Tour Across America Blog #5

Today is our final day in Colorado Springs.  We’ll be staying in Lincoln, Nebraska tonight.  We’ll take in one final mat practice at the OTC this morning then hit the road.

We had two practices yesterday.  The first was with the national team and the second was on our own.  In the morning, Terry put the group through several drills.  We spent time working on both offense and defense on our feet, mostly using a 2-on-1.  An important message he shared during practice was to be confident in who you are and use the skills that you have rather than trying to be someone or wrestle a style that doesn’t work for who you are.  The quote we use over and over back home is, “when you know who you are, you know what to do.”  Identity always comes before activity.  Being familiar with your own wrestling style and your skillset is critical to reaching your full potential as a wrestler.  This is one of the biggest reasons we encourage our athletes to journal.  I look at journaling as spending time reflecting on and evaluating all things, but what’s more is that you’re getting to know yourself.  You have to spend time with people if you’d like know them, right?  Well, you have to spend time with yourself getting to know who you are, too.

Our second practice was just our crew.  We had the entire wrestling room to ourselves (7 full-sized mats), so we started with some games then did a little troubleshooting of our own – moving our feet, quick scores, front headlock offense.  We’re still looking ahead to being prepared in Fargo.  This has been a valuable experience on many levels and we’ve made sure they’ve enjoyed the trip and still improved as wrestlers. 

Not only have they improved as wrestlers, they’ve grown as individuals.  Spending time in the mountains, soaking in the energy of the Trials and the OTC will inspire each of them to live their life at higher levels.  They’ve spent a lot of quality time with quality individuals.  This is a terrific group of people - hardworking, respectful, grateful and kind.  They’ve been a pleasure to be around the entire week.  That’s rare when you put over 30 teenagers in close quarters.

You are the company you keep and we’re pretty lucky that the company we’ve kept this week has been the best wrestlers in the world.