You are NOT Allowed to Cut More than 5 Pounds

You are not allowed to cut more than 5 pounds at Montini Catholic High School in Lombard, IL.  Straight from the mouth of their highly decorated coach, Israel "Izzy" Martinez.  Think you have to cut weight to be successful?  How would you like to know that Montini has been crowned Illinois team state champion 10 times since 2000?  Proof enough for me.  Listen to Izzy's thought provoking interview with FloWrestling here: http://www.flowrestling.org/coverage/249726-Jon-Jones-Izzy-Style/video/655745-Izzy-Martinez-on-real-problems-in-youth-wrestling

I agree completely with what Izzy says during the interview.  A young wrestler that's starving, exhausted, and burnt out isn't having fun, and isn't on a healthy path.  Izzy also stresses the importance of making wrestling fun for the younger age groups.  Back in August I started as a volunteer assistant coach for the Copley-Fairlawn Indian Wrestling Club (http://www.copley-fairlawn.org/wrestling), and one of my goals as a coach is not necessarily to have kids win every match, but to get them to love the sport.  I feel that if they love the sport they'll want to practice more and work harder, and success will come along the way.

 On a different note, I apologize for the month long hiatus from blogging.  As part of the job that I'm in, I'm getting a master's degree on top of my 40 hour work week, and I started that four weeks ago.  Add to that the fact that I'm now on call 24/7 for work, plus my coaching duties, and you've got one busy dude.  But, I'm not looking to use that as an excuse.  I'll write a couple more times this weekend, and then I'll get back to the goal I had in college of blogging once per week.

No more than 5 pounds,
Jeff