Are you good enough to beat ALL of your opponents?

Beating the opponent who lines up in front of you requires that you beat the ones that don’t.

You must beat making weight.

There is a difference between “making weight” and competing at your peak performance level.

You must know the difference and execute excellent weight management, rather than poor weight cutting.

You must beat the Yo-Yo.

You must eat for strength and not for pleasure.

After weigh-ins.

And on Sundays.

What you eat after a weigh and on Sundays is a reliable indicator whether you are beating this opponent or this opponent will eventually beat you.

Yo-Yo’ing your weight will lead to practices which are about weight loss, which will deplete your love for the sport, rather than being about fine-tuning technique which will increase your hunger and preparedness for victory.

Practices which are about weight loss, rather than improving technique lead to losses to inferior opponents.

Guaranteed.

You must beat dehydration.

Withholding water from your body is committing

“Peak Performance” suicide.

You must give your body an abundance of water, every day.

Did you know your brain is 75% water?

Did you know that the brain reacts 90% slower when it doesn’t have the right amount of water?

Did you know 80% of your strength is lost when you are dehydrated?

Did you know that it takes 48 hours to rehydrate?

“But I need to make weight – so I have to restrict my water intake right?”

Wrong.

Absolutely – completely 100% wrong.

If you can not make weight without drinking a massive amount of water you are quite simple wrestling at the wrong weight.

Did you know the way you lose weight is by drinking a large amount of water?

It won’t happen initially as 16 ounces of water will add a pound to your overall weight.

Short term.

But long-term your body will be at full strength and you will naturally lose 80% of any water that you drink without exerting any effort.

Your body will operate normally, the water will cause you to eat less and will flush your system.

Learn about the benefits of water, and you will learn to love water.

You must beat sugar.

Research the difference between simple carbohydrates and complex carbohydrates.

Research sugar and its effects on the human body, then decide whether you want to replace the 3 – 20 oz. Gatorades with high Alkaline water.

You must beat the long day, the time between matches and unexpected events.

You must beat the clock, the stall, and the clam up.

Be jealous of every second of the 6 minutes of your match.

Attack and take action quickly and time will always be your ally rather than your opponent.

You must beat the scoring table.

Have you ever kept score for a match or tournament?

If you haven’t, I would recommend that you do so. Just to see what you are up against.

Keeping score seems easy, but it is a highly difficult job.

It requires an extreme amount of focus and attention.

For hours.

It is just not possible for a human being to be attentive and focused for that long.

There undoubtedly will be lapses of focus and attention by score-keepers.

You must be able to beat an inaccurate score.

You must beat bad calls.

For the very vast majority of time referees do an outstanding job.

But referees are human and humans make mistakes.

Sometimes, they make mistakes at a crucial time in a match where you will not have time to overcome their mistake.

Count on it happening. Against a great opponent, in the most crucial time.

Never put yourself in a position where anyone other than yourself can win or lose a match for you.

The first 6 points of your lead are to overcome the potential human error.

Train to be able to build a 6-point lead.

Against anybody.

You must beat your opponent’s coach, the coach sitting in the stands and the one on the internet.

We live in the digital age.

Video is streamed and is available at any time – for free.

Your every move and every tendency will be scouted, analyzed and dissected.

A strategy will be formed on what is the best way to beat you.

I guarantee it.

You need to understand your tendencies and expand your arsenal of weapons.

You must think like an opposing coach. One who is watching your every move, in every match you have ever wrestled.

You must continually reinvent yourself.

You don’t want to be “figured out.”

Ask yourself the same question your opponent’s coach is asking himself,

“How do I beat him?”

In your case, it will be,

“How would I beat myself – if I had to wrestle myself?”

Always have one more move, one more series, one more “go to” in every situation than your films show.

You must beat victory.

Don’t let victory defeat you.

Winning is great, but sometimes the side effects of winning is “work amnesia.”

Forgetting what it actually took to become excellent. The hard work, the sacrifice, the dedication.  It is easy after victory to believe you are so much more talented than your opponents, that you are miles ahead of them but take the lesson from the Hare, the second you stop doing the things that made you great one day you will see even the tortoise pass you by.

You must beat defeat.

Don’t let defeat be victorious.

Don’t let a loss beat you twice. Don’t let losing define you. It is a snapshot of where you are in your development, your career is a moving picture. There is always another match, another tournament, another opponent to prepare for, don’t waste any preparation time to doubt.

Learn from your losses and they will be responsible for your greatest victories. Study and analyze how you gave up points and go back to work to make adjustments to eliminate your deficiencies.

You must beat society and your friends.

You are on a mission that requires 100% focus, dedication and commitment.
That is not a normal state for almost everyone on this earth.
Don’t look to society for an example of how to live.
What is right for everyone else will be monumentally wrong for you.
If normal is defined as what is accepted by society you must be abnormal.
It only makes sense if you want abnormal things then you must live abnormally.

That is good.

Your abnormal should be societies normal.

It is not.

Don’t try to fix it just understand it.

Never be normal.

Your friends are normal, you are not.
You don’t want normal things; you strive for extraordinary achievements.
This is going to require extraordinary effort.
Surround yourself with people who have the same goals and aspirations as you do.
People who bring out the best in you.

Remember there will be a time when you will not be able to make an important decision on what you should do and you will rely on your friends for advice, make sure you choose your friends wisely as they will be responsible to decide for you, to encourage or discourage you in your weakest moment.

You must beat trying to be perfect. 

Being perfect is not never making a mistake, never losing or never being vulnerable.

Being perfect is knowing that you did everything that you could have done, there wasn’t one more thing that you could have done, to prepare yourself for your upcoming match.

When you are approaching the circle, your mind will quickly scan your confidence, and your trust will be in direct correlation of whether you have been perfect.

And you will perform accordingly.

Practice will get you ready for your human opponents.

Only experience gets you ready to beat all the others.

In order to beat your opponent on the mat, you must beat your opponents off of the mat.

Wrestling Writing Capturing the People and Culture

Of the Greatest Sport on Earth.

Includes 50 Inspirational Wrestling stories.