New Year Resolutions
Published December 31, 2012 | 
New Year Resolutions
I read somewhere that most New Year resolutions will be done with by January 10th. That means that almost everyone that wanted to lose weight, organize their finances, quit smoking, or read a list of books will live the rest of the 355 days of the new year living exactly how they did the year before on autopilot. The same feelings of frustration, inadequacy, and self contempt will still be there gnawing away at the soul whispering, “You can do more. You’re not good enough.”, until numbness sets in again, the television is turned on again, and all is forgotten. So this year I want things to be different.
I don’t want to quit with everyone else on January 10th. It takes more than 10 days to sow and harvest greatness (unless you’re God, then you can do it in 6 and rest on the 7th). I hope that I can keep it up.
Success requires a grind. It requires sacrifice. It requires an individual to do something that they don’t want to do at times that they don’t want to do them at the cost of personal sacrifice. There must be struggle, and someone has to win. I’m ready to start winning again.
For many years, I spent my life trying to be the best in the world at something. I spent hours and hours working on developing my craft and honing my skills. There were extremely high highs and heart breaking lows, and the roller coaster of emotion became a drug. Winning is a drug, and after you’ve experienced it there is no way that you can return to the way that you were before. If you do, your soul will slowly wither away and die. You have to keep working, you have to keep reaching higher. Of course, there comes a point where you may have to play a game with different rules and players, but you have to play something. That is what you were made for, to succeed.
These are some things that I really love to do, and I want to do more of all of these throughout the year. If I can live my life in a way that allows me to do these things, I will feel like I am winning.
- Play with my kids. They love to play bears, a game where we all pretend we are bears, and we eat fish, collect berries, wrestle, and hibernate. Daddy horse rides are also something that my kids love.
-Write more. In person conversation is not my strongest suit. Sometimes I feel stifled in verbal communication, and I feel like I am more effective at sharing my feelings and ideas through the written word. I want to continue to blog throughout the year.
-Lift weights. I like lifting weights. It is fun, it releases stress, and I feel like it helps to keep me young. It also helps to keep my metabolism from slowing down too much. I want to beat a friends personal best lifts. He has a blog too and is training for the Games in Rio. Check him out at http://freejordan.org.
-Express more gratitude. There are so many people and things in my life that I am grateful for. I want to be quick in my recognizing and acknowledging people who help me in my life. Thanks to you for reading this blog.
-Show and tell my wife and kids how much I love them. I am so lucky and blessed to have such a supportive wife. She would do anything for me. I need to let her know how much she means to me. I also want my girls to trust me enough to talk with me when they become teenagers. I hear that those years can be challenging as a parent.
I know that my resolutions may not seem great or epic by other people’s standards, but that is unimportant to me. I know that if I follow through on this list that 2013 will give me peace of mind, a full heart, and a rich life. I’m excited for the journey. Good luck to you with your resolutions. I hope we all succeed.
Cutting Weight Is Overrated
Published December 30, 2012 | 
Cutting Weight Is Over-rated
I first started cutting weight when I was a freshman in high school. I really wanted to wrestle on the varsity team, but the problem was that my older brother was already varsity at the 189 pound weight class, and I couldn’t beat him. I didn’t want to wrestle the 215 pound weight class because I thought that those kids were too big and strong for me even though I was already weighing 210 pounds anyway. I saw everyone else was going down weight classes instead of wrestling up, and I thought that is what you were supposed to do as a wrestler. I mean what wrestler doesn’t cut weight, right? I decided that the best weight class for me to wrestle at would be 171 pounds, almost forty pounds lighter than I was weighing at the time, and I had to get my weight down fairly quickly because the high school wrestling season only lasted about 4 months anyway. I had no idea what I was doing, but I decided that I would give it a try.
I started doing a lot of extra work after practice. I would run with my coat on, I would jump rope, I would crawl underneath the wrestling mats to sweat more (Which by the way is dangerous. Please don’t ever try it. You could get stuck under the heavy mats and never make it out again.) I did a lot of things to try to lose weight. However, it took me awhile to figure out that my biggest problem was what I was eating. I was eating way too much to be able to lose weight.
All of my life, I have been a pretty healthy eater, or a glutton, or a fat kid. Whatever you want to call it is fine by me. Needless to say, I ate way too much. In fact, I still eat too much. Anyway, I was consuming too many calories to produce any type of significant weight loss, so I did the first thing that everybody does when they don’t know what they are doing when it comes to weight loss. I stopped eating. I guess I should say that I didn’t stop eating completely, but for awhile I tried to live off of lettuce with fat free italian dressing and a little bit of bread. It was a bad idea. I felt like crap and I was hungry all of the time. I started being a lot more selective of what I ate, and I even did some things that were really dumb to try to lose weight, but I won’t go into detail about them. I wouldn’t want anyone to justify trying it because I did.
I began to continue to educate myself about what I should and shouldn’t eat, and I did my best to stick to a pretty strict diet. There were lots of days that I would eat a plain baked potato for lunch, seriously a plain freaking baked potato. It was horrible. I would much rather have eaten pizza, a hamburger, or even just a plain old sandwich, but no I ate baked potatoes. I increased the frequency of my tiny meals and kept up my cardio. After wrestling in a couple of JV tournaments my freshman year, I finally got down to weight and was able to wrestle off for a spot on the varsity team. I earned the varsity spot, and I was happy. I was a freshman wrestling varsity, and that made me feel really good. I really felt like all of the hard work and discipline had paid off huge for me.
The only problem was that I was hungry all of the time. I developed a habit of thinking what my next meal was going to be all the time. I was starving myself. My cheeks got sucken in, I was tired and sleepy all the time which resulted in me sleeping through a lot of classes. I just never felt like doing anything except when it was time to wrestle. Then I was excited for wrestling practice, but I just didn’t have much enthusiasm for anything else. Cutting weight was not a pleasant experience.
After my freshman year, I decided that I didn’t want to cut weight that way anymore. It was miserable, and it made me want to quit wrestling a lot. I moved up a weight class for the next few years, and I was a lot happier. I learned how to lose weight a lot better though. Here are a couple of things that I learned from doing it wrong at the start:
1 – Don’t skip meals. I learned that it was important to always be putting fuel into my body so that I would have energy to train and exercise to lose weight. If you just keep burning energy and never refuel, you will feel like crap, and you will probably perform like crap.
2 – Don’t drink your calories. It is so easy to consume a lot of calories by drinking them. When I learned that I could eat a piece of chicken instead of drinking a can of soda, I opted for the chicken. I stopped drinking my calories, however, I did occasionally drink milk because it has calcium and protein.
3 – Slow down. I started chewing my food a whole lot more because I knew that I wouldn’t get to eat a whole lot of it.
4 – Water and gum became my best friends. I started to drink a lot more water so that my stomach would feel fuller. It helped quite a bit. I also started chewing a whole lot more gum. It kept my mouth occupied and it helped to curb hunger cravings.
5 – Increase cardio. The more you exercise, the more calories that you burn. Fuel the machine, but then put it to work. I did a lot of jump rope, and it not only helped me lose weight, it also helped to improve my foot speed. It was a win win.
There is a lot of work going into cutting weight, and most wrestlers are doing it for a couple of reasons. The first one is that they don’t know any differently. They have been taught from day one that they need to drop down a weight class regardless of body fat percentage or skill level. I didn’t know any differently either. Nobody suggested that I wrestle what I actually weighed and just lift weights to get stronger. Another reason wrestlers cut weight is because they are scared that they will get beat if they wrestle what they weigh because the bigger kids will come down a weight class. This is some bad reasoning. The kid might be strong when he is fifteen pounds heavier, but after all of the energy that goes into losing that weight in a short period of time, that wrestler won’t be as strong as they were before they started their cut. You don’ t need to be afraid of wrestling bigger opponents.
I think two great examples from college wrestling that illustrate that you can move up in weight class and be successful are Cael Sanderson and Kyle Dake. Cael was a four time NCAA champion and he wrestled up a weight class his senior year. Kyle Dake has wrestled a different weight class for the last three years, and he won his weight division at the NCAA tournament every single year. He moved up a weight again this year, and there is a very good chance that he will win the NCAA tournament again. You see you don’t have to suck yourself down and feel like crap to wrestle. You can eat a healthy diet, drink plenty of water, and enjoy the sport of wrestling instead of dreading it every day of your life because you feel miserable and feel like you are dying. Remember the first part of the word “diet” is “die”.
In conclusion, if you have to lose a few pounds for wrestling ok that’s fine. However, if you are cutting a ton of weight so that you can feel like crap and be miserable, perhaps you need to re-evaluate what it is that you wan’t to get out of the sport. If you focus on improving technique and becoming a better wrestler you will improve your technique and become a better wrestler. If you focus on losing weight, you will lose weight, but that doesn’t mean that you will be a better wrestler. You decide which one is most important to you.
Five Minutes Extra To Make A Champion
Published December 27, 2012 | 
Five Minutes Extra To Make A Champion
I’m sure that most people have heard about going the extra mile, but how many people have heard about putting in five minutes extra to make a champion? I think that one of the most important things to learn about sports and life in general is to do a little bit extra than what you are asked to do. Those who take and implement this idea into their own training or routine won’t be disappointed. I know this because this principle is something that helped me out a ton over the course of my wrestling career.
Five minutes doesn’t seem like a long time when you are at rest, but if I asked you to hold your breath for five minutes straight, you would probably look at me like I was absolutely nuts. Don’t worry, I’m not suggesting that anyone try to hold their breath for five minutes. I’ve heard that it can cause brain damage, and if you’re anything like me, you need all of the brain cells that you have. What I am talking about is taking an extra five minutes a day to focus on something very specific with laser like pinpoint intensity to help you get the most out of your effort. Let me share a story with you about how this principle helped me.
I had just made the transition to wrestling internationally full time, and I was a little slow at picking up one of the positions that a lot of American wrestlers struggle with when they make the adjustment from folkstyle wrestling to Greco roman or freestyle wrestling. The parterre position is the mat wrestling that you do where one wrestler is trying to turn the other to gain points, and the other wrestler is trying to defend from the bottom position. In folkstyle wrestling, you are not penalized to roll across your back, unless your opponent holds you there for at least a two count, then you give up points. In the international styles of wrestling, if your shoulders break ninety degrees and your back is exposed, you give up points to your opponent. It is a very important position to master, but it can be tough because in the U.S. we adapt to one set of rules over our wrestling careers and then suddenly change them. Anyway, I was one of the athletes that was having a tough time mastering the parterre defense position.
I realized how important it was to get tough in this position, so every day after practice, I started taking just a little bit of time to improve in this position. I asked a heavyweight who was a member of the Armenian Olympic team to get on top of me and challenge me from that position. He was stronger than I was and had really long arms that would wrap all the way around my hips making it difficult for me to move and keep my hips from turning which would then cause my shoulders to turn. It was really frustrating because every day, he would get on top of me and start squeezing the crap out of me, and for the first while, every day I would get turned over and over like a top. My hips were also taking a beating. He would squeeze so tight that when I would resist, my wet clothing would rub against my hips and waist and leave burn marks. There were days after practice that my hips and waist were literally bleeding from the abuse that I was taking. However, I kept working at it for a few minutes after practice, and I got better and better.
Finally, there was one day that when I went down underneath this monster that I fully made up my mind that he was not going to turn me. I let him get his deepest tightest lock, giving him the advantage, and we both started to work. He was trying to turn me, and I was fighting to stop him. I drove my hips down hard and drove with my toes, while at the same time I pulled with my arms and hands trying to stay one inch ahead of his lock and pressure. He kept adjusting his lock and driving his shoulder into my back, but I kept moving and moving and moving. I didn’t give him a chance to get set well enough to turn me. Finally, he gave his last attempt, and he was unable to turn me. I had done it! It was the first time that I was able to defend against this heavyweight with the gorilla like arms. It was a huge confidence boost for me. It was also the moment that the understanding of how to defend from that position clicked in my mind and body, and from that point, the parterre defense become one of my strong positions. In fact, a couple of years later, improving that exact same position was what enabled me to win a world medal!
This was’t the first time that I had taken time after practice to work to improve my techniques. I had done it many times before, and it worked just like it had the previous times. I also think that for some reason there is a little extra benefit when you do something after practice. It seems like the mindset that goes into focusing on a single aspect of your game has a magical type of effect that really doubles or triples the benefit that you get from that short time. Maybe it’s because you feel more confident when you hit that technique during competition or you just believe in yourself more because you know that you have put in the extra time. I don’t know why those five minutes are so beneficial, but I know that they make a huge difference and can help determine whether you are on the winning or losing end of things.
This principle doesn’t just apply to wrestling techniques either. You can apply this to anything that you would like to improve whether its reading, writing, listening, selling, whatever. If you put in the extra time, and do more than is being asked of you, it is guaranteed that you will benefit. I am not saying that it is the magic bullet that will make you win every single time, but you will get better. However, consistent improvement and progress over the long term will help you to get closer and closer to achieving your goals.
Now back to wrestling. Here are a few ideas of what you can do in five minute increments to make yourself a better wrestler:
1 – Run some sprints. You can never be in too good of shape. Sprints after practice will help to build your lung capacity and your endurance.
2 – Shadow drill. Stance and motion are basics that you always need to put some time into. Try to stay down in your stance without coming up for five minutes or shaking out your legs. Your legs will burn at first, but it will help you get faster at all of your attacks.
3 – Workout with dumbbells. The great thing about dumbbells is that you can do a whole variety of exercises without having to change equipment over and over again. Grab a set of dumbbells and keep them moving for five minutes straight. You will feel the burn and gain strength and muscular endurance as well.
4 – Jump rope. It develop foot speed and quickness.
5 – Visualize your perfect match. There is a huge mental aspect to wrestling. Visualize how your perfect match looks, sounds, feels, smells, and tastes like.
6 – Drill one specific technique. I should have put this one first. I think that the story illustrates the benefit of this already.
7 – Stretch. The more advanced I got in age, the more I had to stretch to stay healthy and avoid injury. It is often overlooked, but it is also an important part of training.
There are a bunch of other things that you can do after practice. This is just a short list to give you some suggestions. Hopefully the list is helpful or hopefully you can come up with a list of your own that will help you to improve whatever situations that you are working on.
Thanks for reading my blog. If you like it, please share it. Thanks.
What’s The Point?
Published December 26, 2012 | 
What’s the point?
What is worth doing and doing well? The luxury of living in the United States provides countless opportunities to people who want to work and make a living for themselves, but the question becomes, what should I do to fill my time? There is no one that will come down from the sky and tell you what to do with your time for your benefit or survival, but the invention of the television and other media has given other people an outlet to tell you what you should be doing with your time. Of course you have family and friends who tell you what you should be doing with your life, but there comes a point in everyone’s life when even most of those people stop telling you what you should do because they figure that you are a grown person and should be making decisions for yourself.
When you are a child growing up and going to school, nobody tells you, at least nobody told me, “You know what money is going to be really important at some point of your life so you should plan for that time and be productive now while you are a kid so that you can play a whole lot more when you are grown up. All of these friends that you think are so important and necessary for your survival will all be gone someday. In fact, you will probably talk to less than one in ten of them after you graduate high school. Sure you might stalk them on Facebook or some other form of social media, but you probably won’t interact with them face to face ever again.” I guess parents want kids to enjoy their childhood because they also realize that after kids do grow up, get a job, and get married and have kids of their own that their life will be just a repeating pattern of going to work for someone else to make them rich while they slave away to make ends hopefully meet.
Most people don’t look at this reality and say to themselves, “My life really sucks and I need to do something about it. I need to make a dramatic change or else I will be stuck in this never ending pattern of crappiness.” A lot of people might feel that way, but then instead of doing anything about it, they just turn on the television to make themselves numb so that they don’t have to think about it anymore. The more I think about it, the more ridiculous it sounds. “Let’s spend hundreds of dollars on a device that will be the biggest thing on our wall in our living room, and the whole design of this device is for us to be unproductive and to want to go out and spend more money that we already don’t have enough of. In fact, let’s decorate this entire room around this wonderful time wasting center piece. Just think, instead of living our own lives and making our life a wonderful fulfilling experience, let’s watch other people live scripted and fake lives so that we have something to take our minds off of our own boring pathetic existences.” I imagine that the honest truth is that staring at a blank wall would be better for your health, life, and family. If everyone were staring at a blank wall, eventually everyone would either start interacting with one another, think of something constructive to do, or maybe even have a life changing epiphany that would help them better themselves. Maybe even someone would grab a book and learn something.
Here are some of the biggest TIME WASTERS that I can think of that suck away my LIFE:
-television
-Facebook
-Twitter
-mindlessly surfing the web or watching Youtube videos
You know what? Right now in this moment, I would like to say that,”Hey, I am totally done with wasting my LIFE consuming all of this crap on these mediums. I don’t personally know anybody I see on television, a lot of the people that I am friends with on Facebook, and hardly anybody that I follow on Twitter. I will probably never ever meet the people who produce the videos that I watch on Youtube. I will stop wasting my time.”
Sure that sounds great, but I am going to try to be a little more realistic. Maybe I could limit myself to just one day a week where I catch up on some Facebook, perhaps watch a show I like, and do some mindless web surfing. The point is that I don’t want to be a consumer or a “user” anymore. Instead, I would like to be a producer. I want to be the one creating great content for people to consume, and I want whatever I create to help others to improve their life. I mean it really sounds like an obvious choice right? Either I could spend my life watching crap on television and wasting time, or I could spend my life trying to create something that will help others and will probably even make me happier. Instead of staring at a time wasting box, I can stare at the wall and force myself to think of something useful to do or just go and do something useful without having to use the wall as an inspiration. Maybe instead of just stalking my friends on Facebook, I will actually start calling them or trying to get together with them to do something fun.
Yes, I think I have totally lost my mind, and I am looking to make some huge changes in my life and hopefully other people’s lives as well. Wish me luck. My wife and kids are going to be pissed when they find out that I am going to be selling our television.<
Posted in Personal | 
don't wast time, life changes, television, time waster, what's the point | 
Leave a commentBeing Responsible For Your Training
Published December 13, 2012 | 
This dog is responsible.
Being responsible for your training is something that I can’t emphasize enough. Your career is dependent on the situations that you decide to put yourself and the effort that you put into your training. There are so many people that want to compete, that want to show up to the match, but they don’t want to train. You obviously have to be able to execute and perform when the pressure is on and it’s go time, but you have to train like there is no tomorrow. You want to be trained in such a way so that you don’t have to think about things too much while you are performing. You just want to be able to act.
The mind is a great thing, but sometimes it slows us down and gets in the way. The fear that has kept the human race alive for so long is also something that keeps us from taking risks or taking chances. When we think too much, we have this huge internal struggle and it allows fear to creep in. A lot of times it is easy to think that we are intelligent and rational people, but most of our decisions are made based on emotion, which doesn’t make any sense at all. So you need to be able to turn your brain off sometimes when you are competing. You need to train yourself to be a warrior that will do whatever is required at any given moment without having to sit and weigh the cost of your actions. You have to have the training so that the very moment that you feel your opponent is vulnerable, you attack and you score. You don’t have time to be afraid because your opponent wants to beat you into submission.
A good coach can help you so much with your training. A good coach will have a good plan for your training, and he will help you to execute that plan and push yourself when you don’t necessarily feel like it. A good coach will give you feed back as to what you need to focus on. A good coach will do a lot of things, but one thing that he can’t do is train for you. You have to train. You have to decide what you will be good at. You have to be responsible. Being responsible means setting goals for yourself and having a plan to achieve them. Being responsible means communicating with someone who will help to keep you accountable for you want to be working on. Being responsible means taking the initiative to ask your coach to take extra time with you. Being responsible means taking the time to watch and review your own film or scout future opponents. Being responsible means knowing what you are going to do every day after practice to get a little bit better than the rest of your opponents.
By being responsible you will be prepared, and when you are prepared, you won’t be afraid. By mastering your fear you have opened all of the doors of opportunity for yourself. Now get to work.
A Year Round Training Schedule
Published December 5, 2012 | As I have made the transition from competing to coaching, there a couple of things that I have taken for granted as common knowledge for all wrestlers. One of these things is just knowing what type of training that an athlete who is serious about wrestling should be doing. There are several aspects of training that need to be addressed so it is very important that an athlete that is serious about their success makes time for the following aspects: technique, strength training, conditioning, and wrestling.
Technique is so important. By understanding and applying the proper techniques and position, wrestling becomes much more fun. Brute strength will not win every wrestling position so it is very important to know what to do and when. There are so many subtleties and variations of techniques as well that it is imperative to take the time to find what works best for the athlete and then drill it over and over again. I think that every wrestler should make time to drill and work on technique at least 2 times a week in the morning that is outside of their regular afternoon wrestling practices. Also it is more important to focus on one or two techniques at a time so that they can be mastered as opposed to hopping around from a bunch of different techniques all at once. Focused intensity can make a huge difference in performance.
There is a lot of strength that is built from the actual act of wrestling in practice, but the weight room is also a great place to build strength. I recommend getting into the weight room at least twice a week to help build and maintain muscle and strength. The focus of the weight lifting sessions should be Olympic type of lifts that help to build the strength in the legs, back, and shoulders. I also believe that partner lifts, bodyweight lifts, band training, and other functional equipment is important to incorporate into a lifting program. For kids that have never really trained much with weights, they should stick to some of the other lifts until they have someone who can properly educate and supervise them.
It is hard to wrestle for very long if you don’t have much in your gas tank (lung capacity). Lack of oxygen makes cowards of us all. If you don’t have the proper conditioning, it is hard to keep attacking throughout the course of a wrestling match. It is important that you take the time to get in a couple of good cardio practices in every week with running, jump rope, biking, or swimming. The cross training is also a great way to change things up.
Hard wrestling sessions and competitions show you how well you have been preparing yourself to wrestle. You might be able to execute a move while drilling, but it is a whole different story when you have someone trying to score on you. Most of the time wrestlers get their live practices in during the afternoon. I think that the optimal time for a wrestling practice that includes a good warm up, technique time, and live wrestling should only be around 90 minutes to 2 hours. Anything over that and you will start to lose the athlete’s attention as well as their ability to perform at their best. Make sure to stay hydrated during these tough practices. Dehydration slows you down and weakens you.
So to sum up what I think is the ideal training schedule goes something like this: Drill twice a week in the morning, strength train twice a week in the morning, and run or do some other form of cardio twice a week in the morning. Then you should have live wrestling practice in the afternoon 3-5 times a week depending on what your competition schedule is like. The intensity should also be varied.
By adding the different types of training to your routine, you will be able to keep things fresh and exciting and you will be prepared for competition. Good luck.
What questions can I ask everyday to make myself successful?
Published November 29, 2012 | What questions can I ask everyday to make myself successful?
1. What are my goals and when will I achieve them by?
2. What am I doing now to accomplish my goals?
3. What do I need to start doing to accomplish my goals?
4. What do I need to stop doing to accomplish my goals?
5. Why do I have the goals that I do or what is the purpose of accomplishing my goals?
I’m in Vegas to coach my college wrestlers this weekend, and I woke up at 4:30am this morning. It was actually sleeping in a little bit because of the time difference between Vegas and Orem, Ut. I don’t gamble so I did the next best thing that I could do while in Vegas early in the morning, I sat down to think about what else I could go do right now. While in my thinking session, I came up with these questions. I hope that they will be helpful to you as I know that they will be helpful to me.
Of course the caveat is that for these questions to provide any value it’s important to ask them frequently and do something about it.
Everybody Has Similar Problems
Published November 26, 2012 | Everybody Has Similar Problems
I remember reading a quote regarding life’s challenges. I don’t remember the exact words, but it went something like this, “If everyone were to heap their problems into a pile and watch as others did the same, it wouldn’t be long before individuals would gladly take their problems back, for they would see that the difficulties and problems of others are much greater than their own.”
In church yesterday I was reminded of this quote or idea by an exercise that we completed in the beginning of one the classes. The exercise was to anonymously write down your biggest problem and turn it into the teacher. The teacher then went through the pile of problems and shared them with the class. It was a very interesting list.
I have plenty of problems of my own, but after having travelled the world and seeing the struggle that others face in order to survive in other places, I realize that even though some days can be tough that I still have a roof over my head and my children are not starving while naked in the street. If nothing else I can be grateful for that. So I do my best to remember what I have been blessed with even when things get tough.
Here’s another quote I like that helps to get me going when things don’t go my way, “Spending today complaining about yesterday won’t make tomorrow any better. ” So if you’re not where you want to be, just keep working at it. You’ll get there.
10 Drills wrestlers can do on their own
Published November 21, 2012 | 10 Drills Wrestlers Can Do On Their Own
1. Stance and motion – Everyone can improve their foot speed, motion, and conditioning by staying down in a stance and moving. It is easy to under estimate how much this one exercise can help out your wrestling so much. It is also challenging. Try staying down in your stance and moving for 7 minutes straight and you’ll see how challenging it can really be.
2. Straight shot – Again as long as you have access to a mat, you can work on your shot. Remember to bring up your trail leg and drive through your imaginary opponent.
3. Sweeping shot – Focus on turning the corner to get an angle as soon as your knee hits the ground.
4. Stand up – Make sure that you start with a good base before you come up. If your base is too narrow, it will be a lot easier for the top wrestler to ride you. Don’t get lazy about driving your hips out as you get to your feet.
5. Change over – This one makes more sense after you’ve seen in. Imagine someone is in referee’s position on top of you. Post off your inside hand and outside foot and sit your inside leg through. After your leg comes underneath, post weight and both hands and transfer weight to your opposite hip. From there, push yourself up with your post hand and leg that is tucked under your hip. Maintain your balance as you get to your feet and fight the hands. I’ll have to do a video to explain this one better.
6. Head lock – Work on your back step and getting your hips through. Keep your legs bent as you back step to maintain your explosive power.
7. Arm throw – Again work on your back step and quickness. Back step with your trail leg and pivot on your front leg down to your knee. Keep your trail leg up and back fairly straight, then drive off of your trail leg.
8. Gut wrench – I highly recommend wrestling free style and Greco in the off season to develop other skills. Secure your lock against an imaginary opponent. Drive forward with your legs, turn, then arch up high over your head.
9. Swing step straight lift – Start with a straight lock then swing your lifting leg backwards to the opposite side and forward again. Maintain a wide position, pull, and cinch your lock. Again more easily described through a video.
10. Sprawl – I should have posted this one earlier, but I’m glad that I didn’t forget it. As you sprawl make sure you bring one hip down heavily and circle to your feet. Don’t make the mistake of just stepping up after the sprawl, otherwise you’ll develop a bad habit. Make the effort to circle up every time.
These are just ten things that you can do on your own, but I promise that they will help with your wrestling. I did every single one of these drills during my own wrestling career, and I know that they’re effective. Don’t worry about people thinking you look weird while you’re wrestling your imaginary opponent. Besides would you rather look really cool or be a really good wrestler? Take a few minutes a day to master these drills, and you will see an improvement in your wrestling.
Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed these tips please subscribe to my blog and share this post with others. Also feel free to contact me. I love reader feedback.
Ten Things Every Wrestling Parent Should Know
Published November 18, 2012 | Ten Things That Every Wrestling Parent Should Know
1. If your child wants to be successful in the sport they need to do more than is asked
-One of the best things that I have learned from wrestling is that success requires hard work. If you want to get ahead, then you have to do more than is asked of you. Even if its just an extra five minutes a day, your child should do just a little bit more to master the skills that they are already working hard at developing.
2. Wrestling is different than other team sports
-You don’t “play” wrestling like you play other sports. It is hard to understand unless you’ve done it before. The sport requires so much and your performance comes down to the individual. If you fail you can’t blame missed block or shot on someone else. The responsibility is entirely yours. Wrestling is just different from other sports.
3. If your child wants to cut weight let them cut some, but don’t force your kids down
-In the United States, kids are brought up in the sport to cut weight, however, I don’t believe that most kids should cut weight. I do believe that the discipline required to make good food choices is a good thing, I don’t think that the parent should force their child down several weight classes. In the end the athlete is the one making the sacrifices and he should be the one deciding what weight to wrestle.
4. Sometimes the better move is up a weight class
-Sometimes instead of encouraging kids to go down a weight class, the better move is to go up. Your child’s training is better when they aren’t cutting calories, and they will adjust to the bigger weight class. It might be a challenge at first, but they can gain the strength that they need to compete at the higher weight, and it won’t be as stressful as cutting weight all season.
5. Strength training won’t hurt your child
-There are a lot of parents who think that strength training can be harmful to youth. Strength training can be dangerous at any age if heavy weights and poor technique are involved, but proper weight selection and proper weight lifting technique will be beneficial. I recommend bodyweight exercises, partner exercises, and exercises with a piece of equipment called the Bulgarian Bag. You an build strength specific to wrestling with limited equipment, and they will become that much better.
6. The high school season isn’t enough
-If your child really wants to be successful in wrestling, then they need to wrestle in the off season as well. If your child trains only the three months or so out of the year during the school season, they will not be gaining a competitive edge against their opponents. In most areas there are different clubs available to participate in. Do your research and make sure you are finding a good one.
7. Your child needs to keep grades up if they want to wrestle in college
-As a college coach one of the most frustrating things involved in recruiting is finding a very talented athlete only to learn that their grades are not good enough to compete in college athletics. If you want to push your child to excel at something, push them to excel in the classroom.
8. It’s good to broaden horizons, compete out of state
-By traveling to bigger competitions outside of your home state your child will see higher and higher levels of competition. This gives them an opportunity to see talent from other areas and see where they are at with their skill development.
9. Show your child that you love them regardless of their performance
-There is a lot of stress involved in competing in the sport of wrestling. The athlete doesn’t need more pressure from parents to perform. If they think that your love is based on their performance they will be more likely to put even more pressure on themselves. If your child develops and executes the necessary skills, winning and losing will take care of itself.
10. Not all clubs are created equal
-Just like in any other industry, not all clubs or teams are created equal. Different coaches have different levels of experience and expertise as well as distinct coaching styles. It is important for parents to help their children to find what works best for them individually and to encourage them to keep growing. I was fortunate to have the coaches that I did at each phase of my career. In the beginning I would not have done well with a coach that pushed me over the edge. Some kids are similar to how I was, however, other kids thrive with an in your face style of coaching. It all depends on each individual athlete.
Obviously there are many other things that a parent should know about the great sport of wrestling and how it can affect their child. Fortunately there are plenty of other wrestling parents and coaches who are willing to give advice too. If you have any questions please feel free to contact me by phone 719-200-5557 or email justinruizwrestling@gmail.com. You can also find me on Facebook and twitter. My twitter handle is justinruiz2012. Thanks for following my blog and I love to hear feedback from readers.
