THERE’S A LOT TO KNOW WHEN YOU START WRESTLING. THIS FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS PAGE CAN HELP.
What should wrestlers wear to practice?
Wrestlers should wear clean shorts/joggers/or sweatpants and shirt. Wrestling shoes are strongly recommended and can be ordered online via Amazon or other retailers. Asics, Adidas, Nike, Rudis, and Scraplife are preferred brands for most of our wrestlers and coaches. You can spend as much as you want on wrestling shoes, but there are many good models in the $40-55 range. If you don’t have wrestling shoes, you may wear a pair of street shoes but only if they are sterilized and only worn on our wrestling mats, nowhere else. They should be minimal athletic style shoes, not Vans/Crocs etc.
WHAT DO I NEED TO KNOW ABOUT SKIN HYGIENE AND WRESTLING?
It’s important for wrestlers to maintain good skin health. Wrestlers should shower with soap and water soon after practice. Not only is it good hygiene, it also helps keep the wrestler’s skin healthy. Only wear clean workout clothes to practice. Contact-sports can increase conditions to pick up a contagious skin disease such as Ringworm, Impetigo, Staph, etc. Most are usually treated with a topical medicine and go away within a few days. If your wrestler develops an itchy spot, sore, rash, or patch or zits all close together, you should have it checked as soon as possible. An experienced coach can do a preliminary check if you have questions about a possible issue, and a doctor visit is usually recommended if something appears to be contagious. Wrestlers with an active infection may not practice on the mats until it has been treated properly and is no longer contagious.
WHO SHOULD I CHOOSE FOR MY PRACTICE PARTNER?
You likely will not practice with the same partner each day. For the most part, we let wrestlers choose their own partners at practice. We can provide some guidance when needed. Many like to practice with their friends. That's okay with us unless they don't focus well together. We encourage same basic size, someone you like training with, and getting to know new people is a good thing socially and for your wrestling. Seeing different styles and abilities can improve learning. Variety is helpful, but so can be familiarity. Wrestlers are welcome to work with other beginners if they are a beginner, but they are also okay to work with kids who know more, at least during the technique practice portion of the class. Sparring with others during that part of practice is another thing. Beginners can wrestle with other beginners, or they can go with experienced wrestlers. Each wrestler is different and may want different things and have different comfort levels with other people. Training with someone your level or slightly less can give you more opportunities to practice the moves and techniques you like and are trying to become proficient at. But training with someone a little better than you can be okay too because you can see and feel how they execute the moves and techniques they use. This can be valuable in helping a wrestler realize what it takes to wrestle at a slightly higher level. We don't usually recommend wrestlers who are beginners to go with extremely advanced wrestlers. Those situations are not usually mutually beneficial, especially if done often. But some advanced wrestlers like to help tutor their beginner friends and are really good at that, so we give them room to choose. Know yourself as a wrestler and what you need, and do your best to find workout partners that are enjoyable to work with, that help you focus and get better, and who are close to your similar body weight.
ARE TOURNAMENTS MANDATORY IF TRAINING AT SANDERSON/NORTHSIDE?
For the National Team training groups, yes for the most part. Coaches of those groups communicate those expectations with their wrestlers and parents. For the main training groups (SWA State Level, Northside, etc.), tournaments are optional, however, many tournaments we attend have ability-level appropriate divisions for most wrestlers, beginner through advanced, so we encourage our wrestlers to do tournaments when they feel they have a pretty good idea of what they are trying to accomplish in a match, and when they have the basic skills to be in a match and “know their way around”. Tournaments are a great way to practice what you are learning and training in an “authentic” match opportunity. The feedback you can get from a coach at a tournament can be very valuable and informative to further instruct a wrestler how to improve or adjust their wrestling. If you wonder if your wrestler is ready for tournaments, have a conversation with a coach.
WHAT are the basics i need to KNOW ABOUT TOURNAMENTS?
Tournaments are typically on Saturdays, or the weekend. Registration is online at a website called www.trackwrestling.com and needs to be done usually by the Wednesday before the tournament. Because there are often multiple tournaments in Utah or the surrounding area on any given weekend, our coaches publish a schedule of the tournaments that our club will plan to attend. This schedule is usually published on our website and/or shared out at the beginning of the season. If it’s on our own published schedule, we plan to be there and have coaches there. If it’s not on our schedule, you are welcome to still go to it if you choose, but our coaches won’t be there. We often publish more tournaments on our schedule than we expect all our wrestlers to attend, so don’t necessarily feel like you are expected to attend all of them. This is just so families can attend tournaments that work for their schedules. In general, we recommend 2-3 tournaments/month in the winter season for wrestlers who are competing, but during spring season it is helpful to compete most weekends. Coaches of specific groups may recommend more of less than that, or emphasize certain tournaments for everyone depending on the needs of the training group or individual.
Wrestlers typically weigh-in for the tournament at practice on Wednesday or Thursday preceding the tournament and coaches enter those weight to the tournament host. Championship events, however, like Super State, Freestyle State, Western Regionals, etc. require on-site weighins. To register you simply go to www.trackwrestling.com, click on the “Events” tab, search for the event for which you want to register, and then register and pay all online.
Tournaments also run on a “staggared-start” schedule, meaning different age divisions start at different times. It is your responsibility to know when your division start time is each week. Flyers with information can be found at www.wrestleutah.com under the “Events” tab under the season in which the tournament is. It is important to arrive at the tournament at least 30 minutes before your age division begins so the wrestler has time to find his mat assignment, to warm up and stretch properly, and to be ready to wrestle on-time.
Be sure to register for the correct “club” for your wrestler: “Northside Wrestling Club” if on our K-9th grade youth team, or for “Sanderson Wrestling Academy” for high school and national team groups. If you don’t register for the correct club, your club coaches will likely not see them on their team rosters at tournaments to be able to know to enter their weighin information or to coach them matside.
WHAT ARE THE TYPES OF TOURNAMENTS & MATCHES?
We likely have a couple different groups of people who are training with us and both are needed and work well together. One group wants to just train twice a week at our practices and benefit from the live wrestling we do in practice. Some are just prepping for their junior high or high school wrestling season. That is great and you are in the right place. Others, however, see the various seasons as a great season to compete and several tournaments are offered.
Live matches are an important part of development in wrestling. They give our wrestlers opportunities to use their moves in a real match, which is a big goal in wrestling. You usually get live matches in one of three ways: “live” wrestling that happens at practice, matches at “Round-robin” tournaments, and matches at championship tournaments. I’ll explain each of these:
Practice Session Matches: We do plenty of live wrestling in practice. This is good and vital. It gives wrestlers a great conditioning base and a pretty good “feel” for what real matches feel like. They have to perform moves against opponents (practice partners and teammates) who are trying to counter them while also dealing with the threat of the opponent trying to score points on them at the same time. This is the core of wrestling: trying to score while not being scored upon. While matches at practice sessions are good, it still isn’t quite as authentic as actual matches at, say, a tournament or “match night”. Actual matches are just approached a little differently. They feel a little different. First, you may have an opponent you’re unfamiliar with. Also, kids usually wrestle a little harder, at a faster pace, and they get a feel for controlling a match in actual matches. We want them to get comfortable with this setting so it doesn’t feel like a big deal, which really it isn’t. We want them (and you) to see matches as just part of what we do. Don’t make them a bigger deal than they are. They can be a lot of fun! Win or lose, just going on the mat and competing is fun. It is just a game. But to be successful in the actual “game”, wrestlers need experience in authentic matches. We can get those in a few ways:
USA Wrestling Utah Round-Robin Tournaments: Everyone refers to these tournaments as “USA Utah” tournaments. They are typically held on Saturdays at different places (usually high schools) around the state. Most of these tournaments that USA Utah hosts are round-robin format. They usually have 3 or more tournaments each weekend at various locations around the state. We don’t attend all of these, but the ones we plan to attend will be posted on the Sanderson website. As a club we try to balance the right number of tournaments and at locations we suggest. You are always welcome to go and coach your own wrestler at USA Utah tournaments that we aren’t attending as a club. Most of these on this schedule are round-robin tournaments which means that wrestlers are assigned to wrestle a “pool” of 3 or 4 other wrestlers, and they will all take turns wrestling each other over the course of an hour or 90 minutes. Each wrestler typically earns a medal for competing, first place receiving gold, second silver, third, fourth, and fifth win bronze. Wrestlers are grouped into pools together as much as possible by age, weight, and ability level. When registering for the tournament (which is done online on Trackwrestling.com in advance), parents or wrestlers can select the “ability level” for their wrestler: beginner, average, advanced or excellent.
Championship Tournaments: These are actual bracketed tournaments. If, for example, there are 18 wrestlers in the same age division and weight, they will be all put into a double-elimination bracket. These are for all ability levels, but for the championship tournaments we attend as a club, we generally recommend wrestlers be at least the “average” ability level. Some wrestlers may try these their first year, but generally we’d rather recommend these tournaments more for experienced wrestlers who have a very good feel for how matches go, and understand the rules well, and who generally win many of their “beginner” bracket matches and at least half of their “average” level bracket matches. These tournaments usually only award medals to the top 6 medalists in the bracket. Participants are often from all over Utah and some surrounding states, except for “State Championship” tournaments which are limited to Utah residents only. We will have a few of these on our schedule for our higher-level wrestlers.
What “Ability Level” should you Choose for your Wrestler when registering for tournaments?
When you register your wrestler for these local tournaments select “beginner” if your wrestler is in his first or second year, or if he has wrestled for more years but is winning less than 50% of the matches he wrestles. After a wrestler gets to the point where he wins most, if not all matches in the “beginner” level brackets, start registering him for “average”. When a wrestler has gotten to where he wins most of his “average”-level-bracket matches, or if he has placed high (top 4 or higher at a state championship tournament), consider starting to register him for “advanced” or “excellent” level. There are of course exceptions to this, but this is our general recommendation.
I will add this caution: sometimes parents of beginners have put “advanced” level for their beginning wrestler with the thought that they want their wrestler to learn to wrestle against the very best, so “we might as well start now”. While an extraordinarily athletic, strong, or natural beginner may be able to handle that without getting smashed, 98% of wrestlers who try this method will get smashed, will have few opportunities to practice their moves against far superior wrestlers, and may quickly get discouraged which is understandable. I don’t have any problem with a beginner-level wrestler competing or practicing with wrestlers who are better than them at times because they certainly can handle it and can learn from it. I never want them to be afraid of anyone. But they shouldn’t be wrestling people out of their league every single match or every single practice. They need variety, yes, but as a rule, wrestlers will generally progress faster when they have partners and opponents against whom they can perform their moves. They will also enjoy it more. Once they’ve established themselves consistently at a certain level, it’s time to move them up to the next level. Realize that progress through the levels takes time, as do most meaningful things in life.
The ideal balance to me looks like this: I want my young wrestlers to have matches that are competitive. Hopefully most of the time they wrestle people they have a chance against, against whom they can score their own offensive points. They need to be able to have success and get wins. Sometimes it is good to run into tougher wrestlers because they can learn how to adapt to how those wrestlers wrestle, how fast they move, how hard they shoot and execute their techniques, but it shouldn’t be every match. That would be like a weightlifter trying to max every rep, every set, every workout. It doesn’t work that way, it won’t lead to gains, and it is miserable for the person being put through that ill-advised experiment.
On the other hand, if they are constantly wrestling opponents they smash and that’s all they do, they won’t get better either. So as they get better, they need to advance through the levels and find opponents (and practice partners) that make them work for their points.
HOW QUICKLY SHOULD A WRESTLER’S “LEVEL” IMPROVE OVER TIME?
A quick note on wrestlers, their current ability level, and how quickly they should move up the ability levels: Every wrestler is different and progresses through the sport in different ways and in different timetables. Exceptionally natural and athletic and strong kids may move from “Beginner” to “Advanced” by the end of one year or two. That is not the norm. A number of kids may advance from “Beginner” to “Average” over the course of their first year or two. That is what we see most often. But we also see some wrestlers advance a little more slowly, and that is okay for two reasons: one, some wrestlers for whatever reason just don’t come on until later, maybe even 4 or 5 years or more after starting wrestling. I can tell you story after story of a kid who didn’t win all that many matches much in grades K-5th or 6th grade but then all the sudden things changed around 7th grade or 9th grade, etc. Another thing to keep in mind is that many wrestlers will never be “state champions”, but ALL wrestlers can become very good wrestlers and have success.
Success for one might be winning a state, national or Olympic title. Success for another might be being a state medalist in high school. For others it may be enjoying the relationships he or she has on the team, being a good workout partner, staying fit and healthy, maybe being a “state qualifier” or being on his high school’s varsity team and contributing to his team’s region championship or state championship. Each athlete should pursue and find joy in the pursuit of the goals that are appropriate for him or her.
Our best advice for you as a parent in regards to “ability levels” and “success” is to love your kid for who he is (which I know you do!), don’t get caught up too much in the winning or losing of every little match but look at it with more of a long-term perspective, and get him to places where he can progress and learn, like practices and tournaments. Progress will come, and for most of us it takes a lot of patience. But watch for the little moments that show progress. As a coach watching a wrestler, a little moment that shows progress may be something as simple as a wrestler attempting in a live match a new move he has learned. It may be something like taking someone down whom he has never taken down before. It may be getting an “escape” point with only 2 seconds left. These are all things I can see and measure as a coach or a parent, and I need to be watching for those little successes. Those should be more the focus of my attention than whether my wrestler gets his hand raised or not. With that perspective a wrestler learns that it is more about performance and effort. Those are things he can control. With time, focusing on performance and effort will eventually lead to more wins in the win column, but that will take care of itself as you focus on the right things and the things your wrestler can control. A wrestler may win a match or lose a match, but either way may have a dozen or more visible successes that happened during the match.
Cheer for your wrestler. Help him regroup afterwards when he needs it. Celebrate the small wins both when he loses and when he wins. If you show him love and joy in his performance only when he wins, every loss to him may become a reflection of how he thinks he is supposed to feel about himself. His identity and self-esteem shouldn’t be based on winning and losing in wrestling, so as a parent, be sure to set the tone that we are at tournaments to compete, to have fun, to give it our best effort, to execute our moves and our routines. Sometimes it will go great and we’ll celebrate when it does, but sometimes it won’t, and that’s sometimes how it goes. Take the good with the bad. Outside of the actual match performance, there are other reasons we are there. We are also there to support our teammates, our friends, and to help serve in our community. Those are lots of ways every single wrestler on our team can notch wins each and every single weekend!
OTHER THAN JUST COMPETING AT THE TOURNAMENTS, HOW CAN WE MAKE THEM A MEANINGFUL EXPERIENCE?
Make tournaments fun by enjoying the time you get there, spending time as a family and getting to know others in the wrestling community, especially other families in our Sanderson and Northside teams. After your wrestler is done wrestling at a tournament, consider hanging out at our team area in the stands for a bit. Let your wrestler unwind and visit with other wrestlers in the club. Let them watch other wrestlers in our club who are still wrestling. If they decide they want to run around for a bit with other wrestlers on the team and go play a game or visit, let them. These relationships are important too, as much as their development in their wrestling skill, so invest a little time into them being able to make those connections outside of the regimented practice time and their allotted age group’s tournament time window. There is certainly no pressure for you to stay after your wrestler is done and you don’t need to stay all day, but a lot of good can come for your wrestler and his associations by sticking around for a bit at these team events.
When you’re done, consider going and grabbing a bite to eat, a burger or sandwich somewhere, or even a slurpee to drink in the car on the way home and let that be a small reward for your wrestler going and competing at a tournament. Small things like these can make for good memories for your wrestler and your families.