-fireman. “Go stand in the middle.”

“Fire! Fire! Save me!” I contributed. It’s easy to joke around with your nephew when he’s hoisting you across his shoulders like a swooned damsel. Actually, it seemed more like a take-up.

In this type of takedown, he holds the inside of your thigh, though that’s not always where it ended up.

“Want another spin, Aunt Cindi?”

“Better not drop me!”

“OK,” as he tried to make me dizzy, his hold under my cuff.

“I’m slipping!” my damsel role.

“I won’t drop you,” him the gallant knight, the edge of his hands far enough under to touch my panties.

The Escape

“So, Aunt Cindi, what you do is get like this,” parking me on all fours. “You try to escape.”

“From what?”

“From me,” kneeling beside me, one hand on my elbow, the other around my ribs. “If you do, you get a point.” reaching around to my stomach.

I sucked in. Just because I’m an aunt doesn’t mean I’m out of shape.

“Go!”

I slipped free, but not without him palming my breast in the process.

“Pretty good for a girl,” he judged.

Next time when he reached around, it took him no time at all to move from my stomach to the bottom of my bra.

“Do you get any points?” not moving as he proceeded to where he could locate my nip through the fabric of my bra.

“Not when I’m already in control,” taking his time, but finally, “Go!’”

Me on my back, him on top.

“Is this what they call ‘freestyle?’” my question as we readied ourselves for another go, his fingertips preemptively back and forth over me.

“Freestyle is different,” his answer, now reaching across to my other side. As I had follow-up questions, time for both.

The Reversal

“What you want to do when you’re down, Aunt Cindi,” advised my coach-of-the-day, “is pull a switcheroo. Two points.”

“Push me down,” he ordered, placing me on top. “Now watch.”

Wham-o as he pulled my arm underneath, rocked on his elbow -- or something along that line, too fast to tell -- and spun me over. From on top to spread-eagled underneath, it took not a second.

“Two points, huh?” I managed.

“Two big ones,” in no hurry to relinquish me. As he was staring at Led Zeppelin, though, I’m not sure to what he was referring.

“Ever hear of Stairway to Heaven?” I asked, his shorts against me making it an opportune time for chitchat. It wasn’t his shorts that had my attention, however. It was what was under them, how big it felt against me.

“Stairway to what?” rocking to increase the contact.

“A song they did,” trying to hum a few measures, but I’m not that musical.

No way did I rock back, but maybe I adjusted my position a time or two.

We rested for a few moments, neither of us initiating a pullback.

“What if we just roll over and over?” I wondered.

I wasn’t clear if we each kept earning two points over and over as we rolled to the edge of the rug, back to the other side, and then back to the center, every roll pressing him against me, though perhaps it was also me pressing back.

“It kind of gets your heart going, though. Think mine’s too fast?” taking my wrist, probably worrying his elderly relative was going to have a heart attack.

“Ticker’s here,” I corrected, drawing him over Jimmy Page. “You count the beats and I’ll watch my watch.”

“Seems high,” after I did the calculation. “Better do it for longer.”

It’s a scientific fact that when you measure something, you change it. In being checked out by your nephew, for sure, parts of you do, anyway.

The Near Fall

This one was more complicated. “You fall,” the way he explained it, “but you only get nearly pinned.”

“Got it.”

“Fall” of course is the same word as when we’d buried each other in the leaf pile, him hoping Aunt Cindi’s thinking the hand under the foliage is just another oak leaf. Afterward, I’d ask his help to brush myself free of the leaf crumbs.

But back to near falls, the wrestling kind. Take, for example, the cradle; more of what I’d call a fold-up.

Bridging means using your neck to hold up your back, your breast thus your highest part.

“Keep bridging, Aunt Cindi,” as he worked under me on my straps. Out-of-sight, out-of-mind, maybe his theory. No success, though, not knowing the one-hand squeeze.