So he Wants to Wrestle eh?

A good friend of mine IM'd me the other day with a few questions, the topic interestingly enough was wrestling. No, not the professional kind, the middle school sport kind and as I'm one of the few people in my group who practices any sort of martial art she thought I would be a good person to ask.

Evidently one of her sons had recently expressed an interest in joining the wrestling team. He's not terribly athletic but then again nobody in her family is. It's not that they are fat or out of shape they just don't really exercise. They are all thin, genetics god bless, and in fair physical condition but as I told her wrestling is a whole different animal. She had concerns about injury, about he sons ability to handle himself in a physical situation, concerns over his physical health, general normal concerned parent questions.

I told her that he most likely would get hurt, and it was natural. Wrestling as with Judo, Boxing, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Muay Thai, or in fact any contact sport the chance of injury is high. Yet at the same time the risk of injury is known, and mitigated to a great deal. Rules exist in sport to mitigate the risk and a good coach, and a good team will look to train hard, practice hard and at the same time minimize risk. I also said something that made me pause. I said that the training takes care of that. By that I meant the pain, the inevitable injury, but I meant something more. Training in any physical discipline conditions your body. A football player hits day after day till one day he wakes up and realizes he's taking hits that would have floored him just a few months back. I take throws in Judo that when I started would have left me winded and on the verge of tears and now I stand up, fix my Gi, and go back to work. I'm able to do this because of the training, the conditioning.

Her son is small, lean, with little muscle mass. he is thin for his height, an advantage in wrestling and I wonder if with the proper training and conditioning and support if he could be a fantastic wrestler. Either way, good or bad I told her she should make sure he follows through, and I hope to offer whatever help I can.