May 2015. another wrestling season is wrapping up. we attend the awards banquet this evening, in fact. it has been fun, once again, on so many levels. and this weekend was the perfect bookend to another great season. a group of twenty local wrestlers and their families journeyed to Niagara Falls for the Canada East Championships....
the wrestling was intense and pretty top notch when you factor in all the best wrestlers had travelled from Ontario and provinces east of Ontario. Hudson, Layla and Adam were in the age categories that were eligible to participate.
beautiful venue....below, Adam facing his current nemesis...
they kids were fantastic~ not just in how they executed wrestling technique, but more importantly in how they dug deep, showed grit in ways that hadn't yet been seen, won with humility and lost with grace. i love that. the time away from the tournament was equally memorable. seeing all the kids chatting and laughing together over meals while the parents did the same, enjoying the sights and sounds and overall craziness of Niagara Falls, taking in some of the attractions, swimming and carrying on~ it all adds up to great memories of time spent away from the usual while bonding together in the atmosphere of the unusual...a nice mini vacation.
not the best pic with shadows and all, but so worth capturing AJ's current "go to" smile for photos. oh the sincerity.... :)
such beauty...how does the water keep rushing with such force?!?! crazy awesome...
and can i just say, Jeff is a spectacular wrestling coach. am i a bit biased? of course... :) but what i love love love about him in that role is his incredibly positive approach to each and every match. he truly gets what really matters on that mat. he always focuses on the character development of each wrestler, and not on their win-loss ratios. he does the same with the opponents. the post-match handshake is always cute to watch. Jeff will hang on the opponent's hand while speaking words of encouragement or praise~ and i'll often see the wrestler literally hanging on his every word. he can so quickly pick out some little tidbit of "good" that he witnessed during the match and bring that up at a time that each wrestler is seeking the approval, or affirmation, or direction that is so needed after the adrenaline burst of an intense match. love that. it is a tough sport. physically, mentally, emotionally. the awesome thing is that so many of the coaches (almost all of the ones i see year after year), both locally and nationally, seem to get the importance of keeping the focus on development of the wrestler as a whole, not just their stat sheets. quality men and women. nice to see that. you always hear about the ones that have lost perspective in sports and training up of children and athletes, but that has not been our experience so far. ok, so i've gone off on a wee tangent.....
here are a few more pictures to capture our weekend.
these are all cell phone pics~ not at all crisp or clear in this setting~ yet it's what we're working with at the moment, so it is what it is!
and that's another season. sad to see it end in some ways~ but onward to baseball next!
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