Post: #1

I recently started helping coach a high school wrestling team.

These kids are mostly new, so I don't expect a ton out of them this year, and while I enjoy the shit out of it, I can't help but be frustrated simply by their lack of intensity on the mat. I remember when we wrestled in high school we really had the fire. We'd slap ourselves in the face if that's what it took to bring it up a notch before we went out to roll and try to crossface someone's nose off if he was putting up enough of a fight.

I remember some of us being warned constantly in tournaments to tone down the aggression, but fuck, it's wrestling, so at least we were aggressive. In our day, it was not entirely uncommon for guys to almost end up actually fighting each other in practice or their opponent in a match - that behavior was not encouraged, obviously, but when you throw a bunch of tough, competitive kids out there to battle like that it just happens sooner or later.

I'm sure you know what's coming. Kids these days just lack that warrior spirit.

Out of 12 kids, I'd say two manage to show it at all. The second best guy on the team is very skilled but even he doesn't have that kind of intensity - he's placing high in tournaments but with a bit of fire he could be crushing it. The only one I could see getting scary on a mat is the team captain and admittedly he's a stud and may make it to state, but it doesn't seem to be rubbing off on the others in the slightest - it's like they just see him as a different type of creature than they are.

I'm new to this coaching thing but so is the head coach and he's an old buddy, so he's willing to try out my ideas. If anyone has experience with this type of setting and how to get in these kids' heads and psyche them up I'd love some tips.

There's a lot I can help them with otherwise, but this is simply an issue I don't understand. I always had that fire in myself from a young age, and of course I had my weak moments like anyone, but for the most part I didn't take shit from anyone. And in sports I always brought it hard. Even if I hadn't been like that naturally, my teammates would have constantly been pushing me to get rowdy when it was game time.

Today's boys are just too damn soft. I swear with most of these kids if someone walked up to them and punched them in the face they'd just stand there looking bewildered. We have one light heavyweight who doesn't want to sprawl when people shoot in on him because he's afraid of hurting them. I don't even know what to say to that...

I'd like to help them with it even if they don't have the potential to excel at the sport - every man should have a little bit of fight in his veins.

Any ideas?

Beyond All Seas

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Kipling

Post: #2

Get them to do the Haka:





Aloha!

Post: #3

I thought about something like that or at least get them to watch some videos of it for inspiration.

Beyond All Seas

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Kipling

Post: #4

https://redraidernation.wordpress.com/20...-haka/amp/

Maybe that helps.

Kahuku jv kids. Their varsity is usually ranked nationally. Just a really good program.

What kind weight training facilities you have?

Maybe getting some interteam competition going there will help.

Aloha!

Post: #5

I just realized Kona is Jason Momoa

Post: #6

Just kidding.

I have no training or skill in this area, but here's a point of research: how does the school handle bullying, and what does it teach kids about violence between peers?

There are some schools where I'm at that practice a "restorative" approach to bullying or so forth, but I'm guessing more likely is that the approach to fights between kids is more or less to shame both parties for getting into the fight at all, that violence is always wrong.

This is a bad idea, because it teaches kids that the thing to be guilty about is the very fact of the fight itself.

Quote:Most "normal" people aren't afraid of the consequences of violence (pain) as much as of the violence itself. Fighting itself is bad. The lawyer isn't afraid of getting hurt, he is afraid of there being a fight. Wayne may be the aggressor but the voice inside asks, "what did you do to provoke him? Why didn't you stay away from him?" This fear is so primary that the lawyer backs down from Wayne for Wayne's sake, not to avoid getting hit but so Wayne doesn't have to hit him. Wayne is feared not because he's good at winning fights but because he's good at starting fights, and its oddly been indoctrinated in us that it is everyone else's job not to provoke fights with those you know will fight, even if you're in the right.

I want to point out how this dichotomy is very much predicated on a difference between people, not a sameness, and it's felt to be part of the hardware, not the software. There's you, who "knows better", and there's him, who "fights", and that's just the way it is. And since you "know better" it's your responsibility to not let this get out of hand. Pro-gun proponents can be seen as the logical consequence of this position: ok, I'll accept your societal commandment not to fight, but I want to preserve my right not to have to back down, either. The sad, logical retort to this, and I'm going to term it the "liberal" position not because I'm slamming liberals but because it comes from a place of compassion, though, when I write this out explicitly, is really just a kind of kind of classism: "it's best just to back down from them... because that's they way thems are."

There's your analogy for America's ((silently) passive-) (loudly lamented (but secretly feared)) aggressive post Cold War approach to all other countries. ...

If you think this fear/foreign policy explains our reticence to attack other countries, you've misunderstood: it just means we don't like being in fights, it doesn't mean we don't like other people being in fights for us. Hence: "allies in the region"; volunteer army; UN Peacekeepers; "adversarial legal system"; talking heads yelling at each other on TV. That's how we work. Chechnyans are violent; Americans are violent by proxy.

But the specific point is the premise upon which this all rests: guy A may be afraid of guy B, but he is more deeply afraid of the existence of a fight; and the only reason he'd be more afraid of "the fight" is if he felt on some level that fighting was wrong, and he could only have learned that from somewhere, was taught it.

To get people to be more afraid of fighting, even in self-defense, than the physical pain of an assault takes a lot of years of training, good thing we jump on it early.

First off: associate getting hit with guilt. Even if it's not your fault, it is still felt like it's your fault, and this can be verified by every woman in a domestic relationship, which is why they stay. This isn't innate, we learn this: your parents hit you only when you do something "wrong"; parents separate their fighting kids, "both of you go to your rooms!"; a schoolyard fight is never judged according to fault, the school punishes both people equally; "zero tolerance" says the institution that cares nothing about justice, only the preservation of power. "Nothing gives you the right to hit another person!" Nothing? Seriously?

The only people who learn that getting hit isn't synonymous with guilt are those who get hit inconsistently, randomly-- having older brothers, abusive parents, constant fights with other kids in the neighborhood, etc.

You'll observe a certain characteristic true of all bullying: the victim never fights back at all. He takes his beating, as if to show that he can take it, his strength is in not being broken. Why not at least throw a few weak punches? This is why the terrible father's typical advice to his bullied son, over the protestations of his useless wife-- "stand up for yourself! Just punch him back, and he won't bother you again!"-- is absolutely correct yet impossible to execute. The problem isn't that the kid is afraid of the bully only, he's (more) afraid of the system-- that he'll get in trouble if he fights back, or that he doesn't trust that system to protect him if he fights back and the bully escalates. The parents and school raised the kid to instinctively be ruled by the system, and now suddenly they are advising him to rebel? The bully's doesn't have this fear, he has already opted out of the system. And so the victim, after getting beat up, hears how it was his fault: "You know he's a jerk, why did you go near him? Just stay away from him." (6)

This is why, on the day that the victim does, finally, "fight back", it isn't by squaring off and throwing an uppercut-- it's overly violent, vicious, excessive, and that's not because he needs to overcome the bully but the bully and the system that in effect was protecting the bully, the system that controls the way he sees the world.

It's very difficult/impossible to raise a kid to be in the system, yet teach him also to fight against that system "sometimes." That was one of the problems with OWS, you can't shut down Wall Street if you have two credit cards in your back pocket. The only way to do this is if you try, on purpose, to raise your kid to be a little bit sociopathic. I realize that this seems like strange advice coming from a psychiatrist, but I'm not a very good psychiatrist. Also, I drink.

The only way to make kids understand that there are legitimate times when they must operate outside the prevailing system is by teaching them that there are even higher systems. (1) I don't specifically mean religion, but some kind of higher ethical duty; for lack of a better term I'll call it a strong superego; which says, without needing to explicitly define every case, "there's a right and a wrong, and you know what it is." (2)

That being the case, my guess is that you must make the ring exceptional in some way. You must convince them that school's rules and society's ordinary rules do not apply in that sphere. That if you go hard here, the System will not punish them for the fact of fighting or for the fact they feel like they want to rip another person's face off.

(Side note: while I was doing kendo, my dojo had a fascinating little ritual, that of mokuso, a brief breathing exercise, done at the beginning and ending of a lesson. The precise point of that ritual was to emphasise the fact that while in dojo you were really, truly in a different world to ordinary society: that you left the normal world behind when you entered the dojo, and that you left the dojo behind when you re-entered the world. It was designed to allow the students to create a psychological space in which it was perfectly okay to swing hard wooden swords at one another, and in which it was okay to expect to be hit. Maybe that might help.)

You could also ask why are the kids on the wrestling team? Is it something they like doing, and if so, why? What is it about getting mano a mano with another kid in a ring that appeals to them? If they aren't enthusiastic about the idea, why are they there, there's got to be a hundred other sports or things they could be doing with their time? Passion is a difficult thing to inculcate at the best of times.

God save us from people who mean well. -storm

Post: #7

(12-04-2017 09:47 PM)Beyond Borders Wrote:  I'd like to help them with it even if they don't have the potential to excel at the sport - every man should have a little bit of fight in his veins.

Any ideas?

Are the kids on opposing teams just as soft? Usually, getting a beat down or two will toughen up most kids but, if everyone's like that, I'm not sure.

Post: #8

Is there anything keeping these kids in the program, beyond their own interest?

The reason i ask is that there are soft cunts in every gym who either learn to tap into their aggression through being left with no other option, or they just quit. Usually the latter. But if the option of quitting is taken away, or made a lot more difficult, youll have better chances of keeping them there long enough to awaken their fighting spirit.

Pure physical domination probably wouldnt do it for them, but humiliation or loss of face seems to work wonders. For example, my son (much younger than your guys, 6 years old) trains in wrestling and had a practice match against a guy who is about 10, much, much bigger, but soft as shite.

My boy ended up winning that match, due solely to his aggression, leading to tears from the older kid.
But once the tears had cleared, we started to see a change in the kid. He actually started to try in the following weeks. It wasnt that he got physically hurt, but man, you can imagine the humiliation he would have felt at getting man-handled by a little kid half his size, in front of everyone.

Ive seen a similar phenomenon myself many times in kickboxing gyms - the self-styled "tough guys" with shaven head and tatts, who get a bit full of themselves after a few months training REALLY dont like it when they get touched up by clean cut "normy" type guys. Often they quit soon after, but those who endure miraculously find a better attitude and get a lot more from the training, again as a direct result of loss of face from being found out. Their image - in their own eys and those of others - took a hit, and necessitated improvement.

I guess when youre talking about the whole group, each person within it will have their own catalyst, as a reflection of their status within the hierarchy - the top dog has to fight to stay at the top, the number 2 is gunning for top spot, and those at the bottom are battling to stay off the bottom. Either way, appealing to their pursuit of status, rather than trying to beat the pussiness out of them, is what reaps the best rewards.

Post: #9

(12-04-2017 10:20 PM)Kona Wrote:  What kind weight training facilities you have?

The school has had a really tough time over the past decade or so, student population has halved (and it was a tiny school already), and they don't even have a weightroom right now. That being said a new gym was just built and there's a weight room sitting there waiting for equipment. Word is one of the gyms in a nearby town is getting all new stuff and going to donate all theirs but I don't know when that's supposed to happen.

That said, I'm pretty well-versed in strength training and can make do without.

Tomorrow planning to pull them aside four at a time and run them through a circuit routine using a dip bar that's there, a portable pullup bar I can bring in, some kettlebells, and some floor exercises. Not the ideal situation but I can certainly make do.

I want to get a few of them sold on the idea of getting serious about strength training now so they can see some dividends next year. We can improve them a little bit in the short-term thanks to newbie gains but the long haul is where they'll really transform their pudgy little pizza bodies.

(12-04-2017 11:01 PM)Captainstabbin Wrote:  

(12-04-2017 09:47 PM)Beyond Borders Wrote:  I'd like to help them with it even if they don't have the potential to excel at the sport - every man should have a little bit of fight in his veins.

Any ideas?

Are the kids on opposing teams just as soft? Usually, getting a beat down or two will toughen up most kids but, if everyone's like that, I'm not sure.

They're a lot softer and less scary than when we were younger, but no, being mostly bigger schools with a bigger student body to pull from, they're not quite as soft as these kids. Given that our guys are mostly new to the sport and selected from a student pop of a couple hundred or so, though, not a huge surprise.

But yeah, the beatdown always helps get them familiarized with what they're up against. I'm going to start rolling with them harder in practice too - I obviously can't go all out with them and risk injuring someone but I can definitely dial up the pressure and make them work harder.

Beyond All Seas

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Kipling

Post: #10

Well too bad for the school have limited resources, but good on you for being there. I could mail you some plates and bars, but you know, they charge by the weight.

Maybe try finding the kids that are most motivated and work a little more with them?

That might create a leadership situation amongst the team. They will then motivate the other kids.

I have many more thoughts, as u always wanted to get into something like this, and the most admirable dudes I know all coach in some way or another.

Aloha!

Post: #11

One of the problems that people have when it comes to strength training, sports, or any athletic field is teenagers think they can watch a motivational video and all of a sudden obtain what it takes to be successful. They think can pull out a muscle magazine and copy a program that a IFBB pro is doing and obtain those goals in a few years without putting in the work. That's one of the reason our modern day society is so weak -- a lack of will-power, a lack of a journey / awakening / point where they struggle and are forced to suffer to become a man.

Anybody who knows anything about strength training knows that the only way to obtain their goals is a progression based routine, that can be intensity or volume, it doesn't really matter but it has to be progressive. A lack of a progressive based routine is why guys have been going to the gym for 10+ years and still look the exact same, walking around saying "It's ok, I'm toned and women prefer this look "-- No bro, they don't, you look a little starving bitch. But anyway,

You can explain this from having the kids understand the legend of the wrestler Milo of Croton from 5th century B.C. He was the first to get it. He not only beat everyone in front of him, he destroyed everyone for over 5 Olympic games. When asked about his strength training routine. He gave a very simple but unexpected answer.

When he was a kid, he went out to the field a picked up a baby calf and carried it over the hill. The next day, he did the exact same thing. And the next day….and the next.. and the next. Until the little calf was a grown bull. Thus lies the beginning of one of the first progressive strength training routines than spanned many years making a man untouchable to the bitches in front of him relying on hopes and dreams.

Post: #12

Others touched on this, but I think it needs to be said directly to the kids:

"Are you here because you want to be here or because your parents are making you be here?"

It sounds like a lot of these kids had parents who said, "pick a sport" so they picked wrestling half heartedly.

Normally when I was forced to do something I didn't have passion in I wouldn't care.

Find out their motivations first. You may ultimately need to be a bit of a drill Sargent. Sometimes the best love is tough.

Post: #13

To be clear, I don't have any experience with coaching, but my thought is that you have to change the culture around the wrestling program.

Warriors come from a culture designed to create warriors; these boys come from a culture designed to create soft boys.

Not only do these boys come from a culture designed to soften them, given your comments about the school's size and resources, I'm guessing the culture surrounding the wrestling program itself isn't particularly inspiring.

I would try to instill a new culture into the program, one of winning and warriors and brotherhood.

Tell stories, show fight clips, create rituals. Have them slap their hands on the mat or beat on their chest and yell like gorillas before sparring. Give them all crazy nicknames like "The Mauler". Watch 'Rocky' and 'Braveheart'.

Do they have any heroes related to fighting? MMA fighters, boxers, action movie stars, etc.? I'd work on getting them some.

Obviously you'll have to cater the material you use to the kids and get them into it, but I think it'll help get them into that warrior mentality, along with the physical training, of course.

Also, banging their moms may put some extra fight into 'em.

Post: #14

(12-05-2017 02:22 AM)Enigma Wrote:  Also, banging their moms may put some extra fight into 'em.

God save us from people who mean well. -storm

Post: #15

Modern diets, estrogen in water & foods, lazy lifestyles, addictions to porn and masturbating and various chemical poisons in the environment have all lowered male testosterone in boys to catastrophic low levels.

Are you able to influence their diet and get them off sugar and other estrogen sources and prevent them from watching porn and jerking off ?

Difficult I know...but its the only way really.

Post: #16

I think a lot of it also boils down a severe lack of multiple male child households. There are a lot of only-children and a lot of singular-male-multiple-female child households due to people having kids later in life.

I find it extremely rare that a young man is capable of natural aggression unless he grew up with a brother within 3 years of his own age.

I fought from age 4 through to age 16 just about every goddamn day and it creates something in you that's just not there with other blokes who grew up by themselves, with sisters or with brothers that had a considerable age difference.

There are ways to overcome that lack of aggressive capacity but unfortunately they're a little intensive for a high school wrestling team. Boot camp is boot camp for a reason.

edit: Personally the only quick fix I can think of is to take them out and make them physically destroy something. It's a catharsis that been lost to most men, just to utterly wreck something every once in a while. Buy an old beater maybe and let them take turns at it with a metal pipe. Find someone with an old building they're about to demolish and let the lads wreck the fuck out of it first.

Who knows. It might trigger something primal.

Post: #17

The few years I wrestled in high school I sometimes had this problem. Some matches I would come out without it and do ok because I was more athletic. The matches when I did come with it, I would wrestle like a beast even if I lost.

My team was known for producing beasts of wrestlers. Out of the Varsity weight classes I bet 80% wrestled in college. In my last year wrestling, the captains and the assistant coach would get me into that mindstate by getting in my face, pushing/smacking my head, push me, etc. I'm guessing that worked because getting hit worked that primal spot if not I always looked at wrestling as a sport. Try to frame as just the opposite. Life or death.

The more matches you have you will learn what it takes to get you in and out of that mindset. It took me longer because I only wrestled during the high school season. Other guys on my team were wrestling all year. I would encourage them to do the same.

And the school size shouldn't be an issue. I'm from Michigan and toughest wrestlers almost always came from small towns.

Edit: added content

Post: #18

What youre describing sounds like a lack of the right "culture"

I wrestled in high school and I still look back on it as a very positive and even formative experience. The school I went to was on the smaller side (should have been AA) but competed in AAAA for some reason. Because of that it was pretty normal for the football team to go 0-10 for numerous years in a row. So we were pretty much laughing stocks in football.

But the wrestling (and baseball) teams were a completely different story. We were considered perennial powerhouses. When I first started wresting in 8th grade as a sub-freshman or "subby" (school was 8th-12th) the coach was already a legend and that year we had 4 state champs and one 2nd.

I think because the football program was so bad that the other sports were overcompensation. The "win or else culture" was so intense that there were a number traditions I look back on think it's pretty nuts.

Since the ultimate loss in wrestling is to get pinned we were taught to never ever lay on our backs. Even in the off season. It became so ingrained in me that it took years after for me (and other guys on the team I knew told me the same) to get comfortable lying on our backs be it at the beach, in bed...anywhere

If a guy got pinned during a meet it was such a mark of shame that it was expected he'd show up on Monday with his head shaved. In the 5 years I wrestled we had maybe 3 guys on varsity ever get pinned. (I was not one of them)

We got sanctioned once because it got out that we were working out 2 hours in the pre dawn before school and on Sunday.

It was hard. Really hard. But wearing a wrestling letter jacket at my high school was a big badge of honor and I'm still proud that I was able to letter 3 times

Wrestling was a big part of my life all year round. I went to post season and summer AAU camps every year even when I was playing other sports. I lettered in volleyball because I used that (fall) season to get in shape and drop weight for the wrestling (winter) season.

I don't know how you go about fixing what seems like a culture of apathy but it sounds like that's what you need. If there was a way to instill both positive and negative motivations. "Fear of losing" and "desire to win". Carrot and stick

Some type of token for victory's perhaps? Like gold star on the head gear? Skull and cross bones for pin? Some type of demonstrative reinforcement to establish that "winning matters" and "losing sucks"

Post: #19

It could be that the football and/or baseball coaches are telling them to do wrestling in the winter time to help them stay in shape and improve their flexibility. So, they don't see wrestling as their "primary" sport, but more like a workout routine, which might explain their lack of intensity.

Anyway...

Post: #20

There is a lot you can do. You're an inspirational guy, BB. First and foremost you can give these children your enthusiasm. I had a boxing coach once who'd been a national champ, and there's pretty much no sacrifice I wouldn't have made for him. He gave me his time, and his enthusiasm, and whilst I'd always loved boxing and trained hard anyway, starting to train with him was a sea change in my training and performance. He really loved the sport; that sincerity shone through, and motivated all of us who trained under him to work harder and be better, tougher fighters. You can do the same for these kids. They'll want to impress you and earn your approval, because you're that kind of guy, and you can use that to produce a great team. If you love wrestling, and love coaching it, then these kids will come to love you and want your respect as time goes on.

That said, it's important to remember that competition is the true gauge of training and progress. Not everyone who is a beast in the gym is a beast come competition time. I am a pretty good natured and easy going guy in general life, it takes a lot to make me aggressive, and I never much cared for competition unless it mattered - for that reason I was pretty hopeless in sparring relative to competition. I was also conscious of not wanting to hurt my sparring partners (to the extent that I could have). But when it came time to be matched up against a stranger, fighting for real, I was a totally different person with a vicious streak and a real killer instinct. I still trained hard in the gym, and was fit and technically competent, but sparring rarely brought that edge out of me. Some people find another gear when it matters, and until you've seen these guys compete some judgement must be reserved.

Post: #21

I wrestled in high school also, without a doubt one of the toughest sports there is. Indeed there are different levels of guys on the team, we had our alpha jocks at every weight class who had no trouble getting hyped up for a big match, as they often trained with the same intensity in practice. Part of building a winning team culture is identifying those pack leaders and using your captains as lieutenants to enforce your work ethic throughout the team

We used to watch wrestling promos like old Ric Flair interviews, or Stone Cold, The Rock, Hulk Hogan, Cena, or anyone like that who will appeal to kids and, mentally make you want to give it everything you've got and be a star. We would add in the goofy pro-wrestling stuff like that to keep it fun, do a couple crazy moves in practice to fuck around, or wear funny costumes to the weigh-ins, dressed like other wrestlers or whatever to keep the team spirit high.

But to reach the whole team and raise the intensity level to where you want it to be, and to develop that warrior spirit you really need to break your wrestlers down mentally and physically through intense training. Train them so hard that in that moment they forget who they are and only think of the team, as they forget everything about the outside world and focus only on your voice. The kind of shit coaches probably aren't allowed to do anymore, like locking all the doors and turning the air off in the middle of the summer until it feels like you're in a volcano full of sweaty dudes throwing each other around. Running up and down stadiums with a guy on your back until you're ready to puke....Then you do it again in wheel barrel mode until your arms are giving out and you are dragging your face up the concrete steps. Jogging with trash bags on under your sweats, then sitting in a sauna and spitting into a cup for hours to cut weight. We had some seriously old school coaches who wouldn't mind jumping in the ring and mixing it up, and didn't give a fuck about anything but making us badasses. You've got to make them forget everything they know and strip them down until all they know is that grind and drive to fight for themselves & the TEAM. When all that's LEFT is the warrior spirit.

Post: #22

(12-04-2017 09:47 PM)Beyond Borders Wrote:  Kids these days just lack that warrior spirit.
Any ideas?

When I saw "Warrior Spirit" and "Wrestling"...



THE ULTIMATE WARRIOR!!!!

That quote is relevant in all seriousness. With Christmas around the corner, and this lack of will, lack of fight being shown from your wrestling team, I'd remind them of their past, present and future (i.e. The Christmas Carol).

Show them their lives. Where they've been as kids, what lead them to this team right now, and what they want to accomplish in life (or scarier, what could be!).

Your training system should help them get to where they want to be. Foster strong bonds between your boys. Friendships to hopefully last a lifetime, as friendships tend to come and go as we age. Give them memories for the rest of their lives to look back on. So many good times on high school sports teams, not just winning, but hanging out and goofing off in hotels, restaurants, bus trips, etc.

These kids are lost in the shit storm of our culture, but I have a lot of respect you for coaching them. It's hard enough to change yourself by improve your life skills (game, the gym, income) let alone motivate others to join you.

Aside: I want to join a wrestling club, but there's none in my city. It's something to look starting up in the new year. I have next to no experience with amateur wrestling myself.

Post: #23

Not sure you can get away with it nowadays, but pair off similar boys who can't get the aggression going. Stand them in front of each other. One slaps the other hard enough to sting, and if the other boy doesn't go for him, slapper calls him "pussy". Then the other boy returns the favour until one is provoked into action. The goal being to release adrenaline and aggression. Or if that's too non-PC perhaps they can slap themselves. A bit of primal roaring perhaps, or aggressive chanting and chest beating (white boys haka). Tell them nofap for 2 days before training.

Post: #24

Haven't read the whole thread, but if it helps, these are the things I used to do with my MMA/BJJ teams.

1. Oklahoma Drills/King of the Mountain
Make everyone get in a circle and 1 or 2 sets of guys battle it out until some one wins. Winner stays in.

2. Fireman's Carries
Make everyone carry each other over and over for at least 30 mins. Maybe you guys do this already, but I have never seen wrestlers not do this. I stole this from them. If you really want them to bond, make em do this mixed with Air Raid drills will carrying a teammate. Also, make them squat their teammates at the end of the run/laps while doing the carry. Makes their legs, waist, and backs alot stronger. More so than hitting the squat rack in the gym. Makes em "body strong" which is very similar to "Country Strong" like the kids that throw hay bales on farms every day.

3. Hold each other's backs (hands on the backs of the shoulders) when walking into a tournament or a match up. Comes from the Gracies/BJJ and is a comraderie tradition that strengthens the team.

4. Granby Rolls and Bear Crawls.
Make em do them until they throw up. The benefit is that it will vastly improve their reflexes and conditioning.

5. Air Raids.
No one likes these. Do em till they throw up.

6. <no special name> We used to have this drill in BJJ where we would make 6-8 guys grab someone and try to submit and choke them out. This person has to fight off everyone. Some wrestlers I know did this too. They would try to pin the guy on the back. It doesn't make sense to do it when everyone is green and too newbie, but it toughens guys up though.

7. Old School Japanese External Training
I don't recommend it for wrestlers, but I used to walk around and chop, kick, knee, elbow, and hammerfist my guys on the back and thighs to toughen them up.

Hope this helps.

EDIT: The goal is not for them to just become more aggressive. Everything should be about "Controlled Aggression". Developing a high motor won't happen without serious amounts of repetition and drills. Just my 2 cents.

Post: #25

Some great ideas in here so far, some that I've already been flirting with and others that were off my radar. I haven't responded because bit caught up in the week over here, but didn't want you guys to think I bailed on the thread. I'll definitely get in here and read these more thoroughly and respond later.

On the bright side, the coach is on the same page with me on both creating more intensity in the kids and creating a long-term program with a cohesive, tribal spirit that can pass down from the one year to the next. I think we can definitely bring more out of these kids than what they have now, and we'll do all we can for them now, but the real results will be seen in the next year or two.

I'm also going to find out if there's a way to get out into the school during the spring and reach out to recruit other kids that don't know much about wrestling. This might be a good way to get some tougher kids out on the mat in the future.

We got a new assistant coach in the last couple days - he went pretty far in his high school wrestling career and because he's only 19, he still remembers a lot of the moves and counters us older guys have forgotten. He's also a damn good teacher.

Between the three of us, we're hashing out some ideas for creating a better wrestling program for the school overall and instilling some real pride pride in these kids. Also researching some of the rituals elite teams out there around the country are using to bring their team culture to the next level.

Beyond All Seas

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Kipling