It's Not Where You Start, It's Where You Finish
This past weekend was great. It's been a long time since I have enjoyed a trip so much. After one of the longest breaks I have had in over 5 years, we were finally back on the mat. Four club wrestlers and I traveled to Virginia Beach for back to back tournaments on Saturday and Sunday. The weekend started off with a 6 hour drive to Virginia Beach. The first part of the trip went about like normal, everyone but me was asleep, but the last 3 hours were different. Everyone was awake, and we were having a great conversation about priorities. It's times like those that keep me going. It was a nice give and take, and it was rewarding to hear some thoughtful ideas from the wrestlers. These are the times that you get to know each other better and you find out who these young men really are.
I am a strong advocate of wrestling out of season. My elites compete almost year round. I do not demand that my wrestlers train out of season, but I do not think that any wrestler can be consistently good without it. There is no secret to success, it just takes HARD WORK! Heck, you will outperform over 80% of the people just by showing up and performing on a regular basis. If you work hard and have some desire you can beat another 15%, but that last 5% is always going to be a dog fight. Hard Work is the key to success in anything you do, but what separates "GREAT" from "GOOD"? It's Hard Work on the "RIGHT THINGS!" And that is where good people often wander off the path. They work hard, they put in a lot of time and effort, they are just not working on the things they need the most. How do you know what those things are? You get help. You surround yourself with people that can see what those things are. In my program, that's my job. But I can't see what you need help with if I don't see you compete.
I think hard work in the practice room is crucial to your success, but it's just busywork if you do not have a way of measuring your improvement. Competition gives you that. It will reveal what you have improved on, and what you still need to fix. But so many of my athletes avoid competition outside of the season. They are afraid that they will not do well, or are not good enough. That is exactly why they should be competing, especially out of season, it doesn't count. It's a free chance to see what you've got.
We will be competing the next two weeks in very tough tournaments. We will get to see some of the best wrestlers in the US. Justin sounded like the Champion he is when responded to another wrestler's verbal jab at him. In the first 10 seconds Justin was thrown to his back in his last match on Saturday. The wrestler said, "I thought you were going to get pinned, what were you thinking? That would suck to lose the last match like that." Justin responded, "It was a nice throw, but if I had gotten pinned, I would know what to look out for next time. It's a long season, and my goal is to be ready at the end. I'm not perfect and I'll make mistakes along the way, but as long as I have them corrected by the end it's ok." It was nice to hear one of our best wrestlers explain what I am always telling our team, "It's not where you start, it's where you finish that matters." That's also a good reason to avoid looking at where your opponents are ranked, but that is for a different blog.
I am a strong advocate of wrestling out of season. My elites compete almost year round. I do not demand that my wrestlers train out of season, but I do not think that any wrestler can be consistently good without it. There is no secret to success, it just takes HARD WORK! Heck, you will outperform over 80% of the people just by showing up and performing on a regular basis. If you work hard and have some desire you can beat another 15%, but that last 5% is always going to be a dog fight. Hard Work is the key to success in anything you do, but what separates "GREAT" from "GOOD"? It's Hard Work on the "RIGHT THINGS!" And that is where good people often wander off the path. They work hard, they put in a lot of time and effort, they are just not working on the things they need the most. How do you know what those things are? You get help. You surround yourself with people that can see what those things are. In my program, that's my job. But I can't see what you need help with if I don't see you compete.
I think hard work in the practice room is crucial to your success, but it's just busywork if you do not have a way of measuring your improvement. Competition gives you that. It will reveal what you have improved on, and what you still need to fix. But so many of my athletes avoid competition outside of the season. They are afraid that they will not do well, or are not good enough. That is exactly why they should be competing, especially out of season, it doesn't count. It's a free chance to see what you've got.
We will be competing the next two weeks in very tough tournaments. We will get to see some of the best wrestlers in the US. Justin sounded like the Champion he is when responded to another wrestler's verbal jab at him. In the first 10 seconds Justin was thrown to his back in his last match on Saturday. The wrestler said, "I thought you were going to get pinned, what were you thinking? That would suck to lose the last match like that." Justin responded, "It was a nice throw, but if I had gotten pinned, I would know what to look out for next time. It's a long season, and my goal is to be ready at the end. I'm not perfect and I'll make mistakes along the way, but as long as I have them corrected by the end it's ok." It was nice to hear one of our best wrestlers explain what I am always telling our team, "It's not where you start, it's where you finish that matters." That's also a good reason to avoid looking at where your opponents are ranked, but that is for a different blog.
posted by EG Wrestling at 2:00 PM
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