Better coaches. Better athletes.

How I turn a match I love into a game kids can’t win without doing it right

I was a damn good driller. My coaches told me my doubles and high crotches looked great in practice. Then I'd get to a tournament and couldn't finish a shot to save my life. The problem wasn't that I didn't know the technique. It was that I'd never learned to solve the problem the drill was meant to address. Clean drilling rehearses choreography, not wrestling. Here's what to do instead.

I used to be a college coach. I contacted 2,407 kids in two years to enroll 16 on campus. It broke me. I quit. Now I run demo days for Beat the Streets Chicago and it's one of my favorite things I do. Here's the full framework for how I do it, and why it works for any sport trying to grow.

Most athletes think their problem is technique. It’s not. What actually breaks down in matches is position. The small details underneath the move that decide whether it works or not. Shrug before you clear a collar tie. Keep your elbows tight or you don’t own the tie. Get your shoulder behind the hamstring on single legs. These aren’t new techniques, they’re the rules those techniques depend on. Once you start seeing those rules, everything gets simpler.

If your CLA games aren’t working, it’s probably not the kids. It’s the rules. Youth wrestlers don’t automatically understand what matters in a position. If your win condition rewards bad wrestling, they’ll do bad wrestling. That’s not a discipline problem. That’s a design problem. Here’s how to tighten your games so they actually build wrestling literacy.

After I shared my last article about using games to teach technique, a familiar response showed up almost immediately.