Holding His Interest

In conversation, Matt Ishler uses words like “gnarly” and “hard-core”

He is a classically trained viola player ... and an extreme mountain biker who hopes to become a stuntman.

He is soft-spoken, intelligent ... and jumps a unicycle over ramps for fun.

He is a young man of seemingly endless contradictions, yet this much is clear: As a wrestler, the 215-pound Santa Monica High senior has dominated almost every Southern Section opponent he has faced this year.

A Renaissance man in a singlet.

“He’s the most natural wrestler I’ve ever coached and the best I’ve seen since Lawrence [Jackson, a three-time state champion for Santa Monica in the mid-1990s],” said Mark Black, who is in his 25th year as coach. “It takes a lot of drive and determination to succeed as a wrestler, and Matt has that. But Matt also is just a natural, and he has a lot of other talents that he incorporates that seem to give him an advantage over his opponents.”

Ishler opened the Five Counties tournament Friday at Fountain Valley with pins over Mark Goodburlet of Fountain Valley at 1:10 and Jonathan Moreno of Santa Ana at 3:39. Ishler, who sustained a concussion in his second victory, then took on top-seeded Brandon Halsley of Rancho Buena Vista in the quarterfinals. Halsley, who was third in the state last year, handed Ishler his first loss, 20-13.

Wrestling resumes this morning at 9 with semifinals. Finals are scheduled for 7 p.m. Ishler withdrew from the tournament and was seeking treatment for his concussion.

Ishler headed into the Five Counties tournament with an 18-0 record, including 17 pins and first-place finishes at the North Torrance and Modesto tournaments.

In the final at North Torrance, Ishler pinned North Hollywood Harvard-Westlake star and Rosemead tournament champion Kenji Porter in a tournament-record 25 seconds.

But for all the images of ferocity his statistics might inspire, Ishler speaks with a slightly awkward but sincere smile and handles himself less like wrestling Hall of Famer William Berry than nerdy journalist William Miller in the movie “Almost Famous.”

“I’m what you would call a happy wrestler,” Ishler said. “I’m not like a lot of those other guys who listen to all that hard-core music to get somewhat revved up. I just sort of get into a mood. I listen to something soft to get me focused.”

Ishler’s regimen was somewhat interrupted -- as was his string of consecutive pins -- in a dual meet against North Torrance on Thursday. As he watched many of his teammates lose before him, Ishler found it difficult to stay in that zone and, for the first time, didn’t get a pin, defeating Cody Sorenson on points, 9-2.

“No fun,” Ishler said. “I was pretty mad because everyone else who wrestled before me lost, so I fought with anger.”

Like his persona, Ishler’s physical stature is also unusual for an upper-weight wrestler. While most of his opponents have the muscle mass of a linebacker, Ishler is a lean 6 feet 4. Instead of suiting up for football, he suits up as the mascot.

“I’ve never faced anybody as tall as me,” Ishler said. “But the good thing about being tall is I have a lot of leverage over shorter people. If I sit on the ground, I can just spread myself out and there’s no way you’re going to turn me. Wrestling is just about knowing your body type.”

Ishler wasn’t always a dominant wrestler. His record was 7-7 last year heading into the North Torrance tournament, where he finished 3-2 and placed fifth. But that small taste of success sparked something.

“That is when I realized I could really make myself into something for wrestling. So I started practicing hard all the time,” Ishler said. “I just started paying attention more. I grew a desire and willpower and that goes a lot farther than physical conditioning in lots of matches. I started winning more.”

In the off-season, he utilized a regimen as unconventional as he is. Instead of weight training, Ishler would ride his mountain bike as many as 10 miles a day in the Santa Monica Mountains. To increase his balance, he rode a unicycle through a stunt course, over ramps and other obstacles.

His off-season also includes another unusual component -- music. He started playing the violin in third grade because there was a kid “who was really cool who played it, and I thought, ‘Dude, I could be like him.’ ”

In ninth grade, a growth spurt made handling the instrument difficult, so he moved to the larger viola.

He has become a “first stringer” for the high school’s acclaimed orchestra, which has played in concerts across the nation, including at Carnegie Hall.

This summer, Ishler and the Santa Monica orchestra will travel to Europe to play at famous opera houses in Vienna and Prague in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the death of one of his heroes, Czech composer Anton Dvorak.

“I really like Vivaldi and Dvorak the most,” Ishler said. “... I’m a mellow guy, but I don’t like playing boring pieces. I like playing scary music, intense music. Those guys are intense.”