How's that for a headline? By the way, they aren't related events.
Yesterday our youngest was sick, he still is. He is kind of croupy, and didn't sleep well. This means that when I finally got out of bed I was tired, I hadn't gone to the gym in an attempt to get more sleep, and I had a slight headache.
As the day progressed, I had to go to our bi-yearly sexual harassment training. We have the head of the U of U's Office of Equal Opportunity come in, and she's an ex-detective. She is fairly entertaining, but not nearly as entertaining as sitting by my colleagues from UHEAA. Now the entire training goes over more than just sexual harassment, we also discuss the American with Disabilities Act. At one point the presenter mentioned that there is some Supreme Court case law that would suggest that erectile dysfunction could be considered a disability. At which point someone piped up with, "What kind of job does he do for the University?" That got a good laugh. Needless to say, the rest of the day was spent thinking about ways that we could be better at sexually harassing people.
I got a new computer at work, which is great. I got a computer with an Intel i7 3.4 GHz processor, 8 GB of RAM, and a graphics card with 512 MB of DDR3 dedicated RAM. This replaces my old Pentium 4 processor that sounded like a prop plane taking off every time I did anything. Sometimes just navigating to a new webpage would put such a strain on the system it would shut down. I was also updated to Windows 7 64 bit Enterprise edition. I like Windows 7.
By the time I got home, I had a headache. My wife commented to me that our mood-swings are offset. When she's in a good mood, I feel down. When I'm happy, she isn't. This proved prophetic. I took some medicine and helped make dinner (I put rice in the rice cooker.) I started to feel better, then my wife was made aware that one of our children had forgotten her homework at school, and another had left somewhere without telling anyone. She got upset. Weird.
I had to take the oldest to wrestling practice. It sounds weird, but there really isn't anything more manly than wrestling practice. On one hand, you have a bunch of guys basically hugging, and getting all sweaty. Doesn't sound to manly. On the other hand, these guys are trying to rip each other's heads off, and laughing about it. Very manly.
When we show up, the younger kids (K-4) are still practicing. I think there are roughly 8,000 of them in the Bountiful High Wrestling Room. At least that is how it sounds. I think that nuclear physicists should come study young child wrestling practice to get some ideas on how nuclear fission might work.
After the younger kids left, we started the boys running around the room to warm up. They did their stretching. Then we started on double-leg takedowns. This is a pretty easy technique, but one of the best. Basically you pull against your opponent, whether their arms, or shoulders, and when they try to back away you drop to your knees, drive your head to the side of your opponents side, and wrap your arms around both of their legs. Then you just drive with your legs, and take them to the ground. It is very much like a football tackle. We practiced singles and doubles for a while. When the coach tried to get the kids to gather up, my oldest and his training partner where in the middle of double-leg takedowns, and finished before running back in. Because they took so long, the kids had to do push-ups. My oldest looks horrible doing push-ups. His hands are way above his head, and it makes it too hard to do it from his feat, so he ends up on his knees with his but way up in the air.
Now we moved on to a request from one of the wrestlers, the Fireman's Throw. This is fun, because you shoot the leg, kind of like a single-leg takedown, but keep holding on to one of your opponent's arms. You then hook your other arm through their legs, sit on your feet, and throw your opponent to the side. Watch the video above, it's short, and a good throw. This one kind of confused many of the team.
It's fun to walk around and put different moves on the kids to show them how they work. My oldest was having a hard time throwing his training partner, who outweighs him by about 10 pounds, and is very good at defensive moves. So he adapted, and rolled him off of his head to get on top of him. The coach later showed them this as an alternative.
After this, we moved on to the Cross Face Cradle. This is pretty simple, but some of the boys had some problems. You lay your opponent out, and straighten their arm out. You then take your opposite hand, and put it across your opponents face and grab the arm you straightened out. You then basically pick their head up with the arm under their face (this doesn't feel great.) You bend them backwards until you can hook your other arm under their knee, and then grab the wrist that is under their face. Basically their head is touching their knee. This makes it easy to roll them onto their back for a pin.
We then practiced some counters to the Cross Face Cradle. One of which was when they had you on your back. Basically you would work your elbow free, and push against your opponents face with your elbow. You then put both of your hands on the knee in the cradle, and push to break their grip. Then you can escape. My oldest would get pushed in the cradle, and could just stretch his body out without having to use the technique. I had to explain that at sometime he would wrestle against someone who was stronger than himself, or had better technique, so he needed to learn it. His opponent on the other hand, usually couldn't get his elbow free because my son's grip was too tight. I think he has a natural talent for this.
We then had some actual wrestling. We did a minute of upright, then a minute with one kid starting on the bottom, a minute with the other kid starting on the bottom, then one more minute of upright. My oldest handled himself pretty well. He actually used a Fireman's Throw, and a Cross Face Cradle. By the last minute the other kid was wiped out, and just tried to run away from my son. This gave him an ideal time to use his Double-Leg takedown. It was cool to see him use the things he had just learned, and use them effectively.
We finished with a game of Sharks and Minnows, this is actual video from the game. For my family, this game will be familiar from the pool. The coach had everyone line up against the wall. He had them hold their hand above their heads, and hold up any number of fingers, as long as it was between 1 and 4. (Editorial comment: I'm not sure why I said the last sentence that way, but it seemed funny. Upon reflection it just seems kind of weird, but I still grin when I read it, so I'm leaving it.) He choose one group of kids, and they came out with him. They were the sharks. Everyone has to stay on their knees, and the goal for the minnows is to get by the sharks without them rolling them onto their backs. (When you play in the pool, the sharks have to touch the minnows when part of their body is above water.) This is pretty fun to watch, and is chaos.
My boy had a good time, even though he did complain about maybe bruising a rib or two, and having sore arms. His first statement was, "I'm going to go home, take an ibuprofen, take a shower, and go to bed." He then added, "Maybe I'll take my ibuprofen with the Dr. Pepper I bought earlier, then go to bed." I had to explain why drinking caffeine right before bed, especially for someone who rarely has it, was not a good idea. He then wanted to drink it for breakfast.
Oh to be young and dumb again.
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