Andrew's first wrestling tournament 2018

This isn't running related so if don't want to hear my thoughts on Andrew's first tournament of the year, there is your warning :)  If you would like to stick around though to hear my thoughts and see some cool videos, then welcome!  A little bit of a background, Andrew has been wrestling since he was 4.  The first year we signed up for three tournaments and he actually wrestled at two.  I say wrestled, he really just threw himself on the mat and let them other kid land on top of him.  He was having fun, so we didn't really care.  The objective for us was for him to experience a new to us sport and have fun while doing so.  I can't find any of my videos from his first year but pretty much the second year as a 5 year old it was much the same.   It was pretty funny, but we didn't care, the objective was to have fun and he was certainly having fun.

As a 5 year old we just did one tournament.  We had planned three again, but he got sick on the second one and the third one was a bust because the coaches decided that the season needed to end for the littles, and I didn't want to go to a tournament with no practices.  

Enter in this year.  We have been battling some focus issues in school so we were interested to see how one more year of maturity would work on the mat.  Our club this year gave us suggestions on which tournaments would be best for what level are kiddos are at.  Andrew is still level one and I am sure we will stay there for the rest of this season.  I was debating about entering the Waubaunsee tournament since it was so early in the season, but it was rated as very good for novice kiddos so we entered and off we went!  Andrew was weighing in at 63 lbs which was square in the middle of the 60-64 lb weight class.  There was a possibility that he might have to wrestle some 8 year olds if there weren't enough 6 year olds at his weight.  Lucky for him, I am pretty sure they were all 6 year olds.

The video is below, and that folks is our very first WIN!!!!  17-0 tech fall win!  I was shaking so badly because at the end of last tournament last year, he almost won and got pinned in the final seconds of the last period of that match.  He was so pumped, and so were we!  It was obvious that he still has a lot to work on, but things are starting to slowly come together!

And then this happened.

Oh well, you can't win them all, right?  This kiddo is really, really good as we have seen him before and I am not sure if that just psyched andrew out or what.  

As the day went on we battled keeping andrew up and ready.  His first two matches were pretty quick but he drew a bye in the third round, so had to sit for a very long time.  I never know how he is going to respond but I was pleased with his last two matches, even if they were losses.  All i ask is that he tries and I believe he did.

We are just over the moon proud that he is actually showing us that he listens to his coaches and that he can actually sort of execute the moves!  He has come a long way and I can't wait to see where we go this year as a Wamego Red Raider!