My son's Wrestling season...

[sensei8]

And the crowd goes wild!! Practice makes perfect!! I look forward to the update, Brian as the season progresses; good lick to Kendall and Kenneth!!

[bushido_man96]

First tournament of the 18/19 season is in the books. Kendall had one opponent to wrestle, so they did three matches total. His first match, he went all three periods before finishing with a pin. He worked from tie-ups in the first period, but just couldn't get anything set up. In the second period, he started on bottom and got a point for an escape, but then the same tie-up game standing. He said the kid was strong, and he looked to outweigh Kendall by a bit. However, he wasn't very experienced. His opponent tried a takedown in the third period, and Kendall was able to take advantage of it and was able to smother the attempt, and then worked to the pin. In the other two matches, the finish was much quicker, as his opponent tried to be more aggressive, and Kendall was able to smother and turn him for pins.

Kenneth had three matches, but one was a forfeit. His first match was against a baseball teammate of his from a nearby town. He got headlocked early and pinned. His second match, however, went much better, although it ended in another loss. He defended a taller opponent trying to tie up with him, and attempted some takedowns, but couldn't quite pull them off. What he did do really well was fight off the bottom. He made sure to base out really well, and then start working immediately into his stand-ups, one of which scored him an escape. We had spent some time working on this, and it was great to see improvement in this area. Now I just have to work with him on finishing the escapes and getting into good positions.

[sensei8]

YAHOO....Wrestling season has started!!!!!

Great post, Brian!! Sounds like they hit the mats running, with not much rust to speak of...a hiccup here and there but all in all, a great start to their season. With you helping them on their mat work and all, they'll be shaking the rust off before you know it!!

Rock on Kenneth and Kendall, rock on!!

[bushido_man96]

Tournament number two took place on Dec. 22. Kendall, unfortunately, woke up sick that morning, and had to scratch. Kenneth was good to go, though, so he did.

His first match was a tough draw, probably the toughest kid in the bracket. Kenneth went all three periods, but lost, 6-2. He did a good job again on his standups, and also getting back to base. He has been fighting off the bottom really well, and now isn't getting pinned as much. He was able to get a few escapes, but wasn't able to work any takedowns or get into a dominant position to score any more points. Some of it is working on body positioning, and we've kept working on that.

Match two was against a teammate of his, who also happens to be a baseball teammate. They wrestled each other tough, going the distance again, and Kenneth pulled out the victory. He was able to work more takedowns and score more points, but needs to clean up just a bit more, especially when it comes to breaking kids down from the top position. But improvements have been made, and we are building something solid.

Match three was for 3rd/4th place, and he ran into a taller kid that leveraged him for a pin. All in all, though, another good tournament, and this one was our local tournament, so I was happy for him and his performance, and took home 4th place.

[bushido_man96]

Last week's tournament results: Kenneth, 1-2. Kendall, 2-0.

I was hoping Kendall would have more competition, because it is the last KS Kids' tournament he can participate in until his middle school season is over, which just started this week. There are some goofy rules that our state high school athletic association has in place that really limits how much the kids can compete, which sucks, as there is no substitute for mat time. But, where Kendall is going to benefit greatly is having practice five days a week now for two hours per practice, as opposed to an hour and a half twice a week.

As for Kendall's tournament performance this week, there really isn't much to tell. He pinned both opponents in the first period of each match, basically by quelling their takedown attempts and then getting them turned for the pin. With the second kid he wrestled, he just utterly physically controlled the kid. When he sprawled on his takedown, they ended up close to the boundary line (they were on a half-mat). Kendall saw this, and basically man-handled the kid back into the boundary before finishing off the pin.

Kenneth's tournament was a different story. There were seven of them in an 8-man double elimination bracket, which is good for competition. He won his first match, against a girl who was bigger and taller than him, and really aggressive, too. It went the distance, and he won 12-6. I would love to have that girl in our mat room, because they would be great practice partners together. His second match, however, was against a kid he's wrestled before this year and last, and he's pretty tall and pretty good. The kid was able to pin Kenneth. Kenneth's third match was another loss by pin, and I really felt like he let himself get put into a bad position without having to. He basically let the kid come stuff his head down and force him to the mat. So, we are working on that now, and he's starting to understand how to work against it.

Although I would have liked him to do better, and thought he could have, he is still showing improvement, and listens in practice, and that is a good thing.

[bushido_man96]

Sorry for the delay here; update time.

Kendall's middle school season is underway, and he is .500 right now, if I recall right. His first tournament, which they are referring to right now as "scrambles," because they aren't full-blown bracketed tournaments, was at home at our high school. Kendall had a mixed bag of competition. One, we were familiar with from last season, and is mentioned in previous posts. The story with him here is that he's a bigger, heavier kid, and has a tendency to throw headlocks. He did that to Kendall several times last season, and Kendall lost when he tried to play the headlock game with this kid. But, when he defended the headlock, and made this kid wrestle, then Kendall beat him. So, first meet up, this kid is in his bracket, along with two others. His first match went pretty easy, with a pin in the first period (he did a headlock, which I argued with him about, as its a dependency that is not good, and one he's fallen into more and more). As a result of the sloppy headlockyness of that match, he sprained his forearm or wrist or something, but wrestled on. His next match up was against "the headlocker," and I had told Kendall previously to avoid that situation. He didn't, though, and he got pinned early. His last match was against a monster of a kid that pretty much picked him straight up, dropped on his back, and worked for a pin. So first meet, 1-2 record.

His second meet, which was last week from the time stamp of this post, he had three more opponents, one of which was the same..."the headlocker." Kendall and I discussed this opponent at length, and worked on some things to get around all that, and I told him that if he made this kid wrestle, then he could win. So, we get this kid first match up, and the tournament happens to be at his hometown, too. Well, Kendall was able to avoid the headlock, and got the match to the ground, and once he did that, low and behold, he was able to wrestle with the kid. Kendall ended up finishing with a pin in the first period. Second match up was against the opponent he had beaten the week before, and Kendall was able to sprawl on a shot and work for the pin in that match, too. The third match was against another kid that was pretty mature and athletic, and Kendall wrestled with him into the second period, but was eventually pinned. The kid was a pretty good athlete, and took good shots, and Kendall just didn't hit the sprawls well enough to defend them. So, finished that week 2-1, putting us at .500 so far, with two meets this week.

Kenneth has really only gotten one more tournament in since my last update, due to weather issues. This past weekend, he had to wrestle the same opponent, best two out of three. His first match, he was doing ok, but when on top position, he reached over the top of the shoulders, and he got rolled into a pin. His second match was by far the best one, even though he lost, 4-0, through all three periods. We had worked on a duck-under as an additional takedown method, and he really worked on the tie-ups and getting inside ties to set it up. He fought hard off the bottom, avoiding getting turned, which I was very proud of, and finished the match on his feet at the end of the third period. I really felt like it was a match with things to build on, and I told him all that, even though he was upset with the loss. The third match, which we didn't need to have, but took anyways, to get some more mat time, didn't go as well. When he was in the process of tying up, Kenneth stood straight up, and the other kid just took him down with a headlock. Overall, I thought he did some good things to build on, and we had a pretty good week of practice, too.

[JR 137]

Thanks for the write-ups, Brian. I always enjoy them. I guess you guys start your school’s regular season later than we do in NYS. I covered wrestling almost exclusively this season as an athletic trainer at my friend’s high school. We’ve got one more away dual meet, then post-season starts.

I kept seeing “headlock” as a difficult issue for your sons, particularly Kendall. Some advice, if you don’t mind...

The head and arm throw is one of the easiest throws to counter, provided you know how. Easiest way (other than not tying up ) is a duck-under. When the opponent initiates the throw, close the distance and duck under the arm as he’s turning and putting it around Kendall’s head. It’s a timing, feeling the opponent, and body positioning thing. I wish I could link to some good videos, but I can’t find any.

Another counter is to shift your weight in front of him as he’s turning for the throw. As he’s turning, try to stay chest to chest but lower, in a sense. Or blocking them with your hips. Video (principle is the same regardless of type of tie-up):

Last way, if they complete the throw, is to roll through it. Arms around your opponent and use your momentum to keep rolling. Video:

[bushido_man96]

JR, thank you for the tips and the videos! We have spent quite a bit of time practicing duck-unders, and he is getting better at defending them. He ties up a lot, and some of the kids have gotten sneakier about working in those headlocks. Sometimes, he just reacts too slow to them, but he has been doing much better with them lately, and its paying dividends.

In regards to he middle school season, yes, it is a later season. For some reason, the league he's in does this "second season" as I hear it referred to. I don't know if its used by some of the smaller schools to ensure that they have kids that can go out for both sports, or what the deal is. Unfortunately, the middle/high school that my boys will attend thinks its a basketball school, and even with no sport for conflict, the middle school team only has 7 kids out between 7th and 8th grade. I've got a pretty good idea as to why I think the other boys don't go out, but I'll save that for another post...

Speaking of, here's another update. Last week/weekend, I went to three consecutive days of wrestling tournaments: Thursday (1/31), Friday (2/1), and Saturday (2/2). And I had a blast! Thursday and Friday were both middle school meets for Kendall, and Saturday was a kid's tournament for Kenneth.

Thursday, 1/31: This was the Ellis Junior High Scramble. Kendall wrestled three matches; one kid from the host school, and two from another (Hoisington). The weights got kind of skewed in this meet, and Kendall's first match was against a heavyweight that his heavyweight buddy had wrestled and beat a few times already. He wrestled into the second period and won by pin. In his second match, he faced another new opponent, who was quite a bit taller than he was. He was able to tie up with him, but getting around the length was tough, and he went into the second period here, as well. Whereas his opponent was able to get some takedowns scored, he could not hold Kendall down on the ground, and Kendall was able to use a handy little knee-slide that he's been working on from the bottom to either stand up or reverse. He won with a pin in the second. Kendall's third match was another new opponent from the same school (Hoisington), and Kendall handled him pretty quickly, pinning him early in the first period, finishing 3-0 in the day.

Friday, 2/1: Hoisington Middle School Invitational. This was a fun tournament, as it was hosted by a school outside of our league, so we got to see some new opponents from different towns. He did face two familiar opponents, but wrestled 5 matches total, so it was a busy day. The setup for this tournament was different than any I had seen in any kids' tournament. The wrestlers were divided into two pools, Kendall in pool A, and the other, pool B, had fewer kids in it. So he only wrestled in his pool, and then after "pool play" was done, each wrestler would face another from the other pool in a placing match; the two best from each pool faced off in a first place match, the two second best faced off in a third place match, and etc. on down the line. Kendall won his first two matches, cruising to pins in the first period in each. Neither one really gave him too much trouble. His third match went two periods, against the taller of his opponents from the night before from Hoisington. He was again able to capitalize from being on bottom and either getting a stand-up or reversal with his knee-slide move, getting him into position to win with another pin. Match number four was a tough one. It was against a previous opponent that he had handled fairly easily in his previous two matches with him, but this time, the kid came out with a different game plan. I'd seen him do it to another wrestler earlier in the day, and he basically was running and tackling his opponents, and he did this to Kendall three times, I think it was, one of the times actually taking Kendall off the mat and onto the hardwood floor on his back. He wasn't pleased with that. Kendall wasn't tying up as much with him, and the opponent took advantage with his charges. Kendall's problem was that he didn't react fast enough and didn't get his laces on the floor when sprawling, which I think he has worked on this week. After finally avoiding the tackles, Kendall was able to get the kid pinned in the second period. This made him 4-0 in "pool play," which put him in the championship match. That match was against a really good wrestler, and Kendall hung with him into the second period, but ended up getting pinned. Kendall described the kid as kind of erratic, but he was really pretty athletic and aggressive, and was the better wrestler, and I think Kendall learned a thing or two about being aggressive, and how it can pay off. But, a 4-1 day, and second place finish capped off a very nice week of wrestling for him, going 7-1 over those two days.

What I was really happy about was that he did very good wrestling those two days, and he only did one headlock, and that was in his third match on Friday, when his opponent was running him backwards, and Kendall went with him, throwing the headlock using his opponent's own momentum to take him down. He's also seeing where he is on the mat, and working guys back onto the mat to secure his points or a pin. He's also choosing the bottom position more and more, as he's feeling more confident about being able to score from the bottom. I'm very happy with is progress. And both days, he was recovering from being under the weather.

Saturday, 2/2: Plainville Wrestling Club Open. This one was Kenneth's tournament, and he had four matches on the day, and my brothers and their family was in town to watch, which included three cousins, so he had a nice cheering section. His first match, unfortunately, was against the local boy he's wrestled and lost to the week before. This first match was about the same, getting wrapped up tight in that darned headlock that he couldn't shake, and getting pinned. We've been working headlock defenses, too, but I think the main thing is he just needs to get more physically aggressive, so we worked on that, too. Kenneth's second match, however, was the start of something good. It was against another taller boy who had beat him earlier in the year, but Kenneth was ready for him this time. Kenneth fended off his headlock attempts, but did get taken down a few times, but was able to get points on escapes and reverses, which got him ahead in points early on. In the second period, I thought there was a point where Kenneth had him pinned, but the ref didn't think so, but he collected a good amount of back points. They went into the third period with Kenneth in the lead, and he didn't look back, winning the match, 10-5. The other kid got frustrated, and started fussing and crying in the second period, so I thought Kenneth's chances went up pretty well at that time. Match number three was another rematch, the same girl he had wrestled and beat earlier in the season. This girl is tough, too; she does good takedowns and is very good at controlling the opponent once she gets them down. Kenneth has been doing a good job of fighting off the bottom, and was able to get escape and reversal points here and there, keeping him in the match. At one point he got called for locked hands, and he was really confused as to why, and I hadn't seen it either. That stopped some momentum for him, but he was able to get it back. They went into the third period, and Kenneth ended up winning by pin. Kenneth's final match was against a club teammate (who is also one of our TKD kids ). Kenneth took him into the second period, and was able to win by pin, going 3-1 on the day, and placing 2nd! I was really proud of him for fighting through and being tough mentally, knowing he was facing opponents who had beaten him earlier in the year.

Kenneth has been doing some really good wrestling from off the bottom, building his base and getting up. We've worked on starting to build that base the second he hits the ground, not giving the other a chance to try to turn him. Most of the time, he's doing this. He's also been doing better at not reaching over the top when on top, keeping everything behind the elbows, and staying behind the hips when he needs to keep control on top.

Three long days of wrestling, and it was a fun time the whole way. The boys are performing well, but most important of all, I'm seeing improvement, which is what I want to see.

[bushido_man96]

Saturday, 2/9: Middle school tournament at Larned. This was another invitational tournament that ran on the "pool play" system. He wrestled the 180 lbs weight class, and there were actually an A bracket and a B bracket, and the two did not cross-bracket at all. Kendall was in the A bracket, in pool B, which gave him three matches before they broke out into their own bracket. The B bracket was actually just a round-robin bracket, and there were several rounds of it, so there must have been at least 6-8 other kids he never even faced that were in his weight class. His first two matches went much the same way, winning with pins in the second period in both. The first was against a familiar opponent, a taller kid that he had trouble getting a takedown on. The taller kid was trying to use his long arms to hook Kendall's leg from the tie-ups, but wasn't able to, but this meant Kendall did a little too much backing up for my liking. He basically spent the whole first period on his feet, not able to get any points, which is something we need to work on, not squandering an entire period. Second period started with Kendall on top position. He rode fairly well, and when the opponent was almost up, he would rip him back down. From there, Kendall was able to get into a front headlock position and run into a twist for the pin. Match two started the same, having trouble winning on his feet. He did sprawl well on a takedown attempt, but couldn't get an advantage off of it. Period two started with Kendall on top position again, and he did a good breakdown, riding some head pressure with an ankle to break the opponent down, and then half-Nelson for the pin. Match three is where things got tougher. He faced an opponent who was tall, and very strong. I got a close up look at the kid between matches, and the kid already had well-developed arms, already maturing physically, and Kendall just isn't there yet. The opponent did take a decent shot and got Kendall down, and from there he muscled him over for the rest of the period. I thought Kendall had a stand-up that was going to work, but he wasn't able to finish, and got yanked back down, and he fought from his back for the rest of period one. Period two started neutral again, and his opponent took another shot, but this time Kendall defended it and had the opponent in basically a "cow catcher" with the opponent on his knees, and Kendall started to try to drive and twist him over, Kendall drove up more than around, and the kid came up with him, slipped under and got a leg to get the takedown finished, and from there is was heavy pressure, and he got turned and pinned. So he finished pool play 2-1.

Next came the bracket portion of the tournament, and due to his record in pool B, the worst he was going to end up finishing was fourth place. The first of these was against another big, fast, athletic kid who pinned him in the first period. Last match was another big kid, and in the first period from the tie-up, he just twisted Kendall to the ground. I wasn't sure how that happened, but it didn't look good at all. Kendall was out of bounds, and they got reset, with him on bottom. Kendall was able to get out, and got into decent position, but was too low and the other kid was able to get up. There were a few more scrums where Kendall got into bad position, but rolled it through to be in top position, but then got rolled through himself. At one point, he was riding the ankle again, but didn't have good pressure and didn't have the tight waist, and the opponent stood up. They finished the period on their feet, but Kendall did score some points, which was a good sign. Period two started with Kendall on the bottom, and he really worked his sit-out/switch moves well, and had himself out, but he scrambled on the ground instead of starting to get up, and the opponent pounced and turned Kendall, getting him pinned.

So, it was a little rougher day, with some good competition, and he finished 2-3 and took fourth place. I know he could have done some things better, but did some good things as well, and had a pretty decent day, I thought.

[bushido_man96]

2/14: League Tournament, held in Wakeeney. This is the only middle school tournament this year that has been done in the more traditional bracketing style that I'm used to seeing in kid's wrestling, with 8-man double elimination brackets and some round-robin brackets. Kendall's bracket was an 8-man bracket with two byes. Kendall had the 3 seed, which put him in a pretty good position. Match one was against an opponent he had not faced yet this season. At the start of the match, his opponent tried some slide-bys that Kendall stymied very well, and he tried to work some shots of his own, but to no avail. He did end up trying a headlock, but he was too high, and backed out of it, but the opponent took advantage and took Kendall to the ground, but never got behind the hips, and Kendall was able to get into a neutral position with the opponent, though, and didn't allow him to get any points in the period. The second period started with Kendall in top position, and Kendall attempted to ride tight waist and ankle, but the kid was pretty big, and Kendall had trouble riding at the waist, and the kid had a quick first step up, but Kendall was able to drag him back down from behind, and from there got into position to win by pin. Match two consisted of Kendall basically getting charged and ran over and pinned, so he moved to the back side of the bracket. His next opponent was the one I have mentioned previously that likes the headlocks. I talked to Kendall about being confident, and going in and being smart, avoiding the headlock and such. Well, match three didn't last very long, as they locked up and Kendall got forced into a headlock and pinned. I looked at the video after relaxing a bit, and saw what the issue was. Kendall failed to move his feet and circle with the opponent, which made it all too easy for the bigger kid to get an angle and leverage him over. This ended his day, and it was frustrating because I really felt that Kendall could have placed in this tournament. But, we discussed it and learned, and will work on solving this problem.

He finished his first middle school season 13-9, which I thought was a pretty good showing that we can really build on. Now, he'll get back into the remainder of the kids' wrestling season, with one open tournament, and then districts and hopefully state.