Once upon a time in the early 2000s, Becky Clark was forced to enter a space dedicated to mostly oversized teenage boys tossing and grappling each other inside a smelly wrestling room.
The former Watsonville High standout doesn’t miss those hot grueling days of summer camps, yet little did she know it would later result in something much, much bigger.
In June, Clark opened the doors to Grit N Grace Academy—the town’s first-ever all-girls and women’s wrestling and fitness room.
“This is a wrestling inspired class,” she said. “It’s still a fitness class. There’s nothing to be afraid of, but there’s a huge fear of wrestling and I feel it’s because there’s not enough education around it.”
Leticia Torres, 32, of Watsonville has been taking her 5-year-old daughter, Emmy Palmerin, to one of the youth classes taught by Clark.
Torres considers Emmy to be a shy girl but mom immediately noticed how much more confident and vocal her daughter became since her very first session.
“It’s just something that you can see,” Torres said.
Grit N Grace Academy at 430 Main Street is decked out with lavender walls and gold trim, including jumbo inspirational quotes such as “If it’s important to you, you’ll find a way. If not, you’ll find an excuse.”
Clark offers classes for various age groups from 5-7, 7-11, 11-15 and open mat for the older kids between 15-18. There’s also classes offered for adults.
Torres, who is enrolled at Grit N Grace, said Clark brings an extra sense of community support that moms and parents need in order to help children gain self-assurance, and set the foundation for later in life.
Plus, it gives Torres another reason to connect with her daughter.
“As parents we are so busy, especially as moms,” she said. “We get super busy, and we forget about that connection with our little girls.”
Clark, who spent one year as Watsonville High’s athletic director, said the whole premise of Grit N Grace is to teach empowerment and build athletic foundations.
“There’s no other wrestling program that has an educational component that I feel is very important,” she said. “I don’t want the community to be lost in the fact that because it’s combat, you have to be some type of special athlete to engage or certain level of toughness. It’s quite the opposite.”
Clark provides an empowerment theme for each class session where they talk about showing up with intention and having the mindset to grow. She has a strict rule that nobody is allowed to blurb out “I can’t.”
“When you say that, you’re telling your brain that you cannot do something,” Clark said.
Torres and Clark met while working together at Envision Fitness & Nutrition—just two doors down in the same building on Main Street.
It wasn’t until Torres saw one of Clark’s posts on Instagram that Grit N Grace Academy was coming soon to downtown Watsonville.
Clark hosted a private session for her former co-worker but Torres was hesitant only because Emmy had never been exposed to sports, let alone wrestling.
“I didn’t know much about wrestling other than just from watching videos,” Torres said. “When we hear the word wrestling, we directly envision two guys wrestling. You never get that picture in your mind about two girls doing the sport.”
In Watsonville, a majority of the population is Latino. Torres said the cultural aspect of Latino culture is girls are supposed to be involved in feminine things, and there’s a lot of taboo around sports, especially around wrestling.
“Becky is paving the way to definitely start a different conversation around sports for girls, and definitely breaking that taboo,” Torres said. “It’s really exciting.”
Clark, a 2002 graduate who at the time went by the surname Tavera, was the first girls’ wrestler in Wildcatz history to qualify for the California Interscholastic Federation State Wrestling Championships in 2001.
Since then, Santa Cruz County has produced two state champions in Scotts Valley’s Dom Parrish (2014-15) and Danica Kelley (2024). Parrish also competed at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.
The biggest challenge now for Clark is educating parents what wrestling really teaches in return, and it’s not just a brutal combat sport.
“When people begin to understand that I’ve created something only for girls they become a little more interested, but there’s still skepticism,” Clark said. “It’s this fear that I’m dealing with wrestling is scary, wrestling’s for boys. No, it’s empowering, and it’s not just for boys.”
Torres admits she was worried about Emmy getting hurt, and that was only because she wasn’t educated enough about wrestling.
During the private session, Clark explained she’d be teaching the girls basic movements, foundations to get them to learn more about how their body moves and how they can use those movements for wrestling.
“That put me at ease,” Torres said.
And that’s the goal for Clark, giving a sense and place of comfort for all participants alike.
“It’s just time,” she said. “I don’t see a lot of change when it comes to empowering women, and we’re living in a time of history where our women need it more than ever.”
