Why Wrestle in the Spring and Summer?

Spring is the time when most seasons start wrapping it up for the year and the wrestling room isn't consistently used until the following fall. Most wrestlers take this time off and wait until fall to resume their wrestling career. Why? Many Freestyle and Greco-Roman tournaments are held in the spring and summer months. These tournaments are great opportunities for young wrestlers to further develop their wrestling skills. In many of these tournaments participants may wrestle 5-7 matches in a day. This many matches alone affords a wrestler much experience and a great opportunity to identify and improve one's skills.

Wrestling in these kinds of tournaments offer many benefits-

Wrestling is wrestling. Wrestling Freestyle or Greco will enhance an individual's folk style wrestling technique. Even though different techniques are involved and the rules differ slightly, the extra experience greatly improves one's skills.

    Wrestling through the year will keep you in wrestling shape.

    More attention to any activity allows you to get better at it. (i.e. If you play numerous chess games, eventually you'll get better at chess.

    Practicing your 'competition skills'. Competing 1-on-1 with another individual on a regular basis trains you to be less nervous in future matches.

    Practice dealing with the referees more.

    A wrestler can wrestle at whatever weight he/she is at - NO CUTTING WEIGHT. This allows the wrestler to focus on skills and the competition itself.

    Usually there is no team pressure. You are there with a friend or two and the atmosphere is much more relaxed. You can focus on individual skills and experiment with different skills. This is a good time to learn and experiment.

Even though the rules are different, again, wrestling is wrestling. The skills necessary to be successful in Freestyle and Greco are the same skills needed in folkstyle wrestling. The same physical conditioning components that it takes to be successful will be enhanced by wrestling in the spring and summer. The psychological aspects of wrestling are all the same and those areas will be developed also. I remember one of my first Greco-Roman tournaments I went to as a 15 year old. I wrestled 6 matches in one day and that intense (6 matches in one day) yet relaxed (just two buddies and me) atmosphere was one of the most important developmental experiences of my career. I went from being a mediocre 10th grade wrestler to beating two HS state place winners in this particular tournament. This tournament was the catalyst that ignited my hunger for the sport.

I encourage you to wrestle in spring and summer.

-Coach Fraser