Summer Camps

Summer camps are a great way to improve as a wrestler, but when it comes to choosing camps it is important to look at what you are trying to get out of it.

I plan to run our own mini-camps for 7-12 graders at the end of June and also in August before football starts. In between those times, I am cooking up some really awesome stuff for a month and a half mission.

My own wrestling camp experiences were very good. The biggest camp I attended was the Wisconsin National Team Training Camp. I was a cadet, and it helped me in a lot of ways. I was definitely dog-tired, but it gave me a lot of confidence. I was able to practice and train with the best representatives from Wisconsin, and the biggest thing I learned was that I was tougher than a lot of them. I was able to outwork and mentally break most of the guys I was working out with. It was also great exposure. I will never forget the athleticism of Garrett Lowney, who was a pretty big dude. During warm-ups he was turning front handsprings like nothing, and here I was, at the time, a wiry little guy that couldn't do that. It helped me understand the level of where the best wrestlers were and it also let me gauge where I was.

Again, when it comes to looking at summer camps, it depends upon what you are looking to get out of it.

Here are some general suggestions:

• As a highschooler, I suggest you go to a camp where you are thinking of going to college, whether you are planning on wrestling in college or not. If you are thinking about going to Mesa State, go to their camp; if you are thinking about going to Western State, go to their camp; if you are thinking about going to Harvard, go to their camp.
• If you want to TRANSFORM yourself, go to J Robinson's Intensive Training Camp. Period.
• If you really don't know what is up and you're asking for my personal advice, right now, my endorsement would be for the Air Force Academy's camp. I will tell you why in another blog.
• If you are a young guy, have fun somewhere! I'm going to try and bring Mike Krause out to Colorado from Michigan for a family camp. By many people, he is thought of as the best youth coach in the country.
• For you parents reading this, if you don't want to shell out the bucks for your real young wrestler, but really want to help them out, I suggest you focus on technique and look at www.kolat.com I have a subscription there, it is a great site aimed at helping parents teach and learn with their kids, and you should contact me if you want some more detailed information. I feel this is better than buying technique DVD's, but if you want to go that route, I suggest Purler. I'm also working on making a technique video for the rubrics this weekend with my brother, so stay tuned. Also, I really suggest that you buy you and your youngster a "Bring It" T-shirt like the ones demonstrated in the previous blog post with Mike Krause. You can find the shirts at: http://www.wwsport.com Search for the keyword Bring It