With the M.I.T. in the books, it is now time to reflect on this fantastic event. As expected there were many ups and downs throughout the tournament. As a whole I believe that we made many improvments. I also believe that this tournament was an eye opener for many, if not all of our wrestlers. We talk a lot about "battling" or "being competive in matches", until you see top quality competition that can be sometimes hard to understand. Everyone had at least one match where they wrestled someone who was more physical or constantly in their face making it hard to wrestle their match. These are the matches where we need to still improve. Matt Hammer did a fantastic job of this in his semi-final match, against the state champ from Michigan. The Michigan wrestler attacked Matt right away with double underhooks and tried to push Matt around to throw him. Matt battled for position and took his opponents agressivness into his own takedown. Sometimes, as in this match, winning that 1st battle can set the tone for the whole match, and you can start to mentally break your advesary.
As competiton increases so does the difficulty of capitalizing on scoring opportunities. When you can frustrate your opponent and get them off balance, then scoring opportunities present themselves more often. The best way to do this is to combine handfighting with foot movement. Too often we get caught doing one or the other, but not both together. This is a skill that can only be impoved on in the practice room, it won't just show up on match day. We are getting better at it, but we are still not where we want to be. Everyone is always motivated after a loss or a poor performance to improve on these skills, but what is more important is to still be motivated to improve on them the following days and weeks in the practice room. By continuing to improve on these two skills we will be able to "battle" and be "competitive" in every match. Once you learn how to compete, you can win any match you are in.
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