“Arnold Schwarzenegger Education of a Bodybuilder by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Douglas Kent Hall
I had just enough money to buy a ticket in a third-class carriage. The train crawled slowly through Austria into Germany, stopping at every little station. A day later I was in Stuttgart.
It was the first competition of my life. I was nervous and worn out from the long train ride. I also had no clear idea of what was going on. Watching the men’s class for a while, I tried to pick up a thing or two, but they seemed just as inexperienced and awkward as I was. I remember having to borrow posing trunks from one person and oil to rub on from another. I ran through my entire posing routine in my head. It was put together from all the Reg Park poses I had seen in magazines. By the time I had to step out in front of the judges, I was calm and no longer thinking about anything. Somehow I got through the compulsory poses, and a little later I was called back onto the stage for a pose-off. I didn’t yet know how it had all turned out when it was announced that I had won: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mr. Europe Junior.
When I look at the photos taken then, those feelings come back to me. I felt like King Kong. I knew I was now “somebody,” and I loved the sudden attention I was getting. I was convinced I was becoming the strongest bodybuilder in the world. And in a way, I really was one of the best in the world. True, I wasn’t even among the world’s top five thousand then, but in my own mind I was the best. After all, I had just won the Mr. Europe Junior contest.
The unpleasantness waiting for me at my posting didn’t scare me much at first. I borrowed money for the trip back. I was caught as soon as I had climbed over the wall of the base. I spent seven days in a cold detention cell with almost no food. But I had my trophy and my title, and I wouldn’t have cared even if they had kept me locked up for a whole year.
I showed my trophy to everyone. By the time I got out of detention, word of my win had spread across the whole unit. The command decided that my victory added prestige to the army, and I was given two days off. I had become a hero who stopped at nothing and no one to win. The instructors held me up to the others as an example, with words along these lines: “You will have to fight for your fatherland. You must have the courage and manliness for it. Look at what Schwarzenegger was prepared to do for his goal.” Indeed, I had become a hero, even though in pursuit of my goal I had broken the general rules and principles of the military. But it was also the only time the command made an exception in such cases.
Bodybuilding was a great advertisement for my whole persona. The Mr. Europe Junior title gave me a special status in the officers’ eyes. I continued to serve in a tank brigade. I liked driving those big, powerful machines and feeling the forceful recoil when firing. This is probably where the part of me was born that has always felt a deep fascination with all kinds of effects and powerful spectacles. In the afternoons we cleaned and oiled our tanks. A couple of days later I was suddenly relieved of such duties. An order had come from above that instead of wiping down tanks I was from now on to do nothing but training, developing my body. It was the most pleasant order I have ever had to carry out.
(To be continued)
Author: joker
Come and train! ArtGym
