In the past year, we have tried to expose Hanley to different sports and activities. He tried indoor soccer, t-ball, swimming, and various summer camps. He had fun doing each of them but seemed to be more interested in the social aspect of the sport than the actual sport itself. I remember when we signed him up for t-ball with his best friend. Every Saturday we would ask him if he was excited for t-ball. His response was always the same, "Yeah! I am excited to see Collin!"
This winter, he tried something new. Wrestling. Pee Wee Wrestling. We took him to the first practice just to "check it out". He didn't know anything about wrestling or anyone in the local youth club. Driving home that night, we asked him what he thought and if he wanted to go back. There was not an ounce of hesitation when he told us he wanted to continue.
He spent the first couple weeks as a stereotypical wall flower but seemed to enjoy all aspects of practice. Then one night, he scored his first takedown. Then he proceeded to score 5 more in a row as they moved down the line at practice. Before we knew it he was baring his teeth during the pre-wrestling handshake and pumping his fists after each takedown (no joke, I have it on video). Cody and I just shrugged our shoulders and looked at each other in disbelief. Who was this kid?!
In the time since Hanley's breakout performance at practice, we have spent countless evening hours at practice and nearly every Saturday in the gym at wrestling tournaments. Each Saturday starts the same. Cody wakes Hanley up blaring the Hulk Hogan theme song (followed by The Heartbreak Kid) pumping him up for the day. Henrik on the other hand, quietly gets scooped up in his jammies and placed directly in the truck, slowly waking up on our drive to the high school.
Over the season, we have continued to watch Hanley's skill, technique and confidence improve each week. Hanley earned his first medal placing 2nd at the Oregon City tournament, 3rd at the Z-Man tournament, 1st place at the Newberg Qualifying tournament on Cody's birthday weekend, and recently earned 1st again at the Art Reynolds NW Collegiate tournament. The growth in Hanley's self confidence since he started the season has been truly remarkable.
There is no doubt wrestling has been great for Hanley but I had no idea how great it would be for our whole family and how much fun the 4 of us would have doing it together. More on that and our fun weekend at Kids State in Redmond later...
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