Wrestling Season Review

All that's left is the party.

Wrestling for 2017-18 has completed.

My coaching

Pros:

• Kids know they're cared about.
• I whip them into basic shape quickly.
• I'm good at instilling good basic wrestling values and techniques.
• My kids normally win (~60%) against other kids of similar experience levels and athleticism.

Cons:

• I have not created an elite wrestler. They all improve dramatically, but I haven't pushed a kid to the next level. 
• Some of that is a function of starting from scratch each season.
• Some of that is a function of my wrestlers attending 2.5 practices out of 5 a week on average.

Needs:

• An assistant coach. When I have 12 kids rolling around the room, it would really help to have an extra pair of hands and eyes.
• More time with the kids. 55 minutes for those 2.5 practices a week isn't all that long when you think about it.
• Kids who know their basics well, so that I can also show some more advanced techniques like leg-riding and the defenses.
• Reliable buses.

There were something like 17 kids who came out for the team. I probably averaged 8-12 kids showing up at any given moment. There were two kids who quit before the end of the year and another who didn't join until January.


Some stories to remember:

-I always email to confirm if there's a bus after an incident years prior. Once this year, I caught that they hadn't done it. Then I caught that the time was wrong, so I cancelled it rather than try to sort it out at the last moment. Another time, I heard that we were going to share the bus with another team. I didn't mind, but then I started thinking, "Wait...there's only ONE gym where we're going. Where would the other team play?" Turned out there was no game for the other team. The address on the website was for the wrong school, too. I had to call back several times to get it investigated and no one got back to me to let me know what had happened. Game day, the bus showed up 26 minutes late as I was trying to pick which of my extremely hyper wrestlers to make an example out of to calm the rest down.

-I had a kid get a backpack stuck on the roof of the school.

-Injuries. I've never seen as many injuries as I saw this year. There was a concussion in the first scrimmage, a concussion in practice (HS), a concussion a kid claimed was from hitting the back of his head from picking something up under a table (at home), and a concussion from a hockey game. It's the first year I remember putting on medical gloves and doctoring up a kid and cleaning blood at a match myself, too. I wonder if I should get EMT training....

-I taught a kid how to tie his shoes.

-Conflict. Parents. Wrestlers. There always seems to be some sort of conflict involved with encouraging kids to train to win a simulated fight with rules (aka wrestling). I didn't have to break up a real fight this year, though. I averaged one a year my first three years coaching (the only one with a punch that really connected was my first year as an assistant coach).

Still Busy Mode (For a Day)

There was a note in Shane's backpack when I picked him up. He was up front with me. I told him I could respect that. I, also, told him we would come up with a plan to do better and there would be no electronics in the house until there was a good note home his teacher.

I did this all on the way to the dentist. 

It's like they knew Shane was on electronics restrictions, because all their TVs were down! The receptionist had a tablet for kids to play on while they waited, but I told them (and him) we'd pass.

Shane actually did an awesome job for who he is and no distractions. I coach him to interlace his fingers, cross his ankles, and squeeze/pressure to help him stay still.

Mostly worked. He's the kind of kid who tries to use his tongue to poke at the instruments. I can't do much for that!

The dentist checked him out. No cavities. They didn't say anything else of note to me. I tried to listen in on the shop talk, but it was fairly loud and they spoke too quietly.

We went to Costco next. It was on the way back into town. Instead of heading home, we went to Taekwando. Soccer starts Thursday, so I needed to find a different class to take Shane to.

I drove the groceries home after I got him changed and situated. Since Shane does day-care at times, I didn't mind leaving him for a little bit (Never again, by the way. Traffic was horrible getting home. I spent almost the whole class running back and forth).

Shane didn't look like he had the most successful class. He was rolling around again. I made some stern gestures and he stopped. Then he did it again and got a talking to from the teacher (who said, "This is the SECOND time I've talked to you...").

Shane was sheepish and better behaved after that. I got a great pic of all the kids trying to jump on Instructor Papa at the end.

I was a little cross with Shane when we got in the car. I figured he could have used TKD to show off how sorry he was about the note from school by being extra respectful. 

We ate dinner and wrote an apology afterward. 

If I could do it again, I would have made Shane write in pencil. He had to restart several times when he made grievous pen errors. I sat with him the whole time to help, reflect, and teach.

There was a little drawing in between, but that was basically the night. It was up to bed and read The Princess Bride. I want to see how Shane does tomorrow, but there's no way to know until then.

UPDATE: There was a happy note the next day. Shane turned it around. All is well.

New Car Problem

After the deluge Saturday night, I noticed there was water in the light above my console.

It had dripped on to the seat. I used a paper towel to blot and drain the water out.

My guess is that the seal on the windshield or sun roof is not what it used to be. I figured I would ask the shop to look at it whenever I went to get my oil changed next.

Monday morning, there was a new symptom. Moisture had gotten into the car and froze on the interior.

I noticed it as I scraped the front off my windows. Then I popped into the car and found frost on the inside of the windshield and sunroof.

Gonna have to try and make an appointment to get this figured out now. I was going to wait loner on the oil change, but the free diagnostic may make it worth it. The car is driveable but I don't want water leaking into any of the electronics.

Quiet(er) Sunday

If Saturday was go-go-go, Sunday was the opposite. The only time I left the house was for Shane to play outside with Raheem. Raheem wanted to show Shane some of his video games (GTA, Payday 2, etc) and I told him that I didn't like or want Shane playing gun/killing games. 

So I took them to the library instead.

Belated Birthday Dinner

Patrick and Shelby drove to town for a sushi birthday celebration! Patrick's birthday was earlier in the month and this was our first time to come together.

The room's lighting gave my pictures an odd tint. It was also cold and funneled cold air on us, so Shelby 'corrected' the thermostat behind her. 

Nana has been wanting a picture of the newly engaged couple. She was asking, "Do you think she'll have the ring?" Shelby did and Nana got her picture.

There was A LOT of food. I felt bad about how much I ate (but, oh, so good in the belly - I skipped breakfast the next morning!).

I would have enjoyed it if Patrick had been able to come over and hang out at our house for a little bit, but it was late and pouring rain. Shelby and Patrick drove by to pick up some fresh eggs and borrow my guitar. Then they were off into the night.

Nana and Pop had the longer drive. They made it up to Jama's long after Shane's bedtime.

First Annual End of Season Tournament 2017-18

Shane and I were out the door by 7:30 AM for the first annual end of season tournament in our area. A couple of my wrestling parents put it together. It was the same day as the state middle/elementary tournament. Hopefully, that meant the talent pool would be at the 'learning' level locally. 

Our first stop was doughnuts and coffee for the concession stand. 

Ryan showed up at the high school shortly after Shane and I.

They weren't much help setting up.

Sure looks like they had a lot of fun, though.

It left the rest of us free to take care of business.

I normally let Shane roam independently at tournaments. It helps that there are mats everywhere and people recognize him as mine.

I found them with one of the other coach's sons, Bruce, who had a device. Ryan and Shane weren't happy when I checked in and told them to go warm up!

The tournament was staggered so that elementary kids started at 9 AM and middle school kids started at 11: AM.

Nana and Pop arrived in time for the start! They helped keep an eye on Shane (and provide Pokemon Go and encouragement) while I played loudspeaker. 

Carrie came a little after, but I don't have a picture of her. She stayed through Shane's first match and then went home to work.

Shane's warm-ups weren't the most effective. I tried to work on a switch and a baby-crawl + switch a couple of nights to up his game from Tuesday. He mainly flopped around.

When he wasn't flopping, he was part of the dog-pile! I want him to have fun at these meets, so I just laughed and focused on what I needed to do.

I was able to coach him since my kids hadn't arrived yet, though. Shane improved a lot after his first real matches, so I hoped to see more improvement. What I really wanted was for Shane to get his first win in front of Pop.

We had to find our wins somewhere other than the final score.

Shane tried to be a little aggressive in the first match, but ended on his back with his feet in the air and probably humming.

I coached him a little bit on the three questions and told him what I wanted him to focus on in his next match.

Ryan was Shane's opponent for Round 2. Shane scored a point and stayed alive the whole time!

He's trying to shoot. That's a plus. He needs to work on having an escape or reversal from bottom. If he could learn how to stop a switch, that'd be a big help, too.

Shane's final match was a little strange. Ryan wrestled a tough match right before. Ryan got frustrated when the other wrestler had a good move and started to cry. He continued to cry and wrestle, tears streaming down. The other wrestler started to cry in the third period, too! Everyone congratulated them when they wrestled through to the end. Ryan, red-faced, won.

So Shane cried in his next match. He's never cried in a match before. The timing had to be more than coincidence.

Part of the goal of wrestling is to teach toughness, so I'm happy he didn't quit. He went 0 - 3 for the day. Shane was ready to be done. I wonder if he would have been eager for more had he won a match.

Random: Sitting and waiting are difficult for Shane.

But everything is padded!

And if your friend tackles you, it's almost like drilling. Almost.

As long as the boys stayed out of the way of matches and anyone else I didn't care.

My wrestlers started to show up around 10:20 AM.

Which meant they got to beat up and play with Shane some! Nana and Pop left for lunch with Peggy Lowry. Shane had a blast running around and playing with all of the other wrestlers young and older.

My boys did pretty well. There was one boy who fell victim to the brackets (and I wished I'd noticed earlier), but everyone else found some successes. It was a successful season despite some of the bumps in the road.

Clean-up was the biggest workout for me. Chris, one of the organizers, had the idea to re-purpose some of the pads to replace the decrepit black pads on the walls. I joked that all the blue meant that the wrestling room clearly belonged to the middle school! Blue is our color while the high school is orange and black.

I left before the work was 100% finished to shower and spend some time with Nana and Pop.

It was a successful day! The snack stand earned enough money to pay off most of the end of year party next week.

Saturday Eve

It's the long February-March stretch at work. There are no more days off until Spring Break unless God sends some snow our way. 

Wrestling is almost over, though. I went to the high school after teaching to get a work out setting up mats.

Nana and Pop picked up Shane from school while I helped.

I got a text from Nana asking, "Can we get Shane a haircut?"

I replied, "Buzz that sucker bald."

Which is extra funny, because Nana texted Carrie, too. Carrie replied, "Anything but bald."

My other recommendations ("Mohawk? Samurai topknot?") were shot down in turn.

Turned out well in the end. I had thought about buzzing Shane before Nana and Pop arrived, but was busy.

We met for dinner at Wegmans. It feels like The Pub is where Carrie always wants to go when Nana and Pop are in town!

We said our good-nights and parted ways after a little grocery shopping. The big wrestling day would be on the morrow.

TKD Thursdays

Shane's rusty. I don't know how much is the new class and new expectations distracting him and how much is actual rust.

He didn't want to chase the green belt, because he'd "lose." He couldn't remember how to do a step-behind (or 'skip') sidekick either.

He does enjoy being the high ranking belt. As long as soccer practice isn't on Thursdays, we'll probably stick with this class time.

He needed a little coaching to keep up his leadership role, but he did pretty well overall. There was a lot more sitting than usual due to testing and belt promotions. I think Instructor Papa gets a kick out of Shane's energy levels. He seems to really like him (but he also seems to really like everyone, so maybe that's just how he is!).

The Princess Bride

We haven't been reading at night lately, so I wanted to start up again. This time, I'm sharing The Princess Bride with Shane. I love the book and it happened to be made into a terrific movie, as well (Which Carrie adores). 

This edition included pictures!

The exposition in the beginning didn't go well. For one, it was longer than I remembered. Carrie tried to read a little one night and had no success either. If you haven't read the tale, there's a lot of satire involved where the author is rereading The Princess Bride himself and tongue-in-cheek realizing his father cut out a lot of boring description, lineages, and even whole chapters.

I skipped to Buttercup and Westley saying, "Goodbye," and it went better from there. I read most everything, but if scenes start to drag or I sense Shane's attention waning I know how to paraphrase or ask guided questions to keep him into it.

Carrie was out driving, so the TV remained off tonight. I asked Shane to grab the book, so we could sit on the couch with it. We read about the kidnapping and the climb up the Cliffs of Insanity. Good times!

Bonus story: My own experience with The Princess Bride was in 9th grade with Mr. Greek. I was in an advanced English class and we were plowing through stories I loathed (like Antigone and A Tale of Two Cities). I was bored and picked up a copy of The Princess Bride from the class set for the regular English 9 class. I read it in a day and brought it back, "Why couldn't we read this!?!?!" Mr Greek may have been slightly annoyed because he knew I'd been slacking in class and then I read the book I wasn't assigned in a day.

Bonus-bonus story: We also read Ender's Game in that class. I didn't pick up the book until I started to wake up and listen in on the class discussion of battle school. I picked up the book and actually started to read it for the first time, and, again, I got so engrossed I finished it in a day. Mr. Greek was annoyed yet again.

Bonus-bonus-bonus story: I actually liked Mr Greek even if he sometimes chose terrible stories. Several of my friends and I used to hang out in his classroom before the day started and played cards and talked. I got at least two good ones out of his class. I read the next two books after Ender's Game (Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide) afterwards. I'm not sure if Mr. Greek was more annoyed or more amused that I usually had a different book in class every several days and they were rarely something he assigned. He retired after John and I's year, so maybe we drove him batty.

Shane's Final Wrestling Practice of 17-18

Tuesday was the final wrestling practice. It must have been the home opener for baseball season at UVA, because there was no parking! It was a good thing we were early. I let Shane muddle his way through putting on his shoes himself.

He was happy to run around in the pandemonium that precedes practice when he finished.

My kid is the only one who wanted to wear long sleeves and pants to a sweltering wrestling room. I brought his singlet (which he wanted to where to school for sports day), but he chose not to put it on.

I thought it was silly, but I figured Shane could learn through experience. There was a light warm-up and then the coaches split the kids up into groups to wrestle.

The waiting in between matches was difficult as always.

Shane wrestled three matches in total. He scored points for the first time in Round #1! I was going to try and be quiet, but my coaching instincts took over. I worked to keep my voice lower than usual to some success.

Shane's improved a lot with the little I've shown him. He knows to belly out (somewhat) and he really likes to grab an ankle for his breakdown into a half-nelson. Shane was (finally) willing to listen after he lost those initial matches.

Round #2, he should have won. I was confused when the coach had the kids wrestle overtime. Shane must have been, too, because he stood there stiff as a board and got tackled.

Yes, I did comment that Shane was robbed at the end. I went back and re-watched to see what happened. The coach voided the takedown and escape early in the 1st and then never started to count backpoints in the 2nd. That would have made it tied at 2-2.

I told Shane he did a great job! He scored points, looked good, and he can win his first match on Saturday when Pop can see it.

Round #3, Shane went up against a little man who knew what to do. It ended fast.

Afterwards, 'Little Man' went up against a guy over a head taller than him and won. I talked him up and Shane actually paid attention to match he wasn't in. I said, "That could be you. All it takes is knowledge and practice. Little Man has clearly done both! Look at him go! He's smaller, but the smarter wrestler!"

I was happy with how the scrimmage panned out.

The kids played "Dogs" at the end of practice. Shane lives to run around, blow raspberries, mock, and shout, "Bad doggy!"

He throws a fit when he gets knocked out. If he cheats and gets back up, I call him out. Then he sit and pouts until the next round.

Shane was a little bummed he didn't win anything at the end. I told them there's no shame in losing to a better wrestler as long as you did your best.

We went over my "Three Questions After Any Match" and I tried to make Shane memorize them:
1) What did you do right?
2) What can you do better?
3) What will you do to get better next time?

You've always one something right if you're brave enough to try. There's always something you can do better whether you won or lost.

And the only way to get better is to do something.

Really, the questions apply to anything: Win or lose. I hope to foster a growth mindset in Shane.