30 Days In A Row

This is a slow week at Victory as we prepare the room and ready minds for the summer programs that are set to begin next week.  We took a week off to do some repairs in the wrestling room and let athletes focus on finishing their school year well.

We do, however, have wrestling happening each day, just not large group practices.  We have around 15 female athletes participating in a Mini Camp during the daytime hours and after school, there are still some one-on-one sessions, and a handful of wrestlers in the middle of important off-season challenges.

As each season or large training cycle comes to a close, we like to encourage our athletes to reflect and make plans for what is next.  Sometimes it's a scheduled break or another training cycle.  We do our very best to make sure kids aren't just shooting from the hip or playing the "flavor of the month" game or just going through the motions.  And we desire to see breaks planned in advance rather than reactions to feelings produced from negative results or over training.  In fact, it's something we place a high value on.  It's a simple formula in our room: plan + process + progress = confidence (more on that in a future entry).

A fun challenge that a few of our wrestlers are doing right now is wrestling at least 30 minutes of live for 30 days in a row.  We've had athletes do versions of streaks like this and the results are always exciting and sometimes unpredictable.  There will be progress, for sure, but we don't always know what it'll be.  Sometimes it just has to play itself out and see what comes from it.

In this current 30-day challenge, one of our wrestlers has really improved hand fighting skills, which is encouraging because it has been much needed.  Another is just becoming an overall better wrestler and learning how to turn off the perfectionist brain and quiet expectations and just wrestle through positions.  The wrestling is about the wrestling, nothing else.  A third wrestler is figuring out a brand new style of wrestling (for him) and it's helping him think of ways to incorporate new approaches to his Folkstyle skillset.

I love helping athletes discover ways to be successful by utilizing creative challenges and streaks to improve.  By focusing on the day in and day out routine, however long, it allows athletes to figure out new ways to improve.