Great story, especially the part where he found the desire to win and learn. I've coached it for years, and the sport is simply awesome for all involved. The weight difference is huge, and even more huge that that age, and being his first outing. You might need to talk to the coach about getting into some novice tournaments that offer something with kids in his weight class, or maybe one up. But at that age weight classes should be 5lb differences, so 58 wrestling 70 ain't not small deal. If they can't find tournaments that have his weight class in it that "fits the team", perhaps you can find one and ask a coach to go with y'all to that one so he can coach him mat-side. I've done it, but usually so a heavier kid can find somebody closer to him. But never let your son know of any such conversations, it's not helpful, and it should never be a demand, just a query. Trust me, setting-up tournaments if tough. It brings in much needed money for the team, but figuring-out brackets, and planning for all the known lairs that are some coaches (yeah, it just sucks!!), but bracket night is hardly ever easy or overly fun. LOL, and when the liar coaches find out you put their kids in brackets with kids their own weight, they usually freak the next morning! Ha!!
But tell him coach GloryDayz takes his hat off to him for standing his ground, that's awesome and a big step in life that says a lot about taking on what's put in front of you..
Just tell him that the first tournament is just that, the first. It shows the difference between the room and game-day. And you usually need to gently insert the reality that the kids who mopped-up the mat with him, are usually either very committed (fucused and all those things the coaches have been yelling about), or in their second year. Yeah, you'll find some 3rd year kids, but that's crap and a punk move (not that you should ever bother to tell him). Just tell him to double-down in the room, work the moves exactly like coach shows them, and be as good a practice partner as he now needs his team mates to be when they're in the room. be friends later, but in the room wrestle your ass off. If they do, all of them will find more success on Sunday's and eventually Saturdays, and hopefully in school.
Oh, and study hard too! There should be no dumb wrestlers, we leave that to football (that I played!!) and baseball (that I played too!!).. Books first!
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Originally Posted by 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.
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