Ax to grind: Kids novice wrestling

[Urohawk]

Just got back from coaching a kids novice tournament. It's a round robin format so kids got between 3 and 5 matches. Most of the kids are first year wrestlers. Really good learning experience for many of the kids. I watched two kids figure out how to turn the half nelson about mid way in the tournament and switch from losing to winning. It was really awesome watching the light bulb go on when they "got it". One of the kids wrestled the very last match against the clear winner in his weight bracket. Opponent's record was 5-0. Wins were as follows:
Fall 0:15
Fall 0:22
Fall 0:10
Fall 0:17
Fall 0:14*

* kid in our club.
I put the kid out there to wrestle like any match but afterword I wondered if I should have done something differently.

Thought about pulling him and forfeiting. He's not very good but works hard and is learning. This match did nothing to build his skills or confidence. I sort of regret putting him out there because he was pretty upset afterward. I also thought about reading the coach the riot act for putting his kid in the tourney when there is an open tourney he could have gone to on the same day with appropriate competition. This did nothing for his wrestler either.

Just wondering if others would have said or done something?

 

[royhobbs2]

its not right for the experienced kid to wrestle in a novice tourney, but the novice has to learn to shrug it off. My son's youth coach a HOFer and multi-ncaa champ(ill not name-just a great person), runs over and high fives beginners after their first loss like they just did something great and its an initiation.

As a parent ive sure learned its a marathon not a sprint. Now, its wrestle hard and Ws and Ls don't matter if you fight your butt off. Just let them know to stick with it and the Ws will come.

a lot of the time, the hurt the beginner feels after a loss is a reflection of the disappointment parents/adults around them show, I was guilty of that on many occasions. I learned though.

 

[SouthTxHawkeye]

Just my two cents here. Every situation is different so I don’t think there is one answer for everybody.

Let the kid wrestle. As discouraging as a quick pin is for any wrestler, much less a newer wrestler, I think it says more if you force a forfeit. Go out there and take your lumps. I would rather give myself a chance and go out there than wonder what could’ve been by forfeiting.

As far as the experienced wrestler running through the tournament, I wouldn’t worry about him. He will eventually fade out. At some point he will be forced to see level competition and it will be too much for him.

As a competitor, even when I was younger, I knew when I was wrestling in weaker tournaments and I hated it. Luckily I didn’t do it very often.

Now, as a coach, albeit not wrestling, I actively look for tournaments that my team will struggle to win. I believe this is the only way to force them lace their boots tight and bring their “A” game every time they step on the field. When we win a tournament, I know and they know, it was earned and they had to play their rear ends off to win it.

 

[OILCHECKER]

What do you mean by it was a novice tourney? And what do you consider an open tournament? Just curious as to how you are defining these so I can answer better.

 

[Urohawk]

What do you mean by it was a novice tourney? And what do you consider an open tournament? Just curious as to how you are defining these so I can answer better.

Novice is defined as any wrestler in their first two years of wrestling. The one we attended today is for novice only. To give you an example no one ever cautioned the bottom guys for moving or top guys for covering too early. Many times the ref instructed them to change incorrect positions. There were a few stoppages for refs to explain locked hands, hands to the face, etc. It's the most low key tourney on the schedule. In Kansas, there are sort of three set ups for tournaments:
1. Novice- intended for novice wrestlers, 1st or 2nd season
2. Open- Anyone can participate. There are no separation of novice players.
2. Mixed- They will run separate novice and open brackets at each weight class if there are enough kids. Most of these will be novice in AM and open in the afternoon.

The kid could of course been in his second year. This guy would work the arm effectively using an arm bar or running the half. He appeared pretty experienced., Either that or the Hawks should be recruiting a middle weight 8 or 9 year old right now. He also came from a big club from the area so they know the intent of this tournament.

 

[artradley]

What do you mean by it was a novice tourney? And what do you consider an open tournament? Just curious as to how you are defining these so I can answer better.

Uro’s explanation applies pretty universally. The term “novice” generally means first or second year wrestlers. But there are kids in their 2nd year who have only wrestled a dozen or so matches in their youth program, not attending private clubs or doing any off -season practices. There are also second year kids who have fifty or more matches and a half dozen tournaments under their belt, who have been wrestling year round.

If you have a kid in the latter category, and you know he is going to cruise through a Novice tournament, it’s considered bad form to enter them.

 

[pumpdog20]

Novice is also an age group for USA Wrestling. Maybe some confusion on what type of tournament it was?

 

[OILCHECKER]

Ok. Thanks for explaining as we usually just call is a beginners tournmanent and most dont have any real rules or guidelines as to who can wrestle in them.

Personally, I would say have the kid wrestle the match. The worse thing that will happened is he gets pinned and/or worked over. But that's going to happen to every wrestle at some point. I think forfeiting sends the wrong message. Wrestling is a tough sport, you are going to have to take your lumps and deal with it. It's part of what makes the sport great.

As for saying something to the other dad/coach, I wouldn't. I don't think anything positive would come out of it. Of course, I'm a pretty non-confrontational person. I think the best thing a coach can do is worry about and focus on his own kids/club and let the others do or run things the way they want.

 

[artradley]

Novice is also an age group for USA Wrestling. Maybe some confusion on what type of tournament it was?

I think they’ve gone to 8U, 10U, etc now. Any Novice (is:beginner) tournament will have the guidelines on the entry sheet. Guys who enter inappropriate wrestlers always know exactly what they’re doing. It’s common.

 

[pumpdog20]

I think they’ve gone to 8U, 10U, etc now. Any Novice (is:beginner) tournament will have the guidelines on the entry sheet. Guys who enter inappropriate wrestlers always know exactly what they’re doing. It’s common.

You're right, they went to the age groupings last year. Good call.

 

[ferentzin04]

We entered our son in a beginner tournament earlier this year. Unscored, 3 one minute periods, continuous clock, etc. Most of the kids we saw were what you expected, obviously 1st year wrestlers learning the basics, except for one kid in my sons bracket. He’s hip tossing kids, throwing cradles left and right, working arm bars, running chicken wings, and just pounding on kids for 3 minutes each.

I was pissed. You as a parent/coach know damn well that kid shouldn’t be in the beginner division. This same tournament had an open division for experienced wrestlers. You aren’t helping little Johnny by having him wrestle kids who barely know what they’re doing.

 

[Rhino80]

Agree with most everything posted above. We rarely have any novice kids in our club. I have seen some crazy stuff in the RMN rookie divisions. Guys changing one letter in there name and creating a second track wrestling profile. In the end it doesn't do the kid any good and doesn't help grow the sport. Im in western Colorado and they dont do novice tournaments or odd age tournaments and I wish the would. The attrition rate in youth wrestling here is huge.

 

[rcamp67]

Just got back from coaching a kids novice tournament. It's a round robin format so kids got between 3 and 5 matches. Most of the kids are first year wrestlers. Really good learning experience for many of the kids. I watched two kids figure out how to turn the half nelson about mid way in the tournament and switch from losing to winning. It was really awesome watching the light bulb go on when they "got it". One of the kids wrestled the very last match against the clear winner in his weight bracket. Opponent's record was 5-0. Wins were as follows:
Fall 0:15
Fall 0:22
Fall 0:10
Fall 0:17
Fall 0:14*

* kid in our club.
I put the kid out there to wrestle like any match but afterword I wondered if I should have done something differently.

Thought about pulling him and forfeiting. He's not very good but works hard and is learning. This match did nothing to build his skills or confidence. I sort of regret putting him out there because he was pretty upset afterward. I also thought about reading the coach the riot act for putting his kid in the tourney when there is an open tourney he could have gone to on the same day with appropriate competition. This did nothing for his wrestler either.

Just wondering if others would have said or done something?

Last year my son was in his second year wrestling. He wrestled a lot during his first year (maybe 40 matches). We entered him in opens his second year because his skill level was greater than most novice wrestlers and he was about .500 in opens. One weekend there was a beginners tourney 10 miles from our house and the next closest tourney we could attend was probably 75 miles away. He met the criteria for a beginner so we entered him. He pinned all three opponents in the first 30 seconds if I remember correctly and if we had it to do over again we wouldn’t have entered him. I didn’t expect there to be a gap in skill To that extent. The same thing may have happened in your case.

 

[FarvaHawk14]

Man, this is a nightmare topic. If someone puts that kid in a bracket they don’t belong in they are only hurting them. Try explaining that to an eight year old though, right.. Our club has two rules, Have Fun, Get better. It’s a great principle, and we push hard within that, it is a great reminder for me as a club coach to value the right things.

I coach HS and don’t have kids yet/in the club, so it’s easier for me to be objective. At the same time, it’s easy to get frustrated. I try to talk to the kids about the value of learning from our failure and tell them often how proud I am of them. I used all those words a lot today in fact.

You raise an almost unanswerable question/argument, and I think if we could get coaches/parents to value character and effort over winning and losing, we’d be in a much better place. But then, if I had wheels, I’d be a wagon....

 

[Airbhghater]

I got to say this is a topic we have struggled with this year. My son who is a good athlete, but has never done wrestling before tried it this year. He has caught on pretty well this year and went to three beginners meets in our state. 1st one he got pounded by a couple kids, one who had a ton of matches from last year. Then we picked up a couple moves and he was the one kicking the snot out of kids. At the last one he pinned all the kids in the first period. I felt kind of crappy because he didn’t seem like a beginner. I will say he likes wrestling beginners and winning easily. However, I have told him a hundred times I am more impressed by a loss to a good wrestler because he gets more out of it. Hard telling a ten year old that though.

 

[manatree]

As others have mentioned, the amount of matches a kid gets in their first two years can vary considerably, as does the quality of their coaching. Also, proximity to the tourney could very well have played a factor, as could the overall makeup of the kids that the coach has. If he has a lot of lower level kids, it would make more sense to take his team/club to a tournament that would benefit the greater number of his kids rather than going to an open that would benefit his one or two stars.

 

[Old_wrestling_fan]

Last year my son was in his second year wrestling. He wrestled a lot during his first year (maybe 40 matches). We entered him in opens his second year because his skill level was greater than most novice wrestlers and he was about .500 in opens. One weekend there was a beginners tourney 10 miles from our house and the next closest tourney we could attend was probably 75 miles away. He met the criteria for a beginner so we entered him. He pinned all three opponents in the first 30 seconds if I remember correctly and if we had it to do over again we wouldn’t have entered him. I didn’t expect there to be a gap in skill To that extent. The same thing may have happened in your case.

My oldest son had almost the same experience as above. His first year we wrestled some open tournaments and he only won one match as far as I can remember and then one beginner tournament, where he was on pretty equal footing with the others.

The next year we went back to the beginner tournament and he smoked everybody. I really didn't see that coming, but he apparently had really improved from one year to the next. There may be a valid explanation to the disparity that you experienced. If though, someone knowingly put a ringer in the novice bracket, that is not very cool.

 

[Hawkdiver]

The first year my son wrestled he was chomping at the bit to get on the mat and the first weekend of the season there was no beginner tournament and he begged to enter the open. It was about 10 minutes from home and he understood it may not go well so we entered. The format was they grouped kids by weight (to the tenth of a pound) in groups of 4 for a round robin. I saw there was a girl in his group of 4 and knew it was not going to be good, not only was he going to lose all three matches but he was going to lose to a girl (not an issue for me but for a young boy, crushing).

He got stuck 3 times and the girl pinned her way through all 3 matches, she was good, really good. I think my son was pinned in 15 seconds against her. The good news was the following week was a beginner tournament. Guess who was in his bracket again? He survived about 30 seconds that week.

He ended up entering only beginner tournaments the remainder of the year and ended up wrestling the same girl 6 different times. He lost every time but the last match of the year he made it to a decision, a major against him but progress and he saw it as that, a great sign for a young kid.

This girl went on to win the state championship at their weight that season. She clearly met the rules for beginner tournaments (I would imagine) but clearly should not have been entering beginner events when she was one of the top wrestlers (regardless of gender) in the state.

 

[pkongsh]

This thread brought back memories... My son is 5, he's an absolute beast, I never wrestled but am a fan. He tackles his older brothers and is freaky aggressive, big, and strong. He wanted to wrestle after watching the Hawks with me. I brought him to a local club about a year ago, hoping to just get him an intro to the sport. There was only one other newbie so they paired them together and went straight into full on live wrestling. My son had no idea what he was doing, but just tackled the poor kid and tossed him around. So they switched him and paired him with a very experienced 7 year old who was about the same size.

The kid proceeded to annihilate my son a dozen times in a row, throwing him to his back and laying on top of him for 20-30 seconds each time before the coaches brought everyone to their feet to do it again. Against every fiber of my hands off parenting philosophy, I called the coaches attention to it and was blown off. This happened within the first 5 minutes of him walking on the mat for the first time in his life. Lol, he didn't even know how to stand with the right form, he was standing like a boxer.

No good comes from experienced kids killing new kids...

Oops! Well he won't go back. I hope he gives it another try at some point, otherwise he's a damn good basketball player anyway, lol.

 

[royhobbs2]

Ive heard the Russians keep their kids under 12-14 in gymnastics, bodyweight fitness, wrestling technique and only start live wrestling at 12-14.

I really question the value of live wrestling in tournaments at age 5-6. It really does not help much and many little kids decide they don't like wrestling-when they would have liked it if they had started it when they are older.

Mentally, kids near puberty are so much better equipped to deal with wrestling imo.

 

[SetonHallPirate]

Just got back from coaching a kids novice tournament. It's a round robin format so kids got between 3 and 5 matches. Most of the kids are first year wrestlers. Really good learning experience for many of the kids. I watched two kids figure out how to turn the half nelson about mid way in the tournament and switch from losing to winning. It was really awesome watching the light bulb go on when they "got it". One of the kids wrestled the very last match against the clear winner in his weight bracket. Opponent's record was 5-0. Wins were as follows:
Fall 0:15
Fall 0:22
Fall 0:10
Fall 0:17
Fall 0:14*

* kid in our club.
I put the kid out there to wrestle like any match but afterword I wondered if I should have done something differently.

Thought about pulling him and forfeiting. He's not very good but works hard and is learning. This match did nothing to build his skills or confidence. I sort of regret putting him out there because he was pretty upset afterward. I also thought about reading the coach the riot act for putting his kid in the tourney when there is an open tourney he could have gone to on the same day with appropriate competition. This did nothing for his wrestler either.

Just wondering if others would have said or done something?

You mean the opposing kid didn't score any points after the 30 second mark of any match? How disappointing...needs to learn to score later in the matches than that!

 

[bman546]

To the OP, in this type of situation, you're supposed to find the dad mentioned in another thread and have him rush the mat and tackle the kid who has no business being entered in a novice tournament. Problem is probably solved when the kid with 5 pins parents are pondering entering another novice tournament.

 

[Urohawk]

To the OP, in this type of situation, you're supposed to find the dad mentioned in another thread and have him rush the mat and tackle the kid who has no business being entered in a novice tournament. Problem is probably solved when the kid with 5 pins parents are pondering entering another novice tournament.

Lol, I missed the other thread at first but have since figured it out. I'll talk to our head coach and see if we need to hire "security" for the club. This is of course when he becomes available. Hoping for an early release for good behavior.

 

[el dub]

You mean the opposing kid didn't score any points after the 30 second mark of any match? How disappointing...needs to learn to score later in the matches than that!

Huh? You drinking like a pirate tonight? I realize I’m missing a joke, but re-reading relevant passages didn’t help.

 

[hawkster03]

I have been really patient with my youngest boy with the sport. I didn't want him wrestling in kindergarten and getting burned out like a lot of kids. He was always around the sport, watching meets, watching his brother, etc. though.

Well, he grew to love the sport and was practically begging to go to a tournament. So there was a good non-competitive tournament close by so we signed him up.

He met all of the criteria. He maybe went to a few practices and never wrestled in a tournament, not one. The only thing he ever did was mess around with me on the living room floor.

Holy cow he completely dominated his kids, I was actually embarrassed. He had his brother's old pimped out singlet and headgear on, wanted his laces taped up. He looked like he'd been wrestling for years. I seriously sat there and never said a word. The only thing I said was "NO!!" when he was going to cut a kid so he could take him down again. LOL

I probably looked like the dad that wanted to get his son some easy wins but it certainly wasn't the case.

 

[SetonHallPirate]

Huh? You drinking like a pirate tonight? I realize I’m missing a joke, but re-reading relevant passages didn’t help.

It was definitely a joke...the same way people joke that Spencer Lee doesn't score enough in the second and third periods (because he's finishing his matches in the first period).

 

[Neo_Hawk]

Might want to let your guy watch a replay of Spencer in Stillwater last year. If the #1 can get stuck, anyone can (and will). You take it in and learn from it and come back better.