[NewChief]

Firstly, pardon any ignorance in this post, as we're just getting into wrestling. I'm from the South, so I didn't grow up with the sport, and it's just now starting to build up some here.

My youngest had his first match today after 3 practices. He's in novice division 1 (6 year old) and wrestled up a weight class (he's 58 lbs. and was wrestling kids up to 70lbs).

Had 5 matches, and he only won one of them. I'll say that if he would have wrestled in his first 3 matches like he wrestled in his final two, he probably would have only lost 1 match. He just didn't understand how to score points or anything and wasn't ever getting takedowns until his last two matches. Then it started clicking for him. Unfortunately, his last match was against his best wrestling buddy who just dominated the division (he's on the upper end of the weight class), so he wasn't winning that one. He did wrestle him for 3 rounds, whereas the kid had pinned everyone else in the division in the first round.

Anyway, here's the coolest thing:

My son is a pretty average athlete. He's gifted physically, but he's a complete lazy **** on the mental side of the game. He just wants to talk to his buddies and hang out. In soccer, baseball, and football... he "lollygags" all the time. He's never really been invested in winning, and he's basically let his teammates carry him in games (though he was a pretty badass scorer in soccer). He just has a lack of effort.

Today, at the end of his match, he saw his best buddy win a medal. He didn't get anything and placed 5th. He was bummed. Like seriously bummed (complete with tears). I felt bad for him, but I was happy to see him actually care. He's now motivated to actually practice, get better, and actually put out some effort. He and his buddies stayed and wrestled and worked with the coaches for an hour after the novice division before the Open started. This isn't something we've seen from him with team sports, but the individual nature of mano y mano on the mat is completely different. It was a pretty badass character building day for him. Looking forward to more.