Resiliency Skills by Coach Eric
“I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.”
D.H. Lawrence
Wrestlers are problem solvers who learn healthy resiliency skills to thrive in high stress situations.
Wrestling is a stressful event for all involved, especially for those gladiators choosing to step into the mat circle. They expose their strengths and weaknesses in the most unforgiving high school sport, against a single opponent, while wearing tight cloths, in front of friends and family. At the same time, Wrestling has a very simple goal: hold your opponent on their back for two seconds, which begins by choosing to stand across from another human being with the same goal; end this match quickly and move onto the next problem on the bracket. Everything else between whistles are details toward that end, but the compilation of successive details are how you get your hand raised in Wrestling. One mistake could cost you the match…just as the case is in Life. How you deal with these moments is the Life Lesson opportunity for a high school wrestler to learn and they get hundreds of moments to practice throughout a single tournament…hundreds of thousands of opportunities throughout four years.
The ebb and flow of practice and competition produces continuous stressors for the competitors, coaches, referees and spectators. One second our wrestler is winning by a point and the next they are losing by four points or lost by a pin. One match ends with your hand raised and the next you watch your opponent’s hand raised. One tournament you get a medal hung around your neck and the next you watch your opponent be recognized over you. One season you qualify for the State or National Championships and the next … and the next your career is over, so you become a Coach to continue this ancient sport. Decisions to accept these now historical facts and adapt to your new situation is a reflection of the coping skills a wrestler develops and ultimately applies in life outside the mat.
Wrestlers also do NOT tend to focus on what went well, give many compliments or take compliments well. A wrestler thinks “of course my takedown went well, I’ve practiced that move from that position, over a thousand times, in a 100 degree room, while tired, thirsty and hungry, with dozens of my fellow gladiators and coaches for years, and I expected it to work just like that! … I also expected my practice partners to perform as they did! … I expected my hand to be raised before even stepping on the mat! …Why were you surprised? I wasn’t!” The ultimate display of competition occurs when both wrestlers truly believe they have prepared to win and will win this bout as they shake hands, agreeing to the rules of battle.
However, there is always one winner and one loser in wrestling. A wrestling match can never end in a tie. Points are earned in succession. There are no panel of judges. Everyone does not get a ribbon, medal or trophy. The sport of wrestling does not care about your feelings, shoulda-woulda-couldas, or what you think you deserve. The wrestling mindset functions best in this winner-take-all environment, where one person earns the interview and gets the job while the second place interviewee is still unemployed. Wrestlers do not feel sorry for their opponent. They take pride in the consistent dedication and grind required to experience success. This makes Wrestling very personal, competitive and highly addictive for those who accept the challenge and try it, even once!
A wrestling mindset expects success, because they worked too hard not to. A wrestling mindset seeks out challenging projects or competitive environments and thrives in them. A wrestling mindset tends to focus on weaknesses, those cracks in their armor, that their opponent exposed during battle and implement solutions to protect or eliminate that weak spot for the next competition. A wrestler must be brutally honest with themselves or risk repeating an unsatisfactory performance. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing, but expecting different results (Albert Einstein). Even when a wrestler becomes a Champion, they realize that the first period takedown against them in the first round of the tournament could have occurred in the last seconds of the Championship match and resulted in second place, “unemployed” in a wrestler’s mind. Time to practice.
A high level competitor in wrestling is patched together by over ten thousand hours of practice, decades of experience and a continuous improvement attitude toward seeking dominance in the sport; knowing they will never be perfect, but will be a better version of themselves tomorrow. A wrestler recognizes and appreciates the dedication of others towards the same goal, but competitors must earn everything; just like an interview. A wrestler learns to prepare for Murphy’s Law, adapts to the ever changing situation and copes with the outcomes to fight another day. Wrestlers are not insane, but may be a little crazy for seeking out and accepting the truth of the sport: You will get out of Wrestling exactly what you put into it. Dan Gable said, “Some wrestle without great skill – none have wrestled without great pride.”
In the terms of learning how to cope with stress, I believe Wrestling provides the most opportunities to practice this skill set in a healthy and productive manner. A wrestler who grinds through the sport does not choose to cope with their situation by trying to escape from it, such as eating or drinking or drugs. None of those things are allowed in the sport of wrestling, at least if you want to succeed in this ancient sport. Wrestling Coaches have a warrior spirit to overcome the challenges of Life and are focused to instill these positive characteristics in the wrestlers they are fortunate to travel this journey with. Personally, I believe high school wrestling is what prepared me to cope in a positive manner with all the experiences associated from two deployments to Iraq. Coaching wrestling has kept me on a healthy and positive path of being a good husband, co-worker, employee and person.
A competitor in the sport of wrestling, even at the lowest levels, chooses to cope with stress through honest self reflection. Not because they necessarily want to, but because they have to. A wrestler chooses to score the next points immediately after they just lost some. A wrestler chooses to go back to practice and work even harder than the week before to earn a medal at the next tournament or become a Champion. A wrestler chooses to improve their diet and fuel their gladiator body instead of eating comfort foods. A wrestler chooses to exercise, practice and study in ways that strengthens their mind and body instead of playing video games on the couch. A wrestler chooses to pursue healthy choices towards becoming the best version of themselves. A wrestler chooses to participate in off-season and play other sports to hone their skills. A wrestler chooses to wake up before their opponent to be the early bird that gets the worm. A wrestler chooses to cope with what life and their ultimate opponent, themselves, throws at them.
“Once you’ve wrestled, everything else in life is easy.”
Dan Gable