Losing for the first time...

It takes a varsity tournament with people from out of state to realize how much work I still have to do. It was a wake up call. The guys in my weight class were taller and way more muscular. I swear, all my weight must be in my legs or something... I'm surprised im in their class.

Anyway, I only had 2 hours of sleep the night before, so I was cranky and got myself tired during the warm-up... nonetheless I had my mind set on wrestling.

The first guy, me and him were pretty evenly matched. I tried the chansley/chansler move (sort of like a cow catcher, not sure on spelling)

And i couldn't pull it off so I aborted (probably to quickly) I started on bottom twice and got 2 escapes. I shot for his leg, got it, then went for a single leg sweep. As my leg was in the air to sweep him, he fell on me.

Well, the second guy totally pwned me. He shot for the legs fast, I got 1 point escape. Then he shot for the legs again, got me on my back. And choked/pinned me.

I threw my head gear across the room out of anger, and got -1 point for unsportsmanlike conduct. Haha, I think I was just really super cranky.

Anyway what I learned.. at the end of the day. Sleep is important. And I have speed and endurance, what I NEED is technique.

I need to get a technique and constantly drill it. My coach shows us 100s of techniques and expects us to pick our favorites

Bruce Lee said "dont fear the man who has thrown 10,000 kicks 1 time, fear the man who has done 1 kick 10,000 times"

I take this to heart. I think it is super important to get an almost trademark move.

I will upload the videos to myspace, I can post the url if anybody wants to see them.

Any suggestions would be cool. I just guess it's hard for a first year varsity to compete with other varsity wrestlers

Losing is a part of the game and helps define who we are. You can give up, quit and complain or you can learn from this and make yourself better. In the end you are still who you were before and nobody likes you less. I know where you are coming from, I never liked to lose either. In junior high and high school wrestling I didn't lose much but didn't like it when I did. It was like I built myself up to be something and that when I didn't perform others looked on me as inferior. This was never the case and the older I got the more I realized this. And in my 30's and competing in gi and no gi competitions; I've lost more then I've won and I still love it. I consider competing advanced training. While training I get to know the people I'm always with and in competitions these people bring something else to the table for me to learn. I also learned a lot about myself and when I wanted to quit I pushed on and I'm the better for it.

Don't get discouraged, you are young and so much to learn. Find that one move if you like but don't get hung up on it as if you lose with that then you will be right back where you started. Be well rounded the best you can. Certainly improve your cardio and relax when competing. When I finally relaxed it was much funnier and I realized that is how I was when wrestling. I was confident but not over confident.

Good luck to you and have fun so that you have great memories to reflect back on when you are older.

The only tip I can give is positive attitude. If you've got an experience deficit compared to them, expect to lose a lot for a while. That's how wrestling is.