Culminating

There were not many moments that I had to use very much critical thinking, because for the most part if I had trouble explaining or showing a move to a certain wrestler, my mentor or another coach would be able to step in, show it in a way that the wrestler would understand, and be able to help them understand what was trying to teach.  I did learn how to communicate better through this project, because at the start I was avoiding any conversation with whoever I was supposed to teach, I would just show them, but I soon learned that just showing them isn't always enough.  It took awhile, but I did start to open up, and come out of my comfort zone to communicate with any wrestler I was teaching at the time.
I gained a lot more from the project then I thought I would.  One example would be, what was stated above.  I came out of my shell, and had to learn how to communicate to with people, in order to teach them further.  I personally didn't think I would turn out to be a half decent coach, but I proved myself wrong, seeing as I made some great friends, and helped some wrestlers along the way.  I also learned that coaches can't do everything alone, seeing as all coaches coach differently, and it would be beneficial to have an assistant coach with a different style of teaching, so that the wrestler being taught can benefit from having to different aspects of wrestling.
One of the challenges I faced was coaching young children, who I have severe inexperience dealing with.  Dealing with the young kids they would usually have a short attention span, and goof off or not listen to what I was trying to teach them.  I overcame this obstacle by being as patient as I could with them, realizing they were just kids, and they could be distracted easily.  At first I would be annoyed by this, but slowly I started to gain a level of patients for them.  It really was that simple when overcoming this problem.   Another challenge was, a couple times when I was at tournaments, after I would lose a match, it would be hard to move on and coach my teammates, but I needed to put my disappointment aside, and help out in whatever way I could for my teammates.  A challenge I can add is that I had to rely on other people to get me to anywhere I could really coach.  For instance, on one day during spring break, I had to go with my brother to college all day so that he could drive me to Palo Alto for the JLS practice.

JLS Wrestling

So Saturday  I got a chance to go down to Palo Alto, to a school that's name still eludes me.  Having the chance to be with my Mentor, and another great coach, who was a two time all American, which is a college award, for being a national champion. My mentor and the All American champion coach, we will call him Braumon because that is what we call him, We're going to go and teach a bunch of middle school kids, who of course don't know what they are doing, well most don't.  We got there early in the morning and would be there for another 7 hours, the whole time I had to help out and go around using my knowledge of wrestling and my meager social skills to help the kids become better at wrestling.  It was a lot of work, considering most were beginners and hadn't a clue as to what to do.  I went into this truly disliking kids, but after the day went on, I slowly started becoming more and more open, and happy being around the kids, that I actually started to like them.  Granted there are some I still dislike, but I can now see I had a misguided dislike towards the younger population.  So If I hadn't gone to this event, I would still have a serious dislike for children, but thankfully It is only a mild annoyance now.   Running time 25.5 hours

Freestyle Gator Wrestling

Yesterday Freestyle wrestling season had started, and this is almost a completely different type of wrestling compared to folk style, which is what we do in our regular high school wrestling season.  In free style it's club wrestling, so its not just high school students, it could be someone older, or some one younger.  There were a few new kids that joined this season that got the opportunity to teach, at El Camino high school, which is also in the Gator Wrestling program.   I was just Practicing, with the newbies and teaching them the ropes and differences between wrestling styles.  That was for about 3 hours, considering they wanted me to stay a bit longer to teach them some more.  It actually makes me happy to see such committed persons at such a young age.  19.5 hours running total

P.A.L Finals

This is for most of the wrestlers the last tournament of the year, and for some what will qualify them for CCS, county championship tournament.  Now, I was seated 1st in this tournament, and really didn't have to wrestle much because of this, which I took as an opportunity to practice my coaching.  At at this tournament you it isn't just varsity, or JV, there is a girl bracket, JV,  varsity, anyone that is on the team has a chance to wrestle.  That means there is almost always some one from your team on the mat wrestling.  This allowed me many opportunities to coach my teammates.  After finishing up with one match I was usually onto another match of my teammates, yelling out to them to get into various positions to score.  Many of my team mates did well and it was fun to coach them.  Since there were so many matches there were a few times that the coaches were on different mats and needed help coaching.  Since I had so few matches I had so much down time I did a lot of coaching.  I had about three Hours worth for the day, of just yelling to my teammates during a match, or talking to them afterwards, to tell them what they did right, wrong, and what they need to work on.

Saturday

Yet another tournament I went to this weekend.  I was able to participate in this one as well.  The tournament took place at El Camino high school, and its called the Colt Invitational.  This tournament is usually a short one, and the finals, are not under a spot light, its just put the medals on your clipboard, go to the mat, and wrestler for the better medal.  I got roughly 2 hours of coaching done, helping my teammates on the mat, and off,  giving them advice that I thought they should have done in the match, and what they should do to improve. One of the wrestlers was Rubeen Salem, he was wrestling against, a really good wrestler, that I myself have wrestled before, so I knew he was in for a tough match.  Unfortunately when I got to the mat to try an help him out, he was already wrestling, and I didn't have time to warn him of his opponents skill level.  Nonetheless I was shouting out what he should do during the match.  I don't know if he was able to hear me, but I was yelling out to him regardless to try and keep him from getting pinned, and lasting all 3 rounds against his opponent.  To my surprise actually he DID last all three rounds, and finished a full match without getting pinned by the other wrestler, which actually took me by complete surprise.  After his match I had to wrestle, so after my match I went up to him, and told him how seriously proud I was of him to stand a good chance against the person he wrestled.  I gave him some advice (like seriously get lower with your stance!) that I hope he will work on, to be able to beat his next tough opponent.  This tournament we only had one coach so I had opportunities to coach my teammates all day.

Arthur~

3 days ago I was at a tournament with my team.   This was a perfect opportunity to coach my fellow team members, along with a few friends from other teams that might be there.  One of out former team members was coming along with us also. (I'm going to butcher the last name i know it) Arthur Gorgeiyev, former CCS champion.  My mentor decided it would be a good idea to take mental notes on how Arthur coached.  He was coaching wonderfully actually, even my coach was impressed.  He was calling out moves, and various positions for out wrestler to move to that even he didn't do when he was wrestling, but it appears he knew them quite well.  I took note of this as well, to be a good coach you have to know a large amount of the sport you are trying to coach.  I got my chance to coach for a few of my teammates, and watch how my mentor, and Arthur coached throughout the day.  It totaled around 7 hours.

Dual meet Capachino

Ok so this happened last Thursday I'm slow and should have posted this sooner, but it did happen.  We had a scheduled school dual meet with Capachino High School.  This is when we put the school teams line ups against each other head to head.  I unfortunately was hurt an could not participate, but this left me plenty of time to coach.  Now the actual coach was coaching, but I was with him calling out certain positions or how to improve on there position, for the current wrestler wrestling on the mat.  Our team won this dual meet and our coach was very upset at one of the wrestlers for bad sportsmanship.  I learned that sportsmanship is a key aspect to wrestling and shouldn't be taken lightly, especially as a coach.  This took place at Capachino, and I coached for about 2 hrs