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