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Elementary Dual Team Questions


84Coach

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Troy, curious how you handle age discrepancies.  For example, if you have a 85 lb elementary kid that is a 6th grader, do you wrestle him against a 3rd grader that weighs 85?  Or maybe a better example is a small 6th grader at 55 pounds versus a Kindergarten wrestler.  I am just wondering cause I could envision some mismatches.

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Dual meets are basically elite tournaments.  You have to decide if your kid is going to be competitive in a weight class that could have an older 6th grader in it.  Dual meets are great because you get a ton of matches, but if your kid is really young you might want to wait until he gets older to compete. 

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My then 4 year old filled in on our team last year and got rolled by much older kids....it was ugly!!!

 

We host the annual Red Alert Duals in Madison on November 23rd, we try to get 4-5 teams. If anybody is interested, let me know (dubentz@gmail.com)!

 

Wghts 40,45,50,55,60,65,70,75,80,85,90,95,105,115,130, 150, and HWT. I'm pretty sure those are also the weights used at Elem State Duals.

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I would begin with local duals. There are more and more popping up around the state. The vast majority of local dual take place before the end of the year. Bloomington South usually has one of the first of the season. You can find others almost every weekend after up until the elementary dual state championships in early January. After that, the ISWA season is mostly individual tournaments.

 

Local (state) duals are a great way to introduce your "newer" parents to the sport. The kids are almost always guaranteed multiple matches. There are typically exhibition areas  for newbies also (can match kids up). The newer parents stay interested due to the fact that they can sit and watch the other kids from their club. They seem to enjoy the team aspect. As a club leader, it is sometimes difficult to hook a family when their first experience is at a local individual tournament. They may wait all day (in what seems to be chaos) to have their wrestler get beat twice in a matter of seconds. With this said, this is not too hard to swallow when you have been around.

 

As far as matching kids up, please use common sense at these events. I will not put one of my newbies up against a state champ. Or a 4 year old against a 8 year old. Just give or take a forfeit and find a proper match up after the dual is complete. 

 

Elite (national) duals is what Sig is speaking of. He would know (his boy is a HAMMER). This is a whole other ball game. These tournaments are for the nations top wrestlers. Many people put together teams of hammer after hammer to duke it out (usually in a large arena or a convention center). This can be a great tool to get your elite wrestler multiple matches against the nations best over a weekend (typically 2 or 3 day events).  It is funny that no matter where we go, the vast majority of the kids are the same kids that we see at other elite events. Kids that hit this circuit can make great friend with wrestlers from all over the nation. I typically like to hang with the other team leaders also.

 

As far as this goes, the ISWA has put together elite dual team together for the past three years. We plan on doing the same this year. Our tryouts (wrestle offs) will be on March 1st. Our trip will be in mid April. I hope to put together some solid teams and to show what Indiana wrestling is all about.

 

Please contact me if I can assist you in any way.

 

Matthew J Brewer

ISWA Folkstyle Developmental Director

317-201-0644

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I agree with Matt.  I generally will not wrestle a 3rd grader against a 6th grader.  The age difference even if the younger kid is a decent wrestler.  Usually a 6th grader is more mature, etc.  I just try to use common sense which is an oxymoron these days. 

 

We currently have for our tournament we are hosting on the 21st, we have 5 teams committed to this point.  This tournament is a pure tournament format where the kids will be seeded with Track Wrestling.  Team points will be kept, plaques to champions, etc.  Just a little different format than the normal duals.  This should get like kids to wrestle one another ultimately with the finals being very competitive.

 

There are times when we go to a dual meet format and one kid has a complete walk through and is not challenged.  Although a few years ago we were the kids getting walked through. 

 

Thanks,

Troy Patton

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Matt B. gives great information. Just to add to that there are some specific duals that will welcome teams with less experience and put them in a separate pool. Center Grove is doing this on Dec. 6th. You can contact me if your interested. Would love to have you guys.

 

Landon Clouser

Duals Coord.

CGWC

317-756-7656

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Do teams ever set up elementary dual meets thru the weekdays, or even a 3-way or triple dual?  I am looking into putting a dual team together for our youth club and open to any thoughts about a dual team. I think the teamwork aspect is a great way to build support.

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Do teams ever set up elementary dual meets thru the weekdays, or even a 3-way or triple dual?  I am looking into putting a dual team together for our youth club and open to any thoughts about a dual team. I think the teamwork aspect is a great way to build support.

In the past, we have went to other clubs during the week. Typically we have just matched kids up and let kids get a match or two. With this said, I have heard of some high schools doing a youth dual prior or during a high school dual. I love this concept. Lets use this thread to set up a few of these????

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I know our club has discussed possibly setting up a beginners dual meet tournament. I know when I've taken our typically younger kids to duals, they always get stuck with 5-6th graders. It would help even if they were older, if they were all beginners.

 

Something we might try to arrange in the next year or so.

 

We typically just head over to greenwood for a friendship meet, were we bring all of our wrestlers and pair them up with their wrestlers. Get in as many matches as they want that night and it's a more friendly laid back atmosphere.

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Thanks sslaymon:

Whiteland and Greenwood have had friendship meets for several years, which is during the week and the format works out well for all. We separate by division and experience.  We have the small kids on one side and the big kids on the other. NO Points are kept and lots of matches. Regardless, there will be 3 periods. If a kid gets pinned and there is still time in the first period they keep wrestling. The kid with the first take down goes to bottom in the 2nd period and then the top in the 3rd period. The ideal is to get mat time and kids are going to make mistakes or face a kid with more experience, this allows the kid to keep wrestling all 3 periods.  We had this friendship meet with Center Grove and Perry too and arranged beforehand what weights, and middle schools kids are coming.

 

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It seems a lot of the people that are on here come from the south side of Indianapolis, has there ever been the thought of a elementary dual league.  I grew up wrestling in eastern Pennsylvania and we went all around PA and NJ for duals like this.  I am interested in maybe getting something like this going.  My club is very young and looking to match up with similar clubs.  We have had friendship meets in the past, but are looking to go away from these.  Let's see what teams we could get interested.  See if we can get dual meets lined up. 

 

Thanks,

 

Ryan Williams

Beech Grove Wrestling Club

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In East Central Indiana we have setup a league, we call it the Rival League.  We have Friday night League nights. It is really setup for beginners to get a lot of mat time. We have generally 4 surfaces, we put pre-k through 1st grade on a mat, 2nd-3rd on one, 4th-5th on another.  We basically use coaches and parents to match kids up on the fly so they can get matched up with like experience.  We have had kids get anywhere from 1-6 matches in a night. They can almost get as many as they want in some cases.  The member clubs take turns hosting it. We all charge $1 for anyone that walks through the door wrestlers, parents, coaches or we do $5 for a family if it is greater than 5 people. Under school age get in free.

 

Depending on where the event is located we have had clubs that aren't necessarily League members bring kids to get matches.

 

Coaches write their grade and actual weight on their hands. I know there is another league similar to this closer to the Indy area called the Pioneer League.

 

Contact me if interested woody1071@gmail.com

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In East Central Indiana we have setup a league, we call it the Rival League.  We have Friday night League nights. It is really setup for beginners to get a lot of mat time. We have generally 4 surfaces, we put pre-k through 1st grade on a mat, 2nd-3rd on one, 4th-5th on another.  We basically use coaches and parents to match kids up on the fly so they can get matched up with like experience.  We have had kids get anywhere from 1-6 matches in a night. They can almost get as many as they want in some cases.  The member clubs take turns hosting it. We all charge $1 for anyone that walks through the door wrestlers, parents, coaches or we do $5 for a family if it is greater than 5 people. Under school age get in free.

 

Depending on where the event is located we have had clubs that aren't necessarily League members bring kids to get matches.

 

Coaches write their grade and actual weight on their hands. I know there is another league similar to this closer to the Indy area called the Pioneer League.

 

Contact me if interested woody1071@gmail.com

Your the man Bruce. I would love to see more of these. If we at the ISWA can help you guys in any way, please do not hesitate to ask. If this is something that they are doing in Ohio and Pennsylvania then we nee more of this.

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Perry tried to start a league a couple years ago with a few of the schools on the south side but at the time i think only Greenwood, Southport and Decatur Central was able to do it.  So what we ended up doing was friendship meets during the week with the beginners.  Which was pretty good each kid wrestled a few matches and the parents wasn't stuck in a gym for Eight hours.  As we all know the parents of beginners do not like to watch one match every two hours.  I am sure we would like to get the ball rolling again if anybody is interested. 

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  • 4 weeks later...

I think its a little late in the game this season, however I was thinking of starting an elementary league.  With the number of clubs registered with ISWA I am sure we could get 10-20 clubs to join up.  This wouldn't have anything to do with the standard weekend Dual Meets that are scheduled and should by all means not give any conflicts to them.  However, a schedule could be drawn up, teams meet on locations and over the course of two/three months, the teams could gain an additional 6-8 dual matches in the end.  If put together correctly, this could be a great addition to feeder programs and keep the level of expectations high when it comes to wrestling and what all is involved.  Put it this way, we all see each other week-in/week-out.  This would basically be another way to see new wrestlers outside of the standard weekend tournaments.  It can work guys with a little mat burns (elbow grease to some people :).......


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Dual meets for the elementary guys is an awesome experience and has done wonders for programs I've been involved with...but it has also been nightmarish at times.  

 

I think the issue with dual leagues is that you have to start putting rules in place.  After you set the rules, then you have to trust that people follow the integrity of the rules.  Jim Watkins is the head coach at Calumet High School and has always been a mentor of mine.  I've repeated his phrase often, "It's always right to do the right thing.  It's not always easy to do the right thing....but it's always right"

 

For example, as we look at the history of elementary dual tourneys in Indiana, there's been situations where Team A might have not have had enough kids in their club to compete, so they picked up a couple local kids from surrounding schools to help complete their lineups.  Then Team B would do the same, but would pick up a couple kids to 'complete their lineup' that accidentally were multiple time state champions.

 

Now here's the tough part....how do you set  the rules or guidelines for these situations?  

 

If Team A is a couple kids short of filling a lineup and the kids on Team A have a couple friends in neighbor schools that don't have a dual team, I think it's great that they're growing the sport by including others to fill their team.

 

If Team B has enough kids (or even if they don't!) and they go searching for elementary killers so they can pound other local teams, then I think that shows a lack of integrity.

 

There are many examples of things like this when dealing with elementary wrestling.  One person says in this thread, "What do you do with 6th graders and 3rd graders that weigh 80?"  

 

I've been lucky enough to run some rooms that have had some tough hombres in them.  Kyle Ayresman, Stevan Micic, Sean McMurray, Jason Tsitrsis, Eric Roach, Mitch Sliga, Cody LeCount could all wrestle the guy 3 yrs older than them, or 20 lbs bigger when they were in elementary school.  In fact, it was probably better for them if they did to that. (I think there's 19 IHSAA State Championships in that group of elementary guys!).  That doesn't mean everyone is supposed to wrestle older bigger.

 

Carmel USA ran a freestyle duals tourney last spring.  I was asked by all 5 teams that entered the tourney, "do we have to have a team made up of only kids from our schools?".  My answer was, "we're trying to put a competition together so kids can wrestle freestyle in a dual format.  If you come with an all star team of killers, you will murder every team there.  You'll get a $2 medal and I will publicly taunt you in front of many people." (ha!)

 

We intentionally reached out to schools that we know have integrity and it was an amazing event.  

 

CUSAWC is currently in their third year of our Youth Wrestling League.  We split all of the kids into 4 teams (we have about 80 this year).  We have practices on Mon/Wed and in November, we have 'competitions' on Monday nights.  There are no weigh ins and zero parent coaches.  On days of competition we have coaches match kids up from both teams so there is as quality of wrestling as we can try to get.  Our goal of YWL is to provide a place for all elementary guys to learn about the sport, improve they physical skills, and have a great time.

 

We have put together an elementary team from guys in our YWL.  We are hosting small triple dual elementary meets once a month.  I believe that they are full for Nov/Dec.  

 

 

Ed Pendoski

CUSAWC Coach

ISWA Kids Director

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