Training Tip #4 – Success at youth ≠ Success in high school  

Motivation and success have a very close relationship.  As you start to have success it becomes enjoyable to do and thus be motivated. This leads coaches and parents into teaching easy moves that end the match and tricks such as headlocks, stacks so on and so forth. Easy answers and quick tricks help at first, but in the long run they are hurting our youth. Setting up shots, taking them and finishing them takes a long time to learn and to get good at so the kids learning them usually aren’t as successful in the beginning. Here is the problem….

A couple of years down the road Johnny who has had previous success doing head locks and such will get to upper grade school, high school, state and national competitions. When Johnny gets there and starts getting beat it’s because he didn’t get good at other moves. His headlock always worked before. He may figure out he has to start working shots and finishes it means starting all over.  Change is hard for people to deal with especially when they first had success so easily. So many successful wrestlers at youth won’t even make it to the high school scene. They made a bad investment using the headlock for years and their realization of this cripples their motivation to start over. Coaches and parent have such an impact on kids’ outlook and need to remind them again and again that success takes time.