She would say something, then he would say “huh?" 

That is, if he responded at all.

After repeating herself about three times, grandma would finally say in an exasperated tone, “Turn up your hearing aid!"

To which he would insert his little finger into his ear, and turn that little dial.

Looking back, I'm not really sure that he ever actually turned it up…because this routine just seemed to repeat itself so often.

As a result he missed all those things that Grandma was saying to him, prodding him to do or grousing about.

Sometimes deafness can be a blessing.

For instance, what if you missed all those things “they say" about your opponent..

especially this week.

“I hear he's really good."

Or maybe not.

Your bracket is really tough!

Your weight class is the toughest class in the entire state!

There are 7 state placers in your bracket! (Correction:  in any state bracket, there are EIGHT placers.  Last year doesn’t count.)

Criminy, folks, sometimes “they" are overzealous dads with a little ‘nip’ in their coffee, pumping up their own kid!

Or junior high kids with a ‘lied-about-their-age profile (see Facebook), inflating their buddy!

“Look out for Johnny, he’s going to ‘make some noise’ this year…" (Johnny’s current record:  3-19).

So take my advice this week….

Turn down the hearing aid.

Turn down the hearing aid.

get off the Facebook, get off the bulletin boards, and get off the made-up-in-someone’s head rankings.

Go strap’er on, and hit the mat.  The score always starts 0-0.

I tell him,”We can fix that in five minutes…. sure I can help.”

And I proceeded to teach him leg counters.

In five minutes.

So we get done, he leaves and I don’t think anything more about it…

until the next afternoon when I get a phone call.

Same kid.

Excitedly tells me this:

“I just won my wrestle off!  He threw legs and I countered it, using what you taught me yesterday!”

Well, a few days ago history repeated itself.

Athlete in my room, facing a leg rider.

We spent time on the counter.  

You can probably guess the rest.

Shuts down the opponents legs, wins the match…and his league.

That’s the nice, happy story with a happy ending.  

 However, there’s another story that happens way too often.  

Tell me if you’ve seen this one too.

Athlete comes, learns winning technique, uses it to win a match.

Then he figures, Hey –  I’ve got it down, I don’t need to go back there again.  

A year later, same wrestler loses…

from exact position that he won from before.  

It always amazes me when people shun a successful path.

and that’s exactly what winning wrestling involves…a successful path.

Tell me what skills in life you can develop in a single hour or two hour-long session…without out ever practicing, visualizing or even reading about it again.

I’ll bet Its a pretty short list.

Imagine spending one session learning how to ride a bike…and then never going back and practicing.

How far do you think you’d get on that bike?

Not very.

But people do this all the time and it really puzzles me. 

There’s a process to winning at anything.  In wrestling, I call it the phase five process.

It is, quite simply, the true key to success in learning and implementing new skills from start to finish.

Starting point:  learning a new skill for the first time.

Finish line:  being able to execute it in live match settings. 

Sadly, the steps to getting there are often ignored.  People lack the knowledge and skill to truly get from Phase One to Phase Five…leading to great amounts of frustration for wrestlers, athletes and coaches alike.