People don’t always realize how vital teamwork is in wrestling due to the individual components. In reality, wrestlers rely on their teammates for practice, because, unlike other sports, you depend on other people to improve their technique. With basketball and football players, all they need to practice is a ball and a net. This sense of teamwork leads you to develop a sense of dependability and trust for others. Being a part of a team also teaches kids how to cheer one another during practice and tournaments. Understanding how meaningful a little praise and encouragement can be to a person when they are down is a huge lesson to learn at a young age. As an adult, being able to lift up someone’s spirits, whether it be a spouse or friend, is an extremely desirable skill.

Personal Responsibility and Discipline

Wrestling is particularly versatile because it teaches both teamwork and personal accountability. Each wrestler is responsible for his or her own workouts, making weight, showing up to matches, and winning them. Even during dual competitions or team tournaments, each individual’s performance is crucial. If you skip a few workouts or don’t eat right, you may not make weight and thus, let everyone down. This kind of rigorous training and dieting not only teaches personal responsibility but also mental toughness and self-discipline. In every aspect of life, whether it be school, work, social events, etc., these three traits are essential.

New People, New Places 

Joining the wrestling team provides ample opportunities for social gatherings. Whether it’s a tournament, summer camp, pizza party, or just regular practice, kids get to develop basic social skills and potentially lasting friendships. When kids have to travel for tournaments, they get to experience a new place full of strangers, which can be quite daunting at a young age. Wrestlers in particular must quickly become comfortable with one another due to the close proximity of the sport.Wrestling, by nature, is an inclusive sport that provides opportunities for students of all races, sizes, and socio-economic backgrounds to come together. Being exposed to new, diverse groups of people and working up the courage to speak to them is an essential building block for future communication.

Confidence is Key

 For those of you who have never wrestled, it takes a lot of guts to put on a singlet, walk out onto the mat, and perform in front of a crowd. Boys have a tough enough time shaking off their nerves, so imagine what it is like for girls in this male-dominated sport. Competing against men is intimidating for any woman and requires a lot of self-assurance. Many women reported feeling confident when faced with new challenges at work or in life because of their experiences with intergender wrestling.

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Dr. Sabinstates, “Socialization through sport is a complex process from which individuals learn skills, attitudes, values, and patterns of behavior that enable them to function within a particular culture…Sport is generally regarded as playing a significant role in socialization.” The social skills that kids will develop while wrestling can potentially play a big role in how they will interact and communicate with others in the future. Wrestling builds character, teaches kids how to overcome obstacles, handle their emotions, respect authority, the importance of being a good teammate, and that success has to be earned through hard work and determination.Wrestling also helps boys and girls—and young men and women—develop off the mat, notably in social situations.In fact, participating in and having a positive experience in sports can have a major impact on a young athlete’s social development, says Greg Bach, Senior Director, Communications and Content, for the National Alliance for Youth Sports. When wrestlers aren’t competing they are cheering on their teammates and getting a sense of just how powerful a collective group of people united in shouting words of encouragement can be.

Opportunities

“Wrestling provides a wonderful opportunity to learn about the power of teamwork and the power of praise—and that is an incredible lesson to carry into adulthood, where the ability to lift someone up who is down or struggling, whether it’s a friend, co-worker, or even a husband or wife, can have major ramifications,” Bach says.Sport is a language and wrestling is a dialect, says Jessica Medina, Head Women’s Wrestling Coach at Ferrum College (Ferrum, VA) and a USA Wrestling National Team member from 2009 through 2015.“Throughout my life, I have met so many people who wrestled,” says Medina, a native of Pomona, California, who wrestled at the University of the Cumberlands in Williamsburg, Kentucky, where she won national titles in 2008 and 2010. “We immediately have a connection because we can speak the same language. It’s like having an extra skill or tool and you never know how it can help you.”While girl’s and women’s wrestling continues to grow at a rapid rate—the NAIA is adding women’s wrestling as an invitational sport beginning with the 2018–19 academic year—it wasn’t, and still isn’t in some situations, always easy for girls competing in a sport dominated by boys. But Medina learned how to turn that experience into a positive, especially in social situations.

confidence

“Wrestling has given me a lot of confidence off the mat,” Medina says. “I know that it takes courage to pursue wrestling, especially when most of the time you are the only female in the room. When I face new challenges in life or work or building relationships, I feel confident in myself, because of my experiences in wrestling. If a wrestler can put on a singlet to compete against an opponent under the spotlight, they can then feel confident putting on a suit and executing an interview. Being confident under pressure is a norm for wrestlers.”Wrestling also teaches the value of dependability, says Medina. That’s also important as one grows up and goes on to college or work, especially in team environments where others depend on each other to achieve goals.

As an athlete

“As an athlete, your teammates are depending on you to show up to practice because you are their drill partner,” Medina says. “If you are a parent, your kid is depending on you to show up and support them at tournaments. If you’re a coach, wrestlers and their families are depending on you to share your knowledge. When you decide to be a part of the wrestling community in any role, people want to know they can depend on you. That is why wrestling is such a strong community of people. They always have someone in their corner, win or lose.”Wrestling also provides social benefits through social activities. Families of the JJ Trained Wrestling School in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, participate in many in-season and off-season activities together. This is common with youth programs and high school teams throughout the country. After every Saturday tournament, JJ Trained wrestlers, coaches, and parents/fans to go out to eat together. There is the annual JJ Trained end-of-year laser tag party. In the summer, parents, wrestlers, and coaches gather for a boating or camping party. There are also group volunteer outings at Feed My Starving Children. This helps develop strong, lifelong relationships. Family members will have those memories forever.

As a coach

“As a coach, I love the idea of getting to know the wrestlers and parents,” says Jeff Wichern, JJ Trained Wrestling Club Director. “We try to make sure we’re one big family.”Take the US Marine Corps Cadet and Junior Nationals in Fargo, where kids from around the country exchange singlets with kids they’ve never met before. Sure, some may be quick conversations, but at some point, these young athletes had to muster the courage to speak to what is in most cases, a stranger. These experiences are providing building blocks for future communications, such as in that first job interview, during an interview for a scholarship from a community organization, or even in the classroom setting, where many kids don’t feel comfortable raising their hands and asking questions in front of others.“The bond of being a wrestler creates easy conversation and the ability to have something in common for one another,” Donnelly says. “For some, going up to someone new and talking or introducing yourself isn’t hard at all while others struggle in this area. The more people someone meets or networks with, the more opportunities they possibly provide themselves with in the future.”

Conclusion

Wrestling teaches life lessons and creates memories while also building social skills through a wide variety of on and off-mat experiences. Years from now most aren’t going to remember the result of every wrestling match they competed in, Bach says.“But what will stand out are the bus trips to meets and talking to teammates on the ride, the friendships that were forged through the sport, the joking around before practice, the post-practice conversations with a coach, how your words helped inspire a teammate on to victory, how what teammates said to you before or after a match affected you and have never been forgotten,” Bach says. “The interactions and the relationships are what resonates, and what impacts lives going forward.”