So...Wrestling?

November and Phase 3 allowed for sports to start in our county. Part of my bachelor weekend was spent completing online training courses to be eligible to coach. 

There are lots of rules.

November is only for pre-season conditioning. Practices are twice a week and limited to an hour and a half. Seasons will start delayed and out of order. Winter sports will be the first sports to have a season. That will start in December. There will be no spectators allowed at events. Students have to be socially distant and masked leading up to practices. Coaches will remain masked at all times.

I expected most of these things save the no spectators allowed. 

The biggest restriction for wrestling I haven't mentioned yet? No physical contact.

None of the sports are allowed to have contact between students or any shared equipment (such as using the same ball).

There are individual drills in all sports, but at some point there has to be contact. Especially for wrestling.

Even with the restrictions, overall turnout was decent. I think they said something like 120 kids showed up for the first Monday of pre-season training (roughly 10% of the student population). More students should have showed up for the sports on the Tuesday/Thursday rotation.

Wrestling had two. Two wrestlers. Two coaches. A cleverly angled picture made the room less empty than it really was.

I didn't go to the first practice, and I'm glad. Coaches would've outnumbered the wrestlers, so I would've driven 40 minutes to do nothing. 

I've traded texts with Coach Rick and said that I was going to hold off until the season. I don't see the point if I would be of no use. 

Practice hours are at a terrible time for me, too (5:30 - 7 PM). Class ends on average around 4:45 PM for me and then it's time for barn chores before we run out of light. I host a Wednesday night office hours at 7 PM each week that would be disrupted, as well.

There's a required online Zoom meeting at 8 AM on Dec. 2. The season is supposed to start Dec 14. I've completed the required courses, but I'm really not sure if I'm going to coach this year or not.

And that's why I haven't posted anything about wrestling lately. 

I'm not sad, per se. I just don't think about it much, because I'm busy doing other things. I would have felt the absence more keenly if I was physically at school and the program was running, but there's a different flow of life working at home.

Phase 3 Incoming!

 

The school board voted to move to Phase 3 by a vote of 4-3 on October 8th. The vote shows basic public opinion. A teacher I know watched some of the public comment section and said it was, "more dramatic than a TV talk show." The online comments I looked at were certainly very for or very against......and it was also clear many hadn't read what the actual plan was.

Phase 3 involves brining PK-3rd grade students back for 2 days a week hybrid and the rest virtual. The older grades will allow more ESL, SPED, and disengaged students access to the building, as well. However, the model for the older kids won't be about instructing them in person. It will be more about giving them access to a quieter, internet-equipped environment. There will be TA's in the room to help keep them employed, but kids won't move from room to room and teachers will still be virtual.

I'm for it. The youngest kids are the ones who seem to be the least successful with virtual school and the least at risk from COVID. Based on all the numbers we've seen in the area, I think it's good to cautiously push forward. 

A survey was sent out to parents and teachers once the vote was made. It said that 55% of parents were planning to send their children in while 45% opted to remain full virtual (About what you'd expect based on the board vote). Age of the child was a factor. The split was roughly 50-50 for 3rd grade students whereas  70% of parents of preschool children said they'd be sending their kids in. 

200 teachers said they didn't want to return to in-school learning with 2 retiring, 3 taking a leave of absence, 51 citing ADA allowing them to remain virtual and the remaining 136 opted out for other reasons which may or may not be honored. I wonder if that was only Elementary teachers included in that number. On my survey I said "No" and in the comments put I had a 4th grade student and wanted to remain virtual until he could return to hybrid. I could see other teachers being in the same boat where they'd be okay returning except childcare becomes the stumbling block. 

It's a puzzle. I'm hoping and praying things go well, because then there's a chance we could go to Phase 4 at the start of next year. That's when high schools would go back to a hybrid model and I'd be in the classroom.

The one part of Phase 3 I'm unsure about are sports. Or I guess I should say, I'm not sure about *my* sport: Wrestling.

Phase 3 allows for sports to begin training again. At the moment, I think it says that teams can train up to twice a week with days in between. I think there are still rules to prohibit too much contact and interaction...which is fine for many sports, but wrestling? If wrestling is anything it's up close and personal! If we have to restrict activities to individual conditioning and drill with no partners will that really be worth it?

Plus, on a selfish note, I don't know if I really want to spend 45 minutes driving to the school for an hour to an hour and a half after teaching online all day (and in the window there will still be daylight for horse chores). And yet, if I don't do it would that leave Coach Rick on his own? And what about the kids who are desperate for that sense of team community? 

That's a personal problem for me to figure out. I want to see what the actual model is going to look like before I commit to a decision. There's online trainings I need to do, etc.

Winter Sports

Thursday was the winter sports award banquet. It started with food at 6:00 PM, so I had time to go home, move hay, and then pick up Shane. We arrived a little after 6 PM and all of the Bojangles was gone. We were able to get a couple of slices of pizza and cake, so it wasn't all for naught! 

I handed Shane my phone, so that I could talk. He was absorbed for the rest of the night. I sat behind him when we moved to the awards at 6:30 PM.

We only had three wrestlers show up. One left after food. The coach passed out the team picture and of the 10 kids and 1 manager who were in it, 5 stayed on the team, one became a manager, and the manager became a wrestler. We'd had more wrestlers the first week who weren't in the picture, but they all disappeared after pissing in a cup or losing at a scrimmage.

Two highlights from the night:

1) Coach Winfrey pointed out some stains on a banner in cafeteria. They were 10 years old from a food fight in his senior year. "It was taco day!"

2) One of the wrestlers who showed up was a ginger like me. He was in 8th grade and had little impulse control. I was bored and tired and ended up "letting my ginger show." I'd been good all day, but looking back we were too loud.

We had one more wrestler show up at the very end. He was our senior, so it was good to see him.

I'm still planning on coaching next year. I hope there's more of a team to coach, though! Maybe I'll be able to start a middle school program like I did in Charlottesville.

The End of Wrestling Season

The district wrestling tournament was Wednesday night. I picked up Shane and we drove out to Fluvanna High School to cheer our team on. I got in for free, but they charged me $8 for Shane (so I paid in change! It got rid of a lot of quarters we had accumulated).

The Charlottesville crew was there, so Shane and Jin goofed off together. Shane spent a long while on my phone. He was so into the electronic world, he didn't hear a wrestler named Nathan sneak up behind him for a scare.

The highlight of the night: One of the heavyweights of another team puked all over the side of the mat in front of his bench. We made sure to sneak in and sit on the other set of benches while our opponent was outside the gym having a mini-pep rally! We lost the match but won the olfactory challenge!

Sadly, none of our wrestlers qualified for regionals. Disha got her first win against another girl, but overall we went out with a whisper.

There was still practice Thursday and Friday just in case someone was called up as an alternate. No one was.

Instead of going to regionals near Lynchburg Saturday, the head coach took Disha and Nathan to a JV tournament at Woodberry Forest. One of the other coaches had been going to cover it, but backed out. 

I had planned on watching some wrestling, so Shane and I drove up! I'd never been to Woodberry Forest and we had a new audiobook (I highly recommend checking out audiobooks online).

Shane got my phone while I was on the mats. We only had two wrestlers close in weight, so there was a lot of downtime between rounds and we went outside to run around campus.

The weather was fantastic and there were plenty of scenic views.

I'm pretty sure the tuition is more than my annual salary. There was a golf course and houses for teachers.

Lots of walls and trees to climb on, too.

The wrestling gym was on the side of a hill, so we could actually step onto the roof from a parking lot.

Shane really wanted to crawl out and look through the skylights, but I was the buzzkill. He settled for exploring and putting berries in the gutters.

Maybe the shrubs are why it's call "Woodberry?"

We stayed through 3 of the 5 rounds before I deemed it "long enough." We stopped by Costco on the way home for food, gas, and groceries (Note to self: Avoid Costco on Saturdays).

Carrie let Loki greet us when we got home. He jumped into the car to make sure it was really us.

And then he jumped into a puddle while Shane was outside playing with him!

So I jumped his dirty butt into a bath!

I needed to look up "how to bathe Shelties" after the fact. Loki is like a sponge and his inner layer absorbs and locks in soap. Even after being submerged and scrubbing there were still bubbles. Then his outer layer dried while the inner stayed wet!

There's always something to do, but I enjoy life. I'm looking forward to having more free time now that wrestling is done.

Until next year!

Ouch!

I screwed my thumb up at wrestling.

Or really, the other guy did.

I was drilling with Sam and my thumb got caught at an odd angle. It bent all the way back. I heard and felt a crack. The pain only hit for a moment. It was replaced with a numb/tingle and the rush of blood as my hand started to swell like a balloon.

My hand still worked, so I tried to shake it off and did a few more drills. However, I felt the rush of blood up in my head as well as my hand. It threw of my equilibrium some. I was able to keep working, but it took all my concentration to ignore it.

So I went to see the trainer at the next break to ask for ice. I wasn't bouncing back as quickly as I thought and my head was still rushing. 

I had to wait a little bit (I guess I looked fine), but when the trainer started to feel and look at my hand I closed my eyes to concentrate/meditate away the dizzy.

I might have done it too well. 

I heard the trainer say, "Get a chair," and I felt another come up behind me. I looked behind me and sat down, because that's what it seemed like they wanted. I looked at them like, "What's up?" after I sat down.

"You passed out for a second there."

"I did?"

Ironically, I felt completely normal at that point. I mentioned I heard them and felt them coming up behind me. I made a joke about how they were playing Brittany spears on the computer behind me. They asked some questions about how much I'd eaten which was not much. I'd had a bagel for breakfast and a cliff bar for lunch. Maybe my blood sugar was low when the swelling hit.

I got a protein bar for my troubles. They gave me water and they flinched when I hopped up for a refill. Other than my hand being swollen and sore I felt back to normal. They told me to rest up and avoid wrestling.

So I went back to practice. 

I partnered back up with Sam and told him not to grab my hand. I didn't want him to feel guilty about an accident. If I'm honest, I was also a little embarrassed it happened and I wanted to finish up for my own sake. We were working on some mat work, so it was easy to protect myself.

I was really careful with my hand for the rest of the night. It was already turning black and blue. I fessed up to Carrie and we tackled the evening barn chores together.

It's hard to see in pictures, but the bruising wraps around my the entire base of my thumb. It goes up over the first knuckle on the back and to the middle of my palm on the front.

Thumbs up!

My lower back was sore, too, because I'm old, fragile, and out of shape! I didn't need any medicine at least. 

I laid on the couch for most of Thursday night to rest and keep my hand elevated (with Shane poking me). I went to work as normal the next day. I baby'd it all day and started to use it some that night. Saturday, I started to use it some more and on Sunday I was accidentally using it for more normal things (like buttoning a shirt).

I was pretty sure it was broken by that point. Just sprained to hell and back.

Carrie made me an appointment with her orthopedist for Monday. I might have cancelled, but it's hard to give 24 hours notice for a 9 AM appointment when the day before is Sunday.

I took Shane with me to get him out of the house!

He really like looking at the x-rays!

The verdict: Nothing is obviously broken. There was soft tissue and possible ligament damage, but I did a good job of safeguarding and taking care of myself. They offered me a brace that I guess I can wear sometimes.

I pay for the insurance, so why not?

I'm going to take it easy for a week or so. I probably won't even dress out. There are only three weeks left of the season to get through....maybe two if no one qualifies for Regionals, but I'm hoping Sam makes it!

Wrestling Tournament

I took Shane against his will to another wrestling tournament. Charlottesville was there, so he got tackled instead of doing the usual tackling (Jin)!

I watched a handful of my old wrestlers go at it before we went up in the stands to find the current team. We had six wrestlers in attendance.

Shane immediately found a kid with a Nintendo Switch. He never learned his name, but he could tell me he was playing Pokemon Sword (priorities, priorities...).

The head coach and two assistant coaches were there today, so I didn't need to sit in a chair or write scores down. We had one wrestler on the bandit team that I made it my job to check on. Unfortunately, he didn't have a lot of matches. He wrestled once while I was around. The bandit team was in the auxiliary gym and I had to run back and forth to see what was going on.

Hilariously, at one point I sent Shane to check and see if he was about to wrestle. Shane asked, "How will I know who he is?"

I pulled over a wrestler and pointed at his shirt. It was black and grey and said "Mustangs."

"You saw me talking to him earlier. He's wearing this gear. Big guy. Black hair. Use your reading. Go!" I said.

Shane came running back saying, "He's wrestling, Dad!"

I got up and ran over....to find a tall white kid in a black singlet that said, "Knights" on the mat.

My kid can't read.

The wrestlers all thought it was pretty hysterical.

I'm glad Shane got to help the kids stay entertained. Our matches were very quick! We only had five wrestlers for the 14 weight classes, so there was definitely down time. Several of the kids who wrestled showed some decent improvement. Our 8th grader should be pretty good if he continues and one of our seniors got his first win ever!

I spent more time watching things going on off the mat rather than on, though. I got a picture of Jay teaching Shane a cell phone game (and maybe how to turn my hat around backward?).

Shane didn't branch out to other kids until we were about to leave! I would have let him stay and play longer, but we'd already spent five hours at the tourney. It was in Crozet, so we had about a 35 minute ride home.

Carrie napped almost the whole time we were gone! She had a hibernation day that was only possible by us being out of the house.

Holiday Wrestling Tourney

Have you ever played a game where you can upgrade a base? The barn feels a little bit like that to me. It keeps evolving.

We're in the process of getting new stall doors. I mentioned moving them on Christmas Eve.

The horses have abused the old ones. We had to upgrade from latches to bolts, a few have broke, Sam likes to reach over his and pull/chew on things when he's bored, and Carrie had enough of it.

Nick is our local construction handy-man we trust to help out. In a perfect world, Carrie and I'd have all the time, tools, and energy to do it ourselves, but I don't mind paying for a weekend's worth of work. 

I graded most of the morning, but I had a wrestling tournament in Lynchburg in the afternoon. I was almost recruited to drive a van, but we only had four wrestlers going (I was sad about the numbers, but happy about avoiding the chauffeur gig).

I asked Carrie if she wanted me to take Shane. The answer was a resounding, "YES!" She had some things going on in the afternoon like the farrier visiting.

I got one picture of Meredith at work before I said farewell and threw a complaining Shane into the car ("Why do I have to go?").

It was a little over an hour drive. We gassed up in Lynchburg and I parked at what I thought was the school. It turned out to be a megachurch instead. It was a decent walk to the other side.

Shane parked with the wrestlers in the bleachers to start. I gave him my phone so I could attend the coach's meeting (and he drained the battery).

We didn't have much success on the mat. Our four wrestlers won 2 and lost 8. Our lone veteran was 2 and 2 for the day, so he at least qualified for day 2.

Shane was back to tackling everyone. Some wrestlers don't mind and give it right back. One of them was annoyed, but not assertive/mean enough to do much about it. "Just squish him a bit," I said. "Drop a knee on him."

They didn't and I peeled Shane off and put him in a time out. We had a talk about knowing when to quit and I brought up how Shane felt when Julia wouldn't stop tackling him in church.

I wanted to watch everyone wrestle at least once, so Shane roamed and climbed some in between. I didn't see where he went for a little bit, because he'd ducked under the bleachers. I didn't like not seeing him, but he eventually climbed up the outside of the bleachers and said, "Look at me!"

Fairly normal kid stuff. I would have done the same as a kid. I worry about it more as an adult, because I'm supposed to be the responsible coach. And it's doable. I only have one kid to keep track of. If I had more I wouldn't try as hard to monitor everything, because it'd be impossible (and I'd have spares...).

We got home after 9 PM, but there was a nice surprise waiting for me: Carrie had done the evening feeding! She was asleep on the couch, but Loki barked and woke her up (briefly). She left the poop for the morning, but I got to tuck Shane in and rest for the night....by grading!

Getting Ready to Go Back

I swear, it looked like the horses were having a morning meeting when I went out.

"The humans don't give us enough hay."

"And they're slow! We need food earlier in the morning!"

"And lunch!"

"More grain!" "More grain!" "More grain!"

They're a spoiled lot. Maddy pooped in her stall and again outside it after I'd clean. "Scoop it. I have more."

I made a small list of goals at the beginning of break:

1. Rest from school work
2. ....but somehow get a ton of grading done and don't be behind.
3. Make Carrie rest
4. Have the house in order before I go back
5. Have the barn in order before I go back
6. Make fun memories for Shane
7. See a bunch of people.

I've done a lot of work on #4 and #5 which I hoped helped #3. I've done morning and evening barn chores solo for two weeks straight save a couple exceptions. Carrie's been "running on empty" in her own words for a while now. She's really enjoyed having us home.

I avoided school for the rest of the calendar year (success), but today I had to hop back on the grading wagon. There was a ton to do and I spent hours at it. My goal was to finish everything by Saturday, so that I wouldn't do any of it on Sunday.

Shane sensed I was focused on something other than him and was constantly underfoot. The table jolted while I was at the computer and he came up with a nice bruise. He whacked himself messing with the dog!

I think he's had the chance to have fun over break. Sure, he's played video games and watched TV, but we've seen a ton of people and gone on a bunch of day trips. I wish we'd been able to see more friends in the area, but he reunited with cousins on both sides of the family.

Today, I made him go with me to wrestling practice again. He was still doing his old man schtick when we got there.

Then he jumped on some wrestlers and got roughed up for a while. 

I kept him off the phone. That meant he was obnoxious at times. He tried jumping on me while Coach Rick was talking to me and tried to bounce the ball past people drilling and got himself in trouble several times.

I let him wander around the back gym some and peeked at what he was up to from time to time.

The end of practice was where it got interesting. There were six kids and three coaches which was enough for three groups of three for live wrestling. Shane got to use his watch and play timer! He did a decent job, too.

I gave him the phone as a reward on the drive to TKD. The Thursday class was later in the day, so we were able to stay the whole practice (I normally leave early).

It was an older group. There were some kids younger and older than Shane, but he was the only nine year old. The bar was set higher and Shane rose to it.

He was still giggling, laughing, and being Shane (that hasn't changed), but he definitely got more of a work out than usual! Instructor Papa had everyone do a minute of front kicks non-stop.

Shane thought it was easy until it was his turn.

They did 30 seconds and 15 seconds afterward. I enjoyed the show! I'd love to make this Shane's normal class, but I don't see that happening logistically. Maybe after wrestling season.

I spent the whole class grading, by the way. No cell phone games or Netflix for me. Then we got home in time for....wait for it.....horse chores!

Unrelated, but related: I've caught up on my blog a bunch! I won't be starting the new year with a terrible backlog!

Warm Monday

It's been an odd winter break. The weather is more akin to spring. Baby grass is starting to pop up throughout the yard and we opened up all of the windows for fresh air. 

It hit 70 F in the house!

Carrie heated me up some 'taco soup' and then really wanted to catch me with a cheese runner. I obliged.

The morning was mostly quiet. Shane played around and did some Final Fantasy II and some Slime Rancher. I did barn chores, cleaning, writing, and took Loki out to pace some cars for a while. Carrie did a 'mercenary' dungeon run or two with her friend from Asia that calls her 'Sis' (True story).

The evening had more 'out of house' activity. I took Shane with me to wrestling practice.

Wrestling continues to be the one place it's okay for him to try and tackle people he doesn't know.....which turns into how he gets to know them, I guess!

Shane doesn't always get when to stop. He started trying to throw the ball at the coach as we were talking. He entertained himself for an hour before I gave him my phone for 30 minutes to let me work without worrying about him.

We left practice a little early for Shane to make it to TKD. Shane went in with a bad attitude ("Why do we have to come here?") and left singing praises ("It's always a good time when [Instructor Papa]'s there!").

We had a little talk about how attitude is important and you can be sure I pointed the transformation.

As we were leaving, Shane got a turn on a balance game.

The beginner's class is more for kids lower in rank than him and has more play, but Shane loves it. The class with higher ranks is earlier in the day and in the middle of wrestling. I'd love to take him to the higher ranking class, but it's not an option right now. We have to leave practice 20 minutes early to make it to this class!

It's not the same as having a friend over, but Shane needs to get out and about. We stayed home except for errands and church over the weekend. 

We listened to Spy School on the way home and chilled the rest of the night.

...and it was a literal chill for me. When I went into our bedroom I was hit by a wave of cold. The windows were still open! There was a thermometer on the clock that told me exactly what I was in for.

Carrie had conked out on the couch, so she was warm, snug, and none the wiser! I went full blanket burrito mode and pretended I was camping.