Learning about wrestling the hard way

My son is underneath here, he is very

good at this particular move. If the opponent is 

on top, the safest thing to do is to lay flat, 

with legs spread apart (so they cannot flip 

you over using your legs).

Yesterday I went to my son's wrestling meet. It's the first time I've seen him wrestle (aside from a little video my husband took of his first meet last month) and only the second time I've witnessed international free-style wrestling (unless I unintentionally saw it some other time on TV). 


I think that the sports you enjoy the most, you learn about at your parent's side, or at school. In my life, the sport I have spent the longest amount of time watching has been cricket. Thousands of hours of cricket watching (some games go for five days, so it isn't to hard to rack up many hours). Many, many hours of watching at my father's side and him patiently explaining all the "whys" and rules and terminology as it went along. That's a great way to learn a sport. It is quite a bit harder to learn a new sport as a adult, simply because you don't want to sound like an idiot. Pride, I guess?


Well, this week I've settled for sounding like an idiot. Actually I didn't really care. I just wanted to understand what it was that my son was so passionate about. And to know when to cheer!

Here my son is working hard to pin the opponent, hoping to
flip him over and gain the ultimate "pin" win.

The middle school team has only two wrestlers and they're both new to the sport, as are their parents. (The middle school and high school competitions here are usually held in different venues. So we had no other parents to help us out.) So we had fun asking each other questions yesterday. We plagued the coach and other parents from other schools around us (they must have loved us being there :-) ). Here are some things I've learnt:

• Weight is important and wrestlers are usually only paired up with other wrestlers about the same weight
• Weight isn't important, in that little skinny guys can wrestle just as well as big bulky guys
• You score points for various moves. e.g. taking your opponent from standing to lying on the mat scores points, so does flipping him 360 degrees horizontally (like a roll) 
• But there are many things that score points that I don't understand
• A bout lasts two minutes (at least in this competition) and it was the best of three rounds
• The ultimate goal is to pin your opponent on their back with both shoulder blades touching the mat
• Most matches are won without a "pin", but instead on points
• But a pin is more exciting
• I think that yesterday's rules were that if you got more than six points ahead, you won the round and it was finished
• It is HARD to take photos of wrestling, especially if the gym is only half lit (any hints from you photographers out there are welcome — bearing in mind that I have only a moderately simple camera). The easiest times to take photos are when your son is pinned underneath another wrestler, but that's not something you want to show off to the world! 
• Wrestling is a great winter sport: our bleachers were hard, but warm with radiators underneath them! (I felt sorry for the parents of the hockey teams and futsal teams, as they sat for hours out in the sub 10 degrees temperatures. Another reason to be happy I have boys, they get to do an inside sport in winter!)

I learnt the term "ankle pick". It was how my son won his last bout. A surprisingly fast and effective way to down your opponent.


It is funny where your kids lead you. I never envisaged myself watching (or even enjoying) wrestling. But there I was yesterday, cheering my son as he did everything I'd taught him not to do. Not to push, shove, not to trip or hurt people. But before he did it, he shook hands with his opponent and after he'd finished, he shook hands again. It's pretty impressive the way they keep the aggression focused on just the game, and don't make it personal.


Yesterday I saw my son's determination put to good use. He's worked hard so far and he's learning and improving. I'm a happy wrestling mum.