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In case you have not  set your goals for this season, it's still not too late. A couple tips for setting your goals for this season, make them specific and measurable, put your dream cap on, measure your progress, and share your goals with your coaches and family.

Make your goals specific and measurable. Rather then say I want to win a lot of matches, say I want to win 50% of my matches on my first year on varsity, or 75% or 90% or 95%. You know your approximate bouts per year, then you can put a number on it. So it might be 40 matches, it might be 35 matches etc. You want to make it measurable so you know if you achieved your end goal.

My goal my Senior year was to qualify for the State Tournament. I'll say more about that goal later. This goal is both specfic and measurable. E.g. I can ask myself and answer whether I achieved this goal.

Put your dream cap on. This is something I really did not do. Or maybe I did, because the previous year I was 20-20-2. So qualifying for the State Tournament in our tough Sectional was probably a dream, but it was not really a big enough dream. Hindsight is 20/20, but maybe my goal should have been to place. But then if I met this goal, I might have said we'll maybe I should have been a State Champ. So why not shoot for the stars and set your goals really high...

Measure your progress. For me, I was making progress, racking up the wins and pins and could tell I was doing the right things. Then I decided I was going to go up to 160 and still had some success. Then I realized I was not a 160 lber and came back down to 152 (after a couple of beatings at 160). If I did not measure my progress, I might have stayed at 160.

Share Your Goals. Put your goals on the mirror in your bathroom, tell your parents, tell your teammates, tell your coaches, tell anyone that will listen.

 Don't wait until the end of the season and say what some teammates of mine said to me when they were not wrestling to go down state, "I wish I could be going down state."

This same goal setting can be used if you are looking to go to college or trade school or just about anything else in your life. I set goals for WrestlingGear.Com. And for the most part, we come close to the goals each year (remember about the dreaming big part). It gives us something to work towards...

Good luck this season. Set some goals and work hard towards achieving them.

-Jeff Pape
WrestlingGear.Com - Wrestling Shoes and Wrestling Gear

I was taking a lesson yesterday and the instructor asked "How did that feel?" "Can you feel the difference in the swing?" and he just kept asking me until I said something like "Not sure, it did not "feel" any differently.

This might be a good way to see how your wrestlers learn. For example, some wrestlers may learn via audio, some visually, some kinesthetically (sp?). The last is how I would learn if I answered the instructors questions about how it felt, etc.

Then it got me thinking, often times in class, you are lectured to. So you are only learning through your ears rather then your eyes or how something feels. I always knew I liked to visualize things and if I look back one of my accounting classes that I did well in involved visually recording journal entries into t-accounts.

Just something to think about when you are showing athletes moves. Some kids learn through their eyes, some ears, some have to perform the move to learn.

Another idea from Beasy Hendrix, wrestling author, is take a look at your kids when you are showing a move. Make it a point to move back and forth in front of the group. The kids in the back that are practicing the move - don't yell at them, they may learn through feel and have to practice the move, the kids that are watching you go back and forth, chances are they learn visually, and if kids are just listening and not making eye contact they may be learning through their ears and not their eyes.

Now if the kids that aren't making eye contact with you are not learning the moves, they may just be screwing around...

That's it for now, I'll take a look for some stats on what percentage of kids learn with what method...okay here are some stats according to one survey...kids in the survey were approximately 33% strong; approximately 20% strong auditory; and the rest a combination of both. The remaining 45% about 30% showed a leaning toward visual and 15% showed a leaning towards auditory. I'll have to see if they break it down by learning how something "feels" and post back later.

Here is another article about teaching methods for different students. I think its worth a look - Click Here

If you would like to read another article, it's talking about business stats class, but I think it's worth a look as well. Click Here to read the article.

-Jeff Pape
WrestlingGear.Com - Wrestling Shoes, Wrestling Gear, Wrestling Equipment

Find out more about RPW's Syndicated Television Scheule - Click Here to Visit Their WebSite

-Jeff Pape

If you are a coach or a club administrator, be sure to keep Nov 12 open if you live near the Chicagoland area.

We are looking at bringing in some top coaches and club leaders to talk about building a team...

We have NCAA Champion, Mark Massery; Triton College Head Wrestling Coach, Harry McGinnis; Montini Catholic Head Coach, Mike Bukovsky; Illinois Wrestling Coaches and Officials Association will present a brief officiating clinic and more.

Did I mention every major wrestling dealer including adidas/Brute, Asics, Cliff Keen and Matman will be there to check out their new shoes, head gear, uniforms and more.

All of this will be to help The Smile Train, an organization that helps children and their families who have a child with a cleft lip. They help both within the United States and through out the World.

If you want more information sent to you, drop us a note on our contact form at http://www.wrestlinggear.com

-Jeff Pape
Owner

Vote for wrestling coach, Dan Gable, by clicking here to visit ESPN.

He is far behind so he'll need a lot of votes...

-Jeff Pape
WrestlingGear.Com

Here is a Fresno State T-shirt worn by Two Time Olympian - Kerry McCoy (he did pay us for this shirt). Save Fresno State T-shirts were made available over the summer to help raise money and awareness about the cancelled program. WrestlingGear.Com helped raise over $1,500 selling more then 150 t-shirts through out the nation. Here are more of the training photos at the OTC. Click Here

I could not believe when I was researching a product to buy, I visited a website where I assumed was publishing both positive and not so positive comments by its readers. Well I wanted to write a review of a product, and could not believe that the review had to be approved before it was posted.

Now I can understand, it is a good idea to review them to make sure there is no foul language on the post. But let's just say my review of the product was not positive and did not contain any foul language...but never made it on their website.

How can you trust product ratings if they are being manipulated?

One thing I am proud of is concerning our ratings, we only delete responses on two occasions. First if you swear or use foul language in the post. Second, if you tried to spam the ratings and voted multiple times. We delete spaming of both positive and negative posts.

You can shop and research products with confidence that we did not manipulate the ratings of the products...

-Jeff Pape
Owner

As I drove in today, I noticed two Karate schools within about 5 blocks of each other...why don't we have two wrestling schools within 5 blocks of each other.

Granted, I know the answer is there is not enough people doing pure wrestling, but why not make wrestling a little more of a participation sport. Why is there this win at all costs attitude that if you don't win your tournament you are not successful. It seems to mean there is a tremendous opportunity to market wrestling more as a sport that builds character, physical fitness, and self-esteem.

Rather then a sport that requires year round wrestling, three or four nights a week of practice, getting up on your parent's day off at 6:00 a.m. and spend all day sitting around to wrestle 15 minutes - if your lucky enough to get 3 or more matches that are competitive (so you don't pin your opponent quickly or you don't get pinned quickly).

I'll post another interesting idea for hosting a tournament...I think it's a great idea would require less sitting around and allow more wrestling...

Here is an excerpt of an email that was forwarded to me by a friend who had this forwarded to him...please take the time to read through this blog posting...

You can find out more information about the College Sports Council by Clicking Here

Here is the email:

Fellow coaches,
 
Many of you are aware that I am pretty active in trying to prevent the gender-quota-based destruction of college wrestling opportunities.  I have been at it for about 10 years.

The College Sports Council is the organization through which I contribute most of my work - the 7 CSC board members that do the heavy lifting include 5 members with wrestling backgrounds. 

With the help of volunteers and professionals who do a lot of pro-bono work for us the CSC have had some real successes.    We drive opposition groups with multi-million dollar budgets crazy, mostly because we are on the right side of this issue.   

I have never asked anything of my fellow coaches in this battle (because I feel you are already devoting much to our sport) until now - and that is because we are in a tough, time pressure situation.  I really was hesitant to send this email and I want to assure you that this is a one-time deal.  The situation is spelled out below.

Can you please get the below to people who you think would be concerned about the destruction of college and high school opportunities in any sport and will sit down and write a check (any size check) today?   If it arrives by June 30 whatever they send (501 c3 tax deductible) will be matched, doubling their contribution. 

Thanks for you attention to this -  call me if you have any questions. 

Leo



Dear Concerned Fan,

Below are excerpts that should give a sense of what the College Sports Council has been doing for the last 4 years - they come from a letter to a contributor, and a letter to a foundation. Primarily we are about fighting gender-quota-destruction of athletic opportunities through the moving of public opinion.  We battle on the PR/media, grass roots, governmental, and litigation fronts. I work with some smart, wonderful, people in the CSC and they have been doing a great job on a shoestring.

The College Sports Council is in danger of not getting some significant funds from a $60K matching gift offer.  A pretty solid expectation of $20 K just evaporated on us at the last minute - and the loss of the matching fund will turn it into a $40K setback. The deadline is June 30 and not meeting this pledge will leave a big hole in the defense of boys opportunities in sports.

If we get it done about half of the money will be used to hire a woman named Jessica Gavora to serve as our director of communications. She has worked in Washington DC for the last decade. A few years ago she wrote the defining book on the Title IX sports crisis, TILTING THE PLAYING FIELD. She is enormously capable and more importantly is passionate about the cause. Between her abilities and the fact that she is a woman there will be a great impact.

Thanks

Leo Kocher
Head Wrestling Coach
University of Chicago
219-308-4048 (c)

Home address
5063 W. 113th Ave.
Crown Point, IN  46307

PS - Checks should be made out to "College Sports Council" and mailed to my address above. The CSC is a 501 c3 so contributions are deductible.