Ideas to help freestyle in Indiana

[lewdwar]

So we already have  threads with people complaining about ISWA.  So the two tournament rule was a bust.  But what I was told it was proposed for two years so they stuck with it for two years. Who know what will happen next year.  So now is the time we need to start thinking of ideas to promote freestyle and to get more kids involved.  If all you are going do is complain and B**** shame on you.  I really like the ideas of Duals. Separate by PeeWee-SB and Cadets-Jr.  Maybe have a Dual during the week or if you cant get the numbers to run a Saturday tournament get with a few of the RTC's close to your area or talk to some of the coaches around and have a quin dual on Saturday.  If your club dont have enough kids combine with another club or get on indianamat and let people know you have an open weight class.  

[Ds Dad]

How about we start the change in the rooms. Coaches have to figure out a way to incorporate freestyle and greco into the program before folkstyle is even over. You have to get kids excited about it. You have to get parents to understand the different styles. A new mom in the wrestling room hears that little johnny is going to get thrown from one end of the mat to the other and she is scared. Coaches have to find a way to quell that fear and get the parents involved. Maybe have the older kids put on a clinic, maybe do a freestyle clinic at folkstyle state. No matter what the ISWA tries to institute, it is not going to work if parents come on here and see everyone finding excuses not to back what the ISWA is doing. Okay so people had to spend money to go to freestyle tournaments. If there was a folkstyle tournament that weekend would you have paid to go to it? How many folkstyle tournaments do you have to pay to go to. I've been paying for local and national tournaments for many years and I know that the national tournaments cost me a heck of a lot more than the local and I usually have to drive an hour and a half to two hours for the "local" tournaments. What coach Hull and the rest of the folks at the ISWA are trying to do is to make the teams better that are going out to compete against the rest of the nation. This in turn will help grow all the programs as it will get kids excited and could ultimately rejuvenate freestyle and greco in Indiana. We as coaches and parents are failing at that task because we give our kids excuses not to wrestle in freestyle and greco events. I promise we don't have more expendable income to throw at wrestling than anybody else here, in fact we probably have less, but we will make sure that just like the last 12 years, if our son has an opportunity to get better we will have him at the tournament that he needs to be at to get that little bit extra. Whether it is 1 extra match or 10 he will be on the mat. We will do everything as we always have to try to drag kids along with him to practices and tournaments. Ultimately taking a stance to boycott ISWA not only hurts Indiana team wrestling, but it hurts our kids individually. We don't need more reasons for the world to try to get rid of wrestling. Let's try to work together as a community to make this happen.

[warsawwrestling]

For what it is worth......

 

1. Get rid of folkstyle state for school boy/girl and up. Use middle school state and ISHAA state as qualifiers for National events. Have a folkstyle season for youth starting Nov/Dec with youth state being the week before high school sectionals. Than get freestyle rolling at this point. Gives youth extra 3 weeks for beginners

2. In place of folkstyle state (schoolboy and up) for ISWA they could replace it with a JV state. You could have 4 tournaments around the state (participants could be everyone that didn't make it out of sectionals and JV kids, maybe even include 8th graders that place in the top 4 at Middle School State). Take your top 4 from each of these tournaments for the JV state or hold the same 4 tournaments as a qualifier so you could have even more kids at state.I think this would be a big event, possibly bigger than ISWA folkstyle state. Plus you get a few more weeks or at least give purpose to the 50-60% of kids that stop around high school sectionals.  You could also do a big show about Freestyle at this JV state event to spike the interest of the kids and show the parents that it isn’t as dangerous as it sounds.

3. Freestyle
- 2 qualifiers for intermediate down. Maybe 1 qualifier for cadet & schoolboy. Open for juniors
-  Could use new format of weekday tournament as qualifier
-  Could use registered ISWA RTC’s as a qualifier
- Offer discount or reward system for kids that get more qualifiers than required! Proof could be receipt off trackwrestling, if track wasn’t used a form provided by tournament or RTC host. (could be gear, price reduction or raffle) Really like idea of raffle here because it’s a fixed cost, could raffle off bag, singlet or other stuff. Maybe 1 each division.
- State Pricing: Charge extra for group of kids that are not required to have a qualifier, if they do offer a reduced rate. (the kid provides proof of participation)
-Wavers for Team Indiana events that happen during freestyle time frame and injury waver from an appropriate and relevant to the injury. Example emergency medical clinic writing a note for a concussion. (Not qualified to clear concussion) Have a detailed rule about what is acceptable and what is not, kind of like a skin waver. This can only be signed by specific people.

 

Plus several other things spit balling here......
-Club development help (which I’m told ISWA somewhat offers, never have heard of it and made 2 attempts to start club, went to meetings 2 different times but never went anywhere due to lack of support on our side, but was never followed up with by ISWA to see what they could do)
-ISWA, maybe some motivated individual or club sets up a crew to run events at your club locations for a fee.
-Setup a clear team Indiana criteria that restricts anything but team Indiana participants in national events and start using ISHAA state, middle school state and youth state in folkstyle and ISWA freestyle state for freestyle nationals.
-Every other month meetings with ISWA reps. The off months have meetings with clubs, coaches athletes, officials and ISWA reps. Hold both meetings pretty much the same way, start with Old business like information, ideas questions answers or whatever from the prior month (at the ISWA meeting or Rep meeting) than New business like new ideas, information etc…..you get the point. Doesn’t really matter as long as it improves communication.
- Start using Email, Facebook, Twitter, Mail, Indianamat, whatever it takes and as many ways that can be found to get info out. Should be able to set this up to input info once and it shoots it to all of these!
-Club tutoring to help newer clubs (more of a support system).

[warsawwrestling]

How about we start the change in the rooms. Coaches have to figure out a way to incorporate freestyle and greco into the program before folkstyle is even over. You have to get kids excited about it. You have to get parents to understand the different styles. A new mom in the wrestling room hears that little johnny is going to get thrown from one end of the mat to the other and she is scared. Coaches have to find a way to quell that fear and get the parents involved. Maybe have the older kids put on a clinic, maybe do a freestyle clinic at folkstyle state. No matter what the ISWA tries to institute, it is not going to work if parents come on here and see everyone finding excuses not to back what the ISWA is doing. Okay so people had to spend money to go to freestyle tournaments. If there was a folkstyle tournament that weekend would you have paid to go to it? How many folkstyle tournaments do you have to pay to go to. I've been paying for local and national tournaments for many years and I know that the national tournaments cost me a heck of a lot more than the local and I usually have to drive an hour and a half to two hours for the "local" tournaments. What coach Hull and the rest of the folks at the ISWA are trying to do is to make the teams better that are going out to compete against the rest of the nation. This in turn will help grow all the programs as it will get kids excited and could ultimately rejuvenate freestyle and greco in Indiana. We as coaches and parents are failing at that task because we give our kids excuses not to wrestle in freestyle and greco events. I promise we don't have more expendable income to throw at wrestling than anybody else here, in fact we probably have less, but we will make sure that just like the last 12 years, if our son has an opportunity to get better we will have him at the tournament that he needs to be at to get that little bit extra. Whether it is 1 extra match or 10 he will be on the mat. We will do everything as we always have to try to drag kids along with him to practices and tournaments. Ultimately taking a stance to boycott ISWA not only hurts Indiana team wrestling, but it hurts our kids individually. We don't need more reasons for the world to try to get rid of wrestling. Let's try to work together as a community to make this happen.

It's not that I disagree with a lot of what you are saying, but I would assume that all the years you have put in you know the difference competition makes.  It's personal for me, as I'm sure it is for you, because my son is still in High School.  From 2nd grade - 10th grade we took him to many freestyle tournaments every year, state and nationals 10th grade. Than he was being asked to go on several different teams.  Cost money (not the issue), took up freestyle time but was representing Indiana, ISWA and whatever team he was on depending on the event. 3 things.   1st that is a big strain on the body to go from Nov, longer if you come right from football or do a preseason till May with little break, rest or recovery of the body (I feel I can talk on that because of my medical background, this is why you see 40 year olds getting knee and hip replacements).  2nd the competition is at a different level.  You may have 1 match, maybe 2 that would compare with a national tournament.  To this you somewhat agreed without saying it. You said, "If our son has an opportunity to get better we will have him at the tournament that he needs to be at to get that little bet extra."  I guess my thought here is how is how is it helping build numbers if a kid goes out and gets just hammered in 30 seconds. To me it doesn't help either kid.  It makes the kid that got beat not want to wrestle anymore (there are exceptions) and I would actually argue it hurts the better kid because it caused him to pick up bad habits.   He starts running moves sloppy, not on their toes (reacting) all the time because less experienced kids are more predictable (nothing bad just facts), and if they try to make it a match by practicing moves they get hit with taunting, parents being nasty and probably a bunch of other things I can't think of.  3. In my opinion I feel that the way the rules of late that the ISWA (last couple of years) has passed basically are asking our current high school kids to take one for the team and not compete in as many national tournaments but stay local.  I don't and I truly think no one else in Indiana wants Freestyle/Greco to fail or become worse and I feel the topic did what it was supposed to do, shock and get people talking (I didn't start the topic).  I think Indiana wrestling is better than people give it credit, there are a bunch of rooms all over the state still wrestling.  This transition that the top 10%ish has been going this way for a while, not just in Indiana.  The very best of the best (top 2%ish) only go to a few of the major tournaments a year, these kids have become more selective on which ones they go to and instead practice, practice and practice with the best people they can find.  This has kind of started a trickle down the line. It's big clubs like Coach Hulls, CIA, The country, Region and several others across our state that is helping save Indiana wrestling.  These better states have figured a working model for their states and we need to find one for ours.

[TripleB]

Double B (6 years old) definition of Freestyle to Single B (8 years old) - "It's where you can hurt the kid and not get in trouble", strangely enough, that's why he likes it. But definitely working on changing that perception on the local level.

 

I'm thinking of offering fight shorts or some type of reward to every kid in my club that qualifies and participates in Folk/Freestyle/Greco next year. 

[Fabio Jr.]

Eliminate the the local club tournaments or have fewer...bring in guys like Reece, Angel, Howe to run a 4-6 hr clinic mixed with some live. Get kids learning the style and practicing it....get a dual season.  

[Dyoung]

Reece ran one at warren yesterday

[Fabio Jr.]

not an RTC a weekend 6 hr developmental clinic much like Illinois does

[Ds Dad]

It's not that I disagree with a lot of what you are saying, but I would assume that all the years you have put in you know the difference competition makes.  It's personal for me, as I'm sure it is for you, because my son is still in High School.  From 2nd grade - 10th grade we took him to many freestyle tournaments every year, state and nationals 10th grade. Than he was being asked to go on several different teams.  Cost money (not the issue), took up freestyle time but was representing Indiana, ISWA and whatever team he was on depending on the event. 3 things.   1st that is a big strain on the body to go from Nov, longer if you come right from football or do a preseason till May with little break, rest or recovery of the body (I feel I can talk on that because of my medical background, this is why you see 40 year olds getting knee and hip replacements).  2nd the competition is at a different level.  You may have 1 match, maybe 2 that would compare with a national tournament.  To this you somewhat agreed without saying it. You said, "If our son has an opportunity to get better we will have him at the tournament that he needs to be at to get that little bet extra."  I guess my thought here is how is how is it helping build numbers if a kid goes out and gets just hammered in 30 seconds. To me it doesn't help either kid.  It makes the kid that got beat not want to wrestle anymore (there are exceptions) and I would actually argue it hurts the better kid because it caused him to pick up bad habits.   He starts running moves sloppy, not on their toes (reacting) all the time because less experienced kids are more predictable (nothing bad just facts), and if they try to make it a match by practicing moves they get hit with taunting, parents being nasty and probably a bunch of other things I can't think of.  3. In my opinion I feel that the way the rules of late that the ISWA (last couple of years) has passed basically are asking our current high school kids to take one for the team and not compete in as many national tournaments but stay local.  I don't and I truly think no one else in Indiana wants Freestyle/Greco to fail or become worse and I feel the topic did what it was supposed to do, shock and get people talking (I didn't start the topic).  I think Indiana wrestling is better than people give it credit, there are a bunch of rooms all over the state still wrestling.  This transition that the top 10%ish has been going this way for a while, not just in Indiana.  The very best of the best (top 2%ish) only go to a few of the major tournaments a year, these kids have become more selective on which ones they go to and instead practice, practice and practice with the best people they can find.  This has kind of started a trickle down the line. It's big clubs like Coach Hulls, CIA, The country, Region and several others across our state that is helping save Indiana wrestling.  These better states have figured a working model for their states and we need to find one for ours.

I agree with a lot of what you say here. I really think that coaching is where it starts. The biggest thing is getting the young kids on board. If kids are starting freestyle/greco in late middle school early high school they are truly getting in too late in most cases. Personally I see numbers go from 30-40 kids in folkstyle to 4-6 in freestyle/Greco. I had suggested in another thread a couple of things that would help both the ISWA (not losing state tournaments) and our kids to be able to get more opportunity to wrestle freestyle/Greco.

1. shorten the folkstyle season for pee-wee through schoolboy to have the folkstyle state tournament towards the last weekend of January to mid-February. This would give the younger kids more time to wrestle freestyle/Greco.

2. still have the folkstyle state event for cadets on up either the day after state or the weekend after state. (iswa wins-kids still get the opportunity at the triple crown if wanted)

3. hold off on awards banquets for clubs. (this will keep the competitive kids in the room for freestyle/Greco season. (if the clubs award kids by points from tournaments/practices attended etc.)

4. make a push to educate parents about the benefits of freestyle/Greco for their children to be well-rounded wrestlers.

5. have clinicians of freestyle and Greco at folkstyle state and at local freestyle/Greco tournaments around the state not only showing moves, but explaining how freestyle/Greco affected their wrestling abilities.

 

Just a few things that could get done and possibly help Coach Hull and the ISWA move wrestling forward in Indiana.

[dstruck]

triple B - you only get on our spring t-shirt and only receive a tshirt if you participate in free/Greco state

[casualwrestlingfan]

Make it into 3 "separate" sports seasons. Each 3-4 months and not overlapping. Make like current clubs but try and use the school name if applicable. Then recruit athletes who play fall/spring sports only bc they want to stay in shape as well as other winter athletes. (Depends on season ) In middle school our kids can play 2 sports in the winter/early spring season. We have a bunch of athletic middle school kids who never wrestle in high school as they choose round ball or swimming and even club hockey. I know some kids would like to wrestle and play basketball/swim/hockey. I'd really love to see 4 sports seasons in youth sports. You could have 4 wrestling seasons for those who want to specialize but still have it for multi sport athletes.

[indypharmd]

• A few of posters have espoused RTC's as a solution for qualification events, however, this forum misses the key target audience of Pee-Wee through Novice aged kids by definition.  As of this posting, there is less than 25% of registrants in PW-NOV registered for FS state that wrestled in FK state.

   

  Solution: open RTC's to younger crowd?

   

• Younger kids still play baseball - this interferes directly with FS/GR season. Mid week friendship meets/RTC/Academy practices could help.

   

• Run tournaments like Illinois does with bracketing and do FK/FS on same day and everyone gets out at a decent hour.

   

• Do away with the two qualifier rule - don't legislate/regulate  but determine how to encourage participation by creating value. (Heartland Duals was super cool. (Just wishing my son would have another opportunity to wrestle it his 6th grade year, but wt limit caps at 160lbs)).

   

• Limiting FK opportunities for Cadet+ does nothing to help encourage off season participation after high school season. Great minds can determine ways to entice participation in FS/GR by these groups. 

   

• Whatever other solutions are dreamed up, don't penalize the next generation of #bangers like Drousias, Mis, Alred, Mendez, Purdy, Campbell, etc. by making them choose between banging with the best in the country in spring FK events and hitting qualifiers in-state. They get all the FS training they need in their respective academies...

   

• The other thought is to evaluate your target audience's interests and see how FS/GR training/tournaments work into their goals. One of the worst things leaders can do is to impose their specific, learned behaviors of decades gone by on the next generations. Too many choices out there, gotta figure out how to meet the customers' wants to make the sale...

[EFuqua]

Thought I'd share some numbers I've come up with regarding Freestyle and Greco State participation.  You smart people can do whatever you want with them to make your points.

Freestyle participants-

2013- 814 wrestlers

2014- 787 wrestlers

2015 *2 tourney requirement*- 647 wrestlers

2016 *2 tourney requirement*- 601 wrestlers

There was a 3% drop from 13' to 14', 18% drop from 14' to 15' with the qualifier, 7% drop from last year to this year with an overall drop of 26% from 2013-2016.

 

Greco participants-

2013- 412 wrestlers

2014- 412 wrestlers

2015- 357 wrestlers

2016- 352 wrestlers

There was no drop from 13' to14', a 13% drop from 14' to 15', a 1.5% drop from last year to this year with an overall drop of 14.5% from 2013 to 2016 with no qualifiers needed.

[Y2CJ41]

Greco has been "saved" by having it the same weekend as freestyle state. I saw a state, maybe Iowa, that included both freestyle and greco in their fees. So the ISWA could charge $40 for state and you get to wrestle both.

 

The two qualifier standard has killed freestyle though. The sad thing is even if we nix it, we lost two years of training freestyle for MANY kids. Most will not want to pick it back up again just for a 6 week season.

 

Lengthening the freestyle season would be good, but let's be honest, the ISWA won't stop having folkstyle state for cadets and juniors. That was $30k in their pocket, you can't expect the organization to halt the breadwinner.

 

The two best events we have done the past few years are duals at Carmel and Mishawaka along with a "live" night where we had kids wrestle live, reffed matches. No one wants to spend a nice spring Saturday in a gym for a few freestyle...or even folkstyle matches. When the ISWA finally realizes this we can move on to other options. Sadly, my faith in them is at an all-time low and I think they will keep the qualifying standard as they will say it has boosted local tournament numbers.

Going back even further here are the entries and percentage drop

Year--Entries- % drop

2014--601-- 7.11%

2015--647-- 17.79%

2014--787-- 3.32%

2013--814-- -2.91%

2012--791-- 9.70%

2011--876-- 13.35%

2010--1011-- 5.34%

2009--1068-- 1.11%

2008--1080-- 15.43%

2007--1277

 

2009 and 2010 had separate events for Junior freestyle state.

[warsawwrestling]

Also, a side note I know back in the day they would alternate divisions on separate weekends.  This was nice because you could wrestle up 1 division, so you could wrestle both weekends.  Now, I'm talking about when I was wrestling back in the early 90's in AAU and I'm not sure if ISWA allows the same thing.  I know they combined this to make it more convenient so families wouldn't have to come down 2 weekends, which may have lead to a little added lower numbers.

 

Disclaimer: ISWA, I am not saying anything bad or good about either way.  I actually defended the decrease in numbers with this statement and gave you credit for convenience that I know some people were upset about.

 

• A few of posters have espoused RTC's as a solution for qualification events, however, this forum misses the key target audience of Pee-Wee through Novice aged kids by definition.  As of this posting, there is less than 25% of registrants in PW-NOV registered for FS state that wrestled in FK state.
  
  Solution: open RTC's to younger crowd?
   
• Younger kids still play baseball - this interferes directly with FS/GR season. Mid week friendship meets/RTC/Academy practices could help.
   
• Run tournaments like Illinois does with bracketing and do FK/FS on same day and everyone gets out at a decent hour.
   
• Do away with the two qualifier rule - don't legislate/regulate  but determine how to encourage participation by creating value. (Heartland Duals was super cool. (Just wishing my son would have another opportunity to wrestle it his 6th grade year, but wt limit caps at 160lbs)).
   
• Limiting FK opportunities for Cadet+ does nothing to help encourage off season participation after high school season. Great minds can determine ways to entice participation in FS/GR by these groups. 
   
• Whatever other solutions are dreamed up, don't penalize the next generation of #bangers like Drousias, Mis, Alred, Mendez, Purdy, Campbell, etc. by making them choose between banging with the best in the country in spring FK events and hitting qualifiers in-state. They get all the FS training they need in their respective academies...
   
• The other thought is to evaluate your target audience's interests and see how FS/GR training/tournaments work into their goals. One of the worst things leaders can do is to impose their specific, learned behaviors of decades gone by on the next generations. Too many choices out there, gotta figure out how to meet the customers' wants to make the sale...

 

 

I don't think RTC's should count myself unless they only are doing Freestyle/Greco (to count toward Freestyle/Greco state).  I know a few of these RTC's are open to all ages.

[Clint Gard]

I'm going to keep copying and pasting this because I think what I have listed are viable options...

 

It's been said a couple of times already I think but if Freestyle is something the ISWA wants to get back to in Indiana, then the focus and push will need to change.  I think Freestyle is great.  Loved it back in the late 80's and early 90's...it helped develop me at a very fast rate.  But back then, that's all there was.  Part of the problem is they started changing the rules and just made it really stupid IMO.  I think it is back to being what it once was, but all the rule changes turned a lot of people off to it.

 

Having said that...here is my 2 cents to pushing Freestyle again:

 

1.  Folkstyle Season for PeeWee-Schoolboy's will be November and December.  Tournaments can start the beginning of November and end just before Christmas Break.  We don't need to have a state tournament...we have too many "state" and "national' tournaments.  Just wrestle.  If you want to have a state tournament, then make the local tournaments a qualifier for the final one in December.

 

2.  January to IHSAA State Finals- Training for freestyle/Greco technique and rules interpretation.  Train your officials and pairings people.  No tourneys.  It's a proven fact that our kids wrestle too much and don't practice enough.  Ask any other country in the world and they will tell you we do the exact opposite of what they do.  We do not get the results other countries do...hmmm.

 

3.  February - March: Freestyle/Greco tournaments only.  

 

4.  April - Freestyle and Greco State

 

5.  Late April - ??: Training and more training for those kids that make the Fargo teams or any other types of teams.

 

I'm still thinking through some things but those are some rough toughts.  I'm telling you right now, kids will train freestyle if they want to get better.  Those that don't, will see a noticeable difference in their HS seasons and they will get on board.  If they don't, they will get passed by.  

 

Thoughts??

[AJ]

I do not understand why we need to cut folkstyle to help freestyle... If little Timmy wants to train and wrestle folkstyle, then why should he be limited on his options because some people are upset that freestyle is not what it use to be...  

 

why do we feel that we need to eliminate options?  

[gogoplata89]

I do not understand why we need to cut folkstyle to help freestyle... If little Timmy wants to train and wrestle folkstyle, then why should he be limited on his options because some people are upset that freestyle is not what it use to be...  

 

why do we feel that we need to eliminate options?  

There are folkstyle tournaments 9 months out of the year in most cases. I don't think cutting back a few hurts anyone.

[Y2CJ41]

There are folkstyle tournaments 12 months out of the year in most cases. I don't think cutting back a few hurts anyone.

FIFY

[grecoref]

I do not understand why we need to cut folkstyle to help freestyle... If little Timmy wants to train and wrestle folkstyle, then why should he be limited on his options because some people are upset that freestyle is not what it use to be...  

 

why do we feel that we need to eliminate options?  

See Timmy train folkstyle only.

See Timmy fail.

Fail Timmy fail.

Fail, fail, fail.

[warsawwrestling]

oh....poor Timmy

[AJ]

See Timmy train folkstyle only.

See Timmy fail.

Fail Timmy fail.

Fail, fail, fail.

 

How does he fail? 

[warsawwrestling]

How does he fail? 

He doesn't cause he has wrestling in his life.  Just the thought that different styles helps improve different aspects of your skills.  Freestyle/Greco help with defense on feet, teaches to take good shots, and good bottom defense from being turned.  Does hurt getting off bottom and working on top (in my opinion). I also think BJJ (Jitz) is great for teaching wrist control and scrambling (once again in my opinion).

[grecoref]

How does he fail? 

 

Because of the skills the other 2 styles provides. He will be behind the his competition.

[indypharmd]

I'm going to keep copying and pasting this because I think what I have listed are viable options...

 

It's been said a couple of times already I think but if Freestyle is something the ISWA wants to get back to in Indiana, then the focus and push will need to change.  I think Freestyle is great.  Loved it back in the late 80's and early 90's...it helped develop me at a very fast rate.  But back then, that's all there was.  Part of the problem is they started changing the rules and just made it really stupid IMO.  I think it is back to being what it once was, but all the rule changes turned a lot of people off to it.

 

Having said that...here is my 2 cents to pushing Freestyle again:

 

1.  Folkstyle Season for PeeWee-Schoolboy's will be November and December.  Tournaments can start the beginning of November and end just before Christmas Break.  We don't need to have a state tournament...we have too many "state" and "national' tournaments.  Just wrestle.  If you want to have a state tournament, then make the local tournaments a qualifier for the final one in December.

 

2.  January to IHSAA State Finals- Training for freestyle/Greco technique and rules interpretation.  Train your officials and pairings people.  No tourneys.  It's a proven fact that our kids wrestle too much and don't practice enough.  Ask any other country in the world and they will tell you we do the exact opposite of what they do.  We do not get the results other countries do...hmmm.

 

3.  February - March: Freestyle/Greco tournaments only.  

 

4.  April - Freestyle and Greco State

 

5.  Late April - ??: Training and more training for those kids that make the Fargo teams or any other types of teams.

 

I'm still thinking through some things but those are some rough toughts.  I'm telling you right now, kids will train freestyle if they want to get better.  Those that don't, will see a noticeable difference in their HS seasons and they will get on board.  If they don't, they will get passed by.  

 

Thoughts??

 

Why is the wheel trying to be re-created? Many on this board tout the strengths of CA, OK, IL, MO, OH, MI, PA, IA, etc. So, what do these states do (or don't do) to improve participation numbers? How parallel is the Indiana experience to these other states (not including high school class wrestling)? If the current state in IN is not that much different than the "premier states", then what is their competitive advantage that puts them ahead of IN (other than population size)? I'd be real interested to see if there were significant differences other than the elite clubs/academies train in all styles and bring together their respective regions' best to practice against day in and day out...

 

Clint - For elementary age - 6th grade, you'll have football programs going through October and early November. So, I'd imagine you'd lose a considerable number of kids - especially in central Indiana - due to that fact alone (if folkstyle was limited to the late fall). 

 

There was another post in the boycott thread regarding training in the style doesn't equal competing in the style at local tournaments. Many of the best youth wrestlers are already bypassing local events on the weekends to travel to the big tournaments in the winter and spring, but WANT to come together to represent the state at the big dual events -- both FK & FS/GR.  

 

Personally, the more FS/GR experience my son gets, the better - especially given that he's taller & heavier than the vast majority of his classmates and prefers to wrestle on his feet. However, I rather doubt having more local FS/GR tournaments is going to lead to more improvement than he gets in Chad Red's room night after night.