Concluding the 2008 School-Age Tournament Training Program

After 3 months of hard work and mental preparation, we are finally coming to the end of the training program that I put together. I believe the group has improved in leaps and bounds in the last 3 months. I am happy to say that the team's attitude has been excellent and every wrestler has developed more of their talent into useable skills. The key theme for this training program was to work on the basics. To that end, we only learnt a few very useful takedowns and ground attacks. Rather than just learn moves randomly, we worked through each technique very thoroughly and also studied the setups applicable to each move. The takedowns that we learnt may have been basic, but they contained the core footwork and body movements that are required to learn more advanced moves. We also worked on getting a well-rounded defence and understanding the crucial things that can either make an attack succeed or fail.

Finally, towards the end of the training period, I worked with each wrestler individually to develop his/her style and to encourage them to use their best moves effectively.

Looking Towards The Future:

I have deliberately omitted a lot of ground attacks and throws from this training program. I believed that learning the basic setups, attacks and defences were the top priority for the group. My intention has always been to branch out and teach more diverse techniques in future. The challenge will be to incorporate these new techniques into the different styles of each wrestler without confusing them. Learning more techniques is fine, as long as one does not lose sight of one's overall wrestling strategy.

I can already see each senior wrestler developing his/her own style of wrestling. This has definitely been something that has only happened over the last 6 weeks or so. This is because each wrestler is getting better at their basic moves and can now try different things to make those moves effective. This results in different wrestlers developing different styles. Thus, one of the important goals for the future is to continue to develop the individual styles for each wrestler.

The greatest barrier, in my opinion, has been the lack of consistent training due to sickness or injury. This has affected almost all the wrestlers and has resulted in very few wrestlers attending 2 or more training sessions per week. I do NOT think that this has been a big problem for this tournament, but as we advance to higher levels of competition, the ability to train consistently will become much more important. The first goal for an advanced training program is for each competitor to attend classes consistently. Once this is achieved, then he/she will be able to work on fitness and strength training on days with no classes (Tuesdays, Thursdays and weekends). However, if the wrestler does not attend training regularly, there is very little chance of him/her being able to train their skills while also working on fitness/strength at the same time. Advanced wrestlers need to work both skills and fitness. This can only be achieved by attending training sessions to practise your skills and for sparring, while also improving fitness in your spare time. Every wrestler who wants to advance to more difficult training programs must understand that this level of commitment is required in order to train at a high level. But this level of training is not required for everyone. Future training programs will also cater for those who enjoy wrestling, but who are not able to commit to such a high level of training.

Nevertheless, irrespective of which level of training anyone chooses, the foremost requirement is: to display a good training attitude and respect for your training partners every time you attend a class. This philosophy will continue to be stressed in all future training sessions.

With these goals and challenges in mind, we will continue to learn, both as coaches and as wrestlers, and to strive for improvement in all areas of wrestling.

------ "Citius, Altius, Fortius" ------