Wrestling

The next 2 posts could be alternately titled, "Why I love my SLR camera and will carry the big thing around more often even if it is heavy and doesn't fit neatly in my purse."  Just saying.

My son is now a wrestler.

I realize that by the time a child is 16 years old they typically have been involved in sports for years and years, have lots of experience in sports teams and have pretty much chosen a sport and are busy honing the skill but that is not us.

We figured out at an early age that Jake was not a team sport kind of kid.  And since the options for younger kids was pretty much soccer, baseball, basketball or hockey we probably weren't going to become a sports family.  We did stay in baseball until 3rd or 4th grade but finally we agreed Jake's interests lay elsewhere and moved on.

Then I became an adult onset athlete and started wishing I had some background in exercise from my youth and started revisiting our decision to just go merrily along without sports in Jake's life.  Jake started doing some running with me and as you may recall I talked him into going out for track last spring.  He wasn't great at it but he seemed to be enjoying it and the important thing was that he was moving his body.  I mostly start and finish races toward the back of the pack and every time I finish I don't think of all the people who finished in front of me but of all the people sitting at home on their couches who would never even try to run.  I am a winner.  Jake was a winner every time he stepped on the track.

Still, it is fun to do well and win.

This fall a friend of Jake's in his weight lifting class started talking to him about winter wrestling.  He taught Jake a few moves and invited Jake to some captains practices before the season started.  I have to say I was pretty excited to see Jake on the wrestling team.  He had hoped to be part of the winter plays and I was disappointed for him when he didn't get a part but I was just so excited to see him on wrestling it was hard for me to be too upset.

Saturday was the first wrestling tournament of the season.  It would be Jake's first chance to wrestle outside of practice.  They had just started official practices 2 weeks before so I didn't know what to expect but I knew Jake was really enjoying being on the team.

Jake is in black

He did awesome.  Although I only caught one of his 3 matches because of a church meeting that day (the tournament was from 9-4) I was so impressed with him.  These pictures are of the first match which he lost 3-4.  I was told but other people who know better what is going on and how things are scored that he did really good and low scores are good.  The second match wasn't as good, he was pinned almost immediately but on the third match he pinned his opponent.  Hurray for him.  Overall a great first time out.

Here is a little peak at my boy in action in his first ever official wrestling match:

Grr I can't get it to load.  Will try again later.  Sorry.  My computer isn't very powerful and really does not like videos.

I must confess I briefly dated a wrestler in high school and remember that I really liked wrestling. I worried that maybe it was just because I liked the wrestler not because I liked the wrestling.  However, the moment Jake started wrestling I discovered that I really did like wrestling.  It was fun to watch him.  I can't explain it but I just love the intensity of the sport.  I am looking forward to the rest of the season.