WrestleClub - Are you a Trophy Hunter Novice Wrestling Parent?

Wrestling in a novice division will only get your child so far. I think a lot of parents keep their kid in novice wrestling to increase their kid’s trophy count. Are you one of those parents that kept your kid in novice, even after he was dominating every novice tournament he attended?

Today, I would like to talk about the purpose of novice wrestling and why you should put your little wrestler in open as soon as possible.

Dont keep your kid in novice wrestling too long

two novice wrestlers

What is the purpose of Novice Wrestling?

The concept of novice wrestling is relatively new. The novice(rookie) division is for introducing children to the sport of wrestling. It allows them to develop the basics, so that when a wrestler is ready, he/she can compete with experienced wrestlers.

Novice Wrestling has become Tainted

Over the years wrestling parents have figured out how to game the system. It is now common to see wrestlers in a novice division that should have gone open a long time ago. I have even seen novice wrestlers who claim to be two-time novice state champions.

You are Holding your Child Back

If your wrestler is winning every novice tournament they wrestle, it is time to move them to open. If you want your kid to become a better wrestler, he needs to wrestle kids that are better than him.

Your kid will lose some matches, but that is what makes them better. Convince your kid to put on this best wrestling shoes and learn to battle better opponents. If your kid works hard, you will be surprised how fast they will improve.

Beating up on a true novice wrestler doesn’t do your child or his opponent any good. You might be thinking you have a stud wrestler. The reality is that you are limiting your child’s potential in the sport of wrestling.

A Wrestling Trophy is not the Point of Wrestling

If your goal is to collect novice trophies to brag on your child, you are missing the point of wrestling.

The whole point of wrestling is to teach your child how to be self-reliant, persevere through tough times, shoot for goals, and grow into a confident adult.

Trust me. If your child sticks with wrestling, he will have more trophies and medals than you have room to put them. Eventually, you will only display his most important wrestling accomplishments.

I used to be that Novice Wrestling Parent that I’m Talking About

Ten years ago, my child was a novice wrestler. He started at five years old. He lost almost every match his first year. I kept him in novice his entire second year.

He quickly started dominating his opponents during that second year. He ended up being a novice state champ.

I truly thought my kid was a stud… until I moved him to open his third year. He got his rear handed to him his first year of open wrestling. It was a real eye opener. In hindsight, I wish I have moved him to open earlier. I think he would have developed a lot quicker.

Take Advice from Someone that’s Been Where You are

I look at my son’s accomplishments now and realize that his novice accomplishments were just a building block to get him where he is now.

Take advice from a parent that has been in your shoes. Novice has its place in youth wrestling, but you should move your child to the open as soon as he is ready. In the long run, you will be glad you did.

What do you think?
I hope you enjoyed the article. As an active member of the wrestling community, my goal is to grow this wonderful sport.

Thanks for reading! And as always, feel free to post comments or questions in the comments section below or post on our Facebook page, I’ll be happy to try and answer them as quickly as possible.

I have seen this issue from both sides of the spectrum, and was somewhat of an activist about this issue in our region. Wade Schalles and I have been corresponding about youth wrestling recently and he said he doesn’t feel you should even take a child to a tournament unless you are certain they will win 40% of their matches.

It’s all well and good to say “It’s not about winning or losing..” or “it’s not about trophies…” but the reality is that getting slaughtered is not fun. And kids will just find something else to do. Some of this goes back to the “parent coach” issue I talked about earlier. Because in many cases the kids with the parent coaches are the ones doing the slaughtering. It’s very easy for a child to get discouraged.

A lot of this has to do with the way we match kids up. And it’s way behind other combat sports. In Boxing kids can’t even fight kids who have more then five matches then them. In sports like Judo or BJJ they have a RANK SYSTEM so you have a guide to determine not just what a kid weighs, or even how long they have been doing it. But the rank system actually is a measure of how competent they are. How much have they actually learned and mastered? In martial arts tournaments kids are paired within a certain number of belt ranks.

In youth wrestling we have the “Novice” system which is generally limited to two years. In those two years you face other kids who have only wrestled for two years. After that is up, they kick you out with everyone else into Open. This is often the time when kids lose interest depending on what age they are.

We have two good kids in our club. Both are 11. They are about the same age. The difference is, one just started (Jandyn), and the other has been wrestling since she was 5. (Jo-Jo) By the time Jandyn is kicked out into Open, nothing is going to prepare her to wrestle someone like Jo-Jo who would at that point been wrestling for over 10 years to Jandyn’s 2.

In contrast, in the Martial arts tournaments Jo-Jo would never be paired with Jandyn in competition anyway, as Jandyn would be a far lower belt rank then Jo-Jo.

The problem with the Novice system as it currently works particularly where I live here in Michigan is there is often a HUGE deficit in ability that you encounter. And the older a child is when they start wrestling, the worse this issue is.

My son was ready for Open at the conclusion of his 2 years. (No small part of this is because we trained a lot over the summer to catch him up) He has since went on to place 1st and 2cd at every open tournament he has been to so far this season. My daughter on the other hand still has critical holes in her game that she is slowly closing. It is all well and good to say that it’s “good” for a child to wrestle people better then they are and this is true to some degree. But I have also seen what happens when that is all a child does. They start to become very gunshy in their offense. Not to mention their confidence becomes very fragile.

The famous MMA fighter Georges St. Pierre said in his book “The way of the fight” that when he trains for a fight he intentionally goes out and finds grapplers that are not as good as he is to practice his offense, AND grapplers that are far superior to him so that he can practice his defense. And that too much of either will create terrible habits. So while it is true wrestling challenging opponents is important to your development, wrestling with opponents you can at least breathe while wrestling is equally important.

I have seen kids who were in Novice far longer then they should of been. And what is odd about it is that many of these kids went on to place at regionals and some of them even went on to place at states. I didn’t understand how this would ever work until I was working with my own daughter on her skills. We go into every match with specific goals in mind. “We are going to work on shooting in this match, and your sit out….” for example. Trying to learn new skills against superior opponents just doesn’t work. So I am fairly certain that is likely what these other kids were doing as well.

Now, all of this said my daughter is still having competitive matches in Novice, so it’s not like she is slaughtering everyone. Yet. And I know it won’t be long before she has to make the move. But I ALSO know that if she goes into Open before she is ready we will be right back where we were before. Which is that she will be afraid to shoot. She will give up on the bottom. Etc, etc.

What wrestling REALLY needs is a rank system. So that each kid can develop at their own pace and continue to compete and have fun without the pressure of having to constantly be keeping up with all of the kids in your weight class. And if we can’t have that, there should be an INTERMEDIATE level between Novice and Open. It is literally asinine to force new wrestler who is say 12 years old to wrestle a kid who has been wrestling since they were 5 and expect that to ever be “fun” to the average kid. ALL of the other major combat sports already have this figured out.

Reply ↓

Comments

Are you a Trophy Hunter Novice Wrestling Parent? — 3 Comments

Carlos Escoboza on January 13, 2015 at 8:20 pm said:

Hey my name is carlos escoboza. I truly enjoyed the article and i agree with you 100% . I was a wrestler myself. My son is a first year wrestler in 7th grade and i already put him in open competition tournament to prepare him for high school wrestling. I understand I’ve been down those roads.

Reply ↓
Neil Kiernan on January 13, 2016 at 9:58 pm said:

I have seen this issue from both sides of the spectrum, and was somewhat of an activist about this issue in our region. Wade Schalles and I have been corresponding about youth wrestling recently and he said he doesn’t feel you should even take a child to a tournament unless you are certain they will win 40% of their matches.

It’s all well and good to say “It’s not about winning or losing..” or “it’s not about trophies…” but the reality is that getting slaughtered is not fun. And kids will just find something else to do. Some of this goes back to the “parent coach” issue I talked about earlier. Because in many cases the kids with the parent coaches are the ones doing the slaughtering. It’s very easy for a child to get discouraged.

A lot of this has to do with the way we match kids up. And it’s way behind other combat sports. In Boxing kids can’t even fight kids who have more then five matches then them. In sports like Judo or BJJ they have a RANK SYSTEM so you have a guide to determine not just what a kid weighs, or even how long they have been doing it. But the rank system actually is a measure of how competent they are. How much have they actually learned and mastered? In martial arts tournaments kids are paired within a certain number of belt ranks.

In youth wrestling we have the “Novice” system which is generally limited to two years. In those two years you face other kids who have only wrestled for two years. After that is up, they kick you out with everyone else into Open. This is often the time when kids lose interest depending on what age they are.

We have two good kids in our club. Both are 11. They are about the same age. The difference is, one just started (Jandyn), and the other has been wrestling since she was 5. (Jo-Jo) By the time Jandyn is kicked out into Open, nothing is going to prepare her to wrestle someone like Jo-Jo who would at that point been wrestling for over 10 years to Jandyn’s 2.

In contrast, in the Martial arts tournaments Jo-Jo would never be paired with Jandyn in competition anyway, as Jandyn would be a far lower belt rank then Jo-Jo.

The problem with the Novice system as it currently works particularly where I live here in Michigan is there is often a HUGE deficit in ability that you encounter. And the older a child is when they start wrestling, the worse this issue is.

My son was ready for Open at the conclusion of his 2 years. (No small part of this is because we trained a lot over the summer to catch him up) He has since went on to place 1st and 2cd at every open tournament he has been to so far this season. My daughter on the other hand still has critical holes in her game that she is slowly closing. It is all well and good to say that it’s “good” for a child to wrestle people better then they are and this is true to some degree. But I have also seen what happens when that is all a child does. They start to become very gunshy in their offense. Not to mention their confidence becomes very fragile.

The famous MMA fighter Georges St. Pierre said in his book “The way of the fight” that when he trains for a fight he intentionally goes out and finds grapplers that are not as good as he is to practice his offense, AND grapplers that are far superior to him so that he can practice his defense. And that too much of either will create terrible habits. So while it is true wrestling challenging opponents is important to your development, wrestling with opponents you can at least breathe while wrestling is equally important.

I have seen kids who were in Novice far longer then they should of been. And what is odd about it is that many of these kids went on to place at regionals and some of them even went on to place at states. I didn’t understand how this would ever work until I was working with my own daughter on her skills. We go into every match with specific goals in mind. “We are going to work on shooting in this match, and your sit out….” for example. Trying to learn new skills against superior opponents just doesn’t work. So I am fairly certain that is likely what these other kids were doing as well.

Now, all of this said my daughter is still having competitive matches in Novice, so it’s not like she is slaughtering everyone. Yet. And I know it won’t be long before she has to make the move. But I ALSO know that if she goes into Open before she is ready we will be right back where we were before. Which is that she will be afraid to shoot. She will give up on the bottom. Etc, etc.

What wrestling REALLY needs is a rank system. So that each kid can develop at their own pace and continue to compete and have fun without the pressure of having to constantly be keeping up with all of the kids in your weight class. And if we can’t have that, there should be an INTERMEDIATE level between Novice and Open. It is literally asinine to force new wrestler who is say 12 years old to wrestle a kid who has been wrestling since they were 5 and expect that to ever be “fun” to the average kid. ALL of the other major combat sports already have this figured out.

Reply ↓
C.G. on February 11, 2016 at 7:47 pm said:

Amen
We had 4 coaches we removed from our team due to lieing.
They have now formed their own team (3 of them) & compete with ours for attention & support from our community.
Recently we took 14 out of 20 kids to a NOVICE
This new team had 4 of our former wrestlers. 3 & 4 yrs experience.
I told the tourney director a week before when registering this would happen & he allowed it because of $.
The “head” coach claims he didn’t know that NOVICE meant there was a limit of experience. Even after attending 1 a month ago & not putting his step son of 4yrs experience in that 1.
When my kids who have wrestled along side him & see this become upset…how do you not allow your kids to think of people as cheaters?

Reply ↓

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