DWW’s Sandra, The Silent Champion

When it comes to the differences between those things subjective, often the simplest question is the hardest to answer.

Let’s start with a subjective but measurable question.

When driving down the street and viewing a $2 million home verses a $1.9 million dollar home, at first glance it may be hard to tell the difference between the two except the $100,000 price gap. I’m from Texas and $100K is a lot of money.

Yet, as puzzling as it may seem you can still break it down by measurable components. Once you determine the square footage, the proximity to jobs, the view of downtown at night, the grading of the school system, the material on the roof and more, at least you have measurable determinations to work with.

Let’s make things a little trickier.

What is the difference between a beautiful woman and an extremely beautiful woman?

What is the difference between a great movie that won an Oscar for Best Picture one year and an exceptional one that didn’t the previous year? Yes the simple answer could be the competition but it still doesn’t answer the question which non subjective components can be used to see which film is truly better. Certainly an insightful movie reviewer could dissect this for us but so often it boils down to how the film makes us feel.

There seems to be no real clear answer.

What is the difference between a painting valued at $5,000,000 and one valued at $4,950,000? If you quietly dropped them off at a garage sale, the seller may be hard pressed to get $100 for either.

This now brings me to our DWW Princess Sandra.

Let’s start with what we do know about one of the best DWW grapplers of all time.

In her short time, Sandra carved out far more victories than she lost. Research indicates that she evolved from an Olympic freestyle background so that explains her high skill level. In terms of her style, I think most DWW fans, including myself would agree that she was relentless, a great tactician and never gave up.

Fair enough?

Sandra’s sister is Dagmar, another DWW silent great. I say silent because both girls never seemed to garner the attention of the blonde bombshell Luzia and others even though according to my research, both defeated her. Some of that may be due to their short tenure.

When you look at Sandra’s and Dagmar’s profile, they both enjoy many similar things including their favorite sports, fighting style and technique.

What is the difference in their wrestling styles?

I must admit I was hard pressed to find a measurable difference. You could clearly see their freestyle training in both. Sometimes wrestling comes down to personality and my impression was that Sandra was the leader between her and Dagmar. Some older sisters are the big sister, but not the leader. I also had the impression that Dagmar was a little more child-like.

Maybe.

Now for a trick question that without researching it, I suspect would be very hard for most Americans to answer.

Since our wonderful DWW family competed mostly in Vienna, Austria by the Danube, here is the question.

What is the difference between Austria and Germany?

Don’t feel bad.

My first impression was not that much. They both speak German don’t they? Yes they do.

Then I did some research and here is what I found.

Some said it would be like asking an American, what is the difference between Canadians and Americans? They speak the same language and have similar looks. What about the Americans and the Bristish? What about India and Pakistan?

Here are the explanations for the differences between Germany and Austria.

This view is from a writer at tripadvisor.com. “It is hard to compare such a large country with its small neighbor. Germany is rather flat (with some exceptions), while Austria is much more mountainous. I also think that life in Austria is more relaxed than in Germany. Both have their natural and cultural beauties. So there is not an “all in” answer possible!

In the case of Germany and Austria, the important reason for their cultural difference and philosophy I see in the religious background. Most of the Germany is protestant with its belief in hard work and minimalism, Austria is still under that strong influence of the Catholic Church with its take to showing off the riches, hierarchy and “connections”.

Germans are in generally richer than Austrians, at the same time they are much less generous and too “economical”, if not say greedy (sorry to say so but that is my personal impression). Germans keep talking about saving money all the time!!”

Hmm, there were some measurable components and a purely subjective one.

Let’s try and focus on the more measurable parameters. For that we’ll turn to the always reliable Wikipedia.org. They explain, “Both nations historically spoke the same language (German), so in that sense sometimes an Austrian (in many cases, a Viennese) composer might be regarded as German. The German nation we know today and who fought France and England in both world wars was originally Prussia and several other small German-speaking states located in northern European east of France.

Austria was another German speaking confederation of lands that later became the Austro-Hungarian Empire and basically controlled the southern half of central/eastern Europe, extending from Prague and Cracow in the North to the Adriatic Sea in the South. The Hapsburgs controlled it for the most part. The term ‘German’ when used to describe music likely refers to the language, regardless of whether it was a composer working in Berlin (Germany) or Vienna (Austria).

Keep in mind that Austria-Hungary was the country that “started” the First World War, when a Serbian radical killed Austria’s arch-duke. The entire so-called ‘powder keg’ was within Austrian borders. After WWII, Austria shrank down to less than half the size of the H-A empire, splitting into what would later be called Yugoslavia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and German Austria. When both wars were declared, Austria and Germany were allied (before the second world war.”

Thank you Wikipedia.

Let’s consider one more source.

The site german-way.com clears things up for me. “Never really that good at geography, Americans, even if they can find Austria on a map, also tend to be ignorant of the many great and subtle differences between the small Alpine republic (population 8.4 million), known as Österreich, and its much larger neighboring republic to the north, known as Deutschland (population 80 million).

Austria is only about the size of the US state of South Carolina. Germany is slightly smaller than Montana. In some ways, the two countries can be compared to the United States and Canada, or the US and Great Britain (with the sizes reversed): They both speak the same language, but with significant differences, and they share a common history that has made them friends, yet has also left them worlds apart.

Many years ago, when I first laid eyes on Austria, I thought the country was one big national park. It may be small, but Austria has more scenery and panoramas per square kilometer than any place I’ve ever seen. Austria really is a scenic place. It’s one reason the Germans like to visit Austria as tourists. (Germans make up 40 percent of the tourists going to Austria each year.) They find the country quaint and folkloric. But Germans who live and work in Austria soon learn that they need to adapt to a more leisurely, laid back life style that is very different from Germany.”

Well, now do you see the measurable differences between the two countries? There are more variables including accents and dialects comparable to the United States. Does an American from Texas sound different from their fellow citizen from Boston or San Francisco?

Sandra was a quiet beauty that as you can see here, can spur much discussion. There was a grace to her form and a power in her self-control and modesty.

That is why this writer crowned her the “Silent Champion.”

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Sources: brainyquote.com, Wikipedia, fciwomenswrestling.com, DWW Girls Database, tripadvisor.com, german-way.com, thank you DWW Galaxy for Sandra’s picture and Wikimedia Commons for exceptional photos.