ATTIRE
At practice, wrestlers wear shorts, a t-shirt and wrestling shoes. After the first few weeks, we recommend bringing along headgear when we start live wrestling at practice. The club has a collection of hand-me-down wrestling shoes and headgear that you’re welcome to use that can be checked-out (with a deposit) during the membership meeting. Failure to return the equipment at the end of the season will result in forfeiture of the deposit. If you buy your own shoes and your wrestler grows out of them, we greatly appreciate donated shoes for others in our club to use.
At tournaments, your wrestler will be required to wear wrestling shoes, head gear and a singlet. The club will provide a singlet that must also be returned at the end of the season. Custom team singlets will be available for purchase from the team store at the start of the season.
PRACTICE
Practice will always be indoors on wrestling mats which are cleaned on a regular basis. Practices consist of warm ups, conditioning, instruction and occasionally, games. Because physical contact is a part of the sport, and several skin conditions are generally associated with contact sports, we highly recommend your wrestler shower immediately after practice, in addition to any competition.
COMPETITION
"Tournaments" are the equivalent of "games" in other sports. Participation in a tournament is generally an individual competition, but if we have enough wrestlers at one tournament, we will enter for team scoring as well. Wrestlers may participate in as many tournaments in a season as they'd like. They are usually on Sundays, most commonly starting in the morning and lasting into the early afternoon. The club will send out notifications about local tournaments, identify which coaches will be in attendance, and ask for your response of whether you plan to attend.
In any tournament, your wrestler will be assigned to a bracket, which is a grouping of wrestlers with similar weights, ages and/or skill set. Most tournaments award trophies or medals to all wrestlers in a bracket. All tournaments require registration (online or mail-in), have a registration fee and charge a (cash) admission fee at the door. Most tournaments use an “Honor System” for weights, meaning you write your wrestler’s weight on the registration form and they trust you to tell the truth. However, if an opponent challenges your weight and you don’t come within so many pounds of that weight (usually 2), you will be disqualified from the tournament.
Typically, your child will be in a 4, 5 or 6 wrestler bracket. They will wrestle everyone in their bracket once. It is very common in Round Robin tournaments to see the “Madison Weight System”. Instead of grouping wrestlers into fixed weight size brackets (e.g. 55, 60, 65, 73, 84), the tournament organizer will take all the weights in a division, order them from lowest to highest, then split out brackets based on how many wrestlers they want in each bracket. In Double Elimination, there are essentially two brackets, Championship and Consolation. Everyone starts in the Championship bracket, if they lose, they drop to the Consolation bracket. If they lose in the Consolation bracket (which would be their second loss), they are eliminated from the tournament.
BOUTS & SCORING
The main objective of wrestling is to pin your opponent in a match between two competitors called a "bout." Bouts at the youth level almost always consist of three one-minute periods. During those 3 60-second periods, you will get points for different things that you do. If no one is pinned at the end of the bout, the wrestler with the most points wins. There are three positions a wrestler can be in during a bout: offensive, defensive or neutral. The offensive wrestler is in control and usually on top of the defensive wrestler. The defensive wrestler is fighting to become the offensive wrestler by gaining control. Neutral is when neither wrestler has control. All bouts start with both wrestlers neutral.
At the beginning of a bout, your child will put on a green or red ankle band. You will also notice the referee has two wrist bands on, green and red. When a wrestler scores points, you will see the referee raise the hand with the corresponding color of the wrestler’s ankle band and hold up the number of points scored. There are two scorekeepers at the table, one running the scoreboard and another tracking the bout on the scorecard to ensure accuracy. The scoreboard will always have green and red scores, and the person running the scoreboard will adjust the score based on the color wristband the ref is holding up and the number of points he is indicating.
Takedown (2 points): when a wrestler gains control and becomes the offensive wrestler from the neutral stance; control is defined as getting behind the opponent and taking them to the mat or taking them directly to their back without getting behind them and becoming the offensive wrestler
Reversal (2 points): awarded to a wrestler when they go from the defensive position to the offensive position and take control away from the opponent; if a wrestler is on the bottom and gets to the top without an escape, they are awarded a reversal
Escape (1 point): when a defensive wrestler gets away from the offensive wrestler and becomes neutral; this happens most commonly when a wrestler chooses to start on the bottom in the 2nd or 3rd period
Near Fall - 3 seconds (2 points): when you have your opponent on their back, and their back is at an angle to the mat of 45 degrees or less, the referee will start waving their hand to signify a count; if the angle is maintained for 3 seconds, the offensive wrestler is awarded 2 points
Near Fall - 5 seconds (3 points): same as a 3 second near fall, but the 45 degree angle must be maintained for a 5 second count; after a 3 point near fall is awarded, no more near falls will be awarded until the defensive wrestler gets off their back, and then is moved back into a new near fall
Penalty (1 point to opponent): locking hands is most common, but penalty points can be awarded for things like stalling (not trying to get a pin, doing nothing to maintain a point lead, not trying to gain control), swearing, kicking, scratching, biting, hitting, body slamming, or bending any body part beyond it’s normal range of motion (you may hear this referred to as “potentially dangerous” and it will stop the bout temporarily)
Pin/Fall: can happen at any time in a bout and ends the bout; at the referee’s discretion, if both shoulders of the defensive wrestler are touching the mat, the wrestler is pinned
Technical Fall: also can happen at any time in the bout; when one wrestler takes a 15 point or greater lead, the bout is over and the wrestler is awarded a technical fall
Major Decision: awarded when a wrestler wins by 8-14 points
Decision: awarded when a wrestler wins by 1-7 points
Forfeit: forfeit victory is awarded when a wrestler does not have an opponent to wrestle