Policy: Closed Practices
The following message is NOT for parents in our beginner’s program (M,W,F 4:45pm to 6pm). Beginning Monday (8/29), we are implementing our closed practice policy. In short, what this means is that parents begin to distance themselves from observing practice. Trust me, you thank us later!
Wrestling practice can be a very emotionally charged, high intensity place. Never forget that your job as a parent is NOT to coach, cast judgement, or make comments on their performance. Fortunately for you, we have all of that covered! It is almost impossible for a parent to observe training and not give their kid their thoughts, or (unknowingly) emotionally vent their frustrations or happiness to them. What we want is for our wrestlers to occupy a large majority of the emotional energy that is put into their career. When parents get too involved and start trying to step out of their lane, it causes psychological problems within the wrestler, and undermines the trust that the parents and wrestlers NEED to have in their coaches to achieve the highest level of success.
We have always had an “invisible parent” policy historically in our club which means we don’t allow any parent to wrestler communication and vice versa. Here’s the hard truth: it’s ALWAYS a distraction. I have analyzed wrestler/parent dynamics in this sport for the past 15 years and a lot of parents choose remove themselves for various reasons, while some never understand how to back off and let their young man/woman grow into an adult.
PLEASE respect this rule. “The Unit” which consists of the wrestler, the wrestling coaches, and the wrestling parents must be aligned and each taking care of their orders of business. The wrestling parent job is the most critical to success and the hardest. We are here to help make it a little bit easier and more effective. One of the hardest parts of your role as a parent is to do less.
If you are noticing something in one of our wrestlers, please reach out and let us know. If you have questions about their training and habits in the room, we are happy to chat about it with you and see what we can all do together to move towards the wrestlers goals more effectively.
Please hit us up with any questions or comments!