12 Days - Day 6: Carley Wrestles!

I sort of cheated on this post. I had the post mostly put together but not quite finished so I never scheduled a time for it to post. Then I got busy with other things. Now it's Friday morning and I'm posting it as if I did it Thursday night. Still. Now I'm officially halfway through the 12 days! 

Carley is in middle school and gets to choose one elective for the whole year. Just like Josh, she chose one called "Exploration" where she is in art class for one semester and performance class for one semester. Unlike Josh, she loves the art teacher who is also the wrestling coach. The first day of school Carley came home and said she wanted to join the wrestling team. Walt and I agreed that she could but I honestly thought as time went on that she would change her mind. She stayed steadfast in her decision.

Wrestling started in mid-October with occasionally practices. Starting in November, practices were four days a week. December 13th was her first wrestling meet.

Carley is one of two or three girls on the wrestling team so yes, she does wrestle boys in her weight class. I've never actually been to a wrestling meet before, or watched wrestling for that matter, so the first tournament was a learning experience for both, me and Carley. (Walt was with Josh at his water polo tournament the same day.)

Carley got noticably better and smarter in her matches as the day went on. The first match, she was pinned fairly quickly in the first period. She was pinned in the second period during her second match. In her third match, she wasn't pinned at all! She did lose the third match by points, though.

Does this make any sense to you? It didn't to me at first either but I learned as the day went on.
Here is a quick run down on the structure of wrestling matches, if you are interested:

Structure of a Wrestling Match

• One wrestler will be given the green ankle bracelet (Home Team) and the other will be give the red ankle bracelet (Away Team). This will determine the line they stand on when starting in the center of the mat as well as which score is theirs on the scoreboard
• There are 3 periods
• First Period (2 min): Both wrestlers start in the "neutral" position, meaning both wrestlers start in the center of the circle on their feet. 
• Second Period (2 min): The Ref will flip a red/green coin. Whichever wrestler wins the toss gets to choose Neutral (on their feet), Top position, bottom position, or to defer 
• Third Period (2 min): Same as the second period, only the second wrestler gets to choose top, down, or neutral.

Wrestlers earn points by getting a take-down or getting away from the opponent.

Anyway, Carley did fantastic for it being her first wrestling meet and being up against only boys. I am so very proud of her, especially for sticking with something that isn't very popular with girls.

She was pretty sore the next day!

Below is video of her second match or watch it here on YouTube.