Shane's First Wrestling Match

He wasn't ready, but we went for it anyway. At the least, it gave us something to do on a rainy Sunday!

Shane enjoyed running and farting around beforehand.

A coach tried to get him to do some drill work.

With mixed results. Notice, he looked back at the camera?

My kid is desperate for attention. You'd think he doesn't get any. I'm going to have to be more careful with the camera.

There were a lot of kids. I saw the HS coach I work with and a MS wrestling coach for a team I've wrestled against, too.

Skill levels were all over the place. I saw one pair of kids wrestle and asked my HS coach, "Does he live in the city?" He didn't.

 Shane had trouble waiting his turn. He did fairly well for a while, but there was a lot of waiting.

Sitting up straight and staying in his own space isn't his specialty.

I made sure I told Shane I was proud of him and loved him before he went out for his first match. Then I crossed my fingers and waited to see what happened.

Shane's first voyage onto the mat lasted about 15 seconds. If you blink, you could miss it.

Shane got up and yelled, "Wait! I didn't get a chance!"

My reply was, "Yeah, you did and you got pinned." 

I saw this coming from a mile away. I've warned Shane in practice to stay off his back. I've told him what a pin is. He's laughed and continued to pull kids on top of him and roll around. 

I think I'm low-key and matter of fact with match breakdowns. I showed Shane the video and did my normal breakdown (1 thing done well, 1 thing to work on, and a next step). I told Shane I was so proud he was brave enough to go on the mat. Then I said "You need to work on your stance. You stood straight up. Also, practice rolling to your belly. If you're on your back you lose." Then I offered to help Shane practice before his match. I tried to stand him up in his stance and Shane refused to stand. He said, "You're making me feel bad and embarrassed." 

I replied, "No, I'm trying to help you level up."

That sort of worked....or maybe it was that I dragged him over and kept rolling him onto his back while he tried to wriggle away. When he started to punch through and belly out I started congratulating him. It assuaged his ego.

I saw the kid who wrestled Shane wrestle again. He was well trained.

Shane did much better against his second opponent.

He got his butt kicked, but he fought hard and lasted a lot longer. My bellying out practice helped. I made a big deal about how much better he did (and chewed him out for a slap and bucking at the end). This time I told him he did much better, we needed to work on half nelson defenses, and I reminded him what a half was. 

It was an inauspicious start, but I think Shane needed the kick in the butt to make it real and motivate him. Will it work? We'll see how he does in practice and if he'll let me coach him some at home.