Over the winter break I fell off a little bit with updating our web page and writing my blog. Therefore, I am going to evaluate the 1st half of our season, and talk about what we need to improve on for the 2nd half.
As I look back over the 1st month of competition we have had our ups and downs. The beginning of December our young team saw some success, and felt a sense of satisfaction for the hard work that they have put in. As winter break came and our competition was increase our lack of experience really began to show. As it became more difficult to to accomplish the little things like heavy hands, moving our feet and hand control our frustration level began to rise. Just like everything in life, when things begin to get tough old habits come out. We saw this throughout our competitions these last two weeks. Many of our wrestlers started looking at matches and hoping they could win, or hoping their opponent would make a mistake. We turned into a team that started using bad technique in hopes that it would work, instead of using our constant pressure philosophy and making things happen. With that being said, this is expected with a young team. We have pointed out our mistakes and we are working on improving them.
I think Rocky said it best:
"It ain't about how hard you hit; it's about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward. It's how much you can take, and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done." For us to be successful the remainder of the season we need to keep this quote in mind. We are not going to win every match, but we need to be hard nosed and stick to our game plan in every match. If you are willing to wrestle the full 6 minutes of a match, and your opponent is not, you will have opportunities to score and take control of the match. By doing the little things, and competing for 6 full minutes, you give yourself a chance to win. Our goal is to be "in" every match. If you are "in" the match, and you are the more aggressive wrestler your chances to win increase dramatically. As the season wears on you will start to see wrestlers looking for excuses not to compete, or just wanting their season to be over. By being the wrestler who is willing to "keep moving forward" you will start beating those wrestlers who are suppose to be better than you. Mental toughness is a very important part of this sport. We have to win the mental game. When we can start winning the mental game, we will see our potential turn into success.
With 5 starters out of the line-up this weekend for the Bedford Pool Tournament, we knew that this tournament was going to be about individual accomplishments and not so much about where we end up as a team. As individuals we wrestled pretty well. 6 of our 9 wrestlers placed, and we had 3 finalist with 2 champions. The bright spot for me was us winning the close matches. As inexperienced wrestlers many times the match is pin or be pinned. This weekend we won several 1 point matches, a couple come from behind matches, and 2 over time matches. Those are the matches you want to win, and the ones that are fun to watch. The more tough matches you win, the greater confidence you have. This sport is a very mental sport. A wrestler with confidence is a hard wrestler to beat. On the other hand a wrestler that doubts himself is easy to beat. As soon as 1 thing doesn't go their way, they have mentally been beat. Then it is only a matter of time until they are beat on the mat as well. A few wrestlers took losses or did not finish where they wanted to finish. The key to improving from this experience is remembering that feeling and bringing it into the room to motivate you improve on your weaknesses. Sometimes wrestlers have too short of a memory. You don't want to focus on that loss and have it bring you down, but you need to remember that feeling and truly not want to feel that way again. That is motivation to bring yourself to a new level. When you hate losing more that you like winning, then huge changes can be made.
