That is GREAT emnistymon!! Keep encouraging him! To have just started at 12U age group wrestling other kids that have been doing this for years and qualifying for districts IS a great accomplishment!

I myself have come to love the sport almost as much as my son as well.

Thank you also Mike for your comments on my son, I have always tried to instill sportsmanship over everything else in my son. And after each match, win or lose, i try to make it a habit for my son to not only be a good sport on and off the mat by shaking hands (not just throwing hands like i see some kids do after a match) with his opponents and their coaches but also to shake the hand of the referee as well.

He appreciates everything that his coaches help him with either by learning new moves or by helping him on the mat when in certain situations to know what to do to either get out of a situation or clue him in as to what moves to use during a match. All of this comes with experience when a coach no longer needs to tell a kid what to do on the mat to win. And a lot of his experience has started to come into focus for him on the mat. In the last few tournaments I have particularly seen this aspect start to come into focus for him when he has come up against teammates in a bracket. I have a hate/love relationship with our club's rule of neutral coaching/neutral cheering when it comes to teammates wrestling each other in a tournament. I pump him up before a match such as this and then have to sit on the sidelines and hope that he can hit his moves without coaching or cheering. And this lately has started to be a turning point whereas he no longer relies on the coaches to tell him what to do instead he just knows what to do and this is mostly credited to matside coaches all year long such as yourself Mike; and Caleb really appreciates all of you.