President’s Message
The cliché, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”, is an apropos description of one of the fundamental underpinnings upon which the Guardian Knights Wrestling Club is constructed. We are interested in providing a thrilling activity for youth in our community to pursue. Through wrestling, we instill habits that develop character and we teach the discipline needed to shed many of the negative temptations that are prevalent in modern teenage life. Our Code-of-Conduct is taken from a combination of the USA wrestling standards and the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) behavior requirements. Athletes who fail to follow the code of conduct and are unwilling to work on improvement become ineligible to participate in the club. Older wrestlers are expected to lead by setting a positive example and helping younger wrestlers learn. It is our belief that we can positively impact more youth by working to habilitate them rather than rehabilitate them. Baseball, Soccer, Swimming, Football, Volleyball, and many other sports have well established Tri-Valley clubs where young athletes are able to hone their skills and properly prepare to compete with athletes from anywhere in the country. Unfortunately, training opportunities in wrestling are inconsistent. Anyone who has wrestled will tell you that the best way to improve is to train on a regular basis with partners who are at or above your level. Our wrestling club offers recreational classes, but we also focus on preparing those who dream of placing nationally, wrestling in college (Folkstyle), or learning Olympic Wrestling (Freestyle and Greco-Roman). We operate an area inside the Guerrilla Jiu Jitsu DoJo that is dedicated to wrestling and is open year-round. The Guardian Knights are strictly a non-profit club where all revenue is used for the direct benefit of youth athletes. Parents and coaches are welcome and expected to become active members of the club and to work on at least one of the following club initiatives. Tournaments: We run tournaments to provide competition opportunities for young wrestlers in our community and to raise money for our club expenses. College Preparation: No preparation is required to attend Junior College. Therefore, our club is focused on opening doors for local athletes to be accepted at a four year university. Coaches in our club donate their time for free. We expect each athlete to pay us back by striving to reach their maximum potential. Imagine a scenario where a wrestler has a fantastic senior year on the mat, a university shows interest, but the door was already closed because the wrestler is not eligible to compete in the NCAA or gain acceptance to attend the school. Facility Purchase: This initiative requires a diligent committee that works to continuously reduce our rental costs while setting money aside for the eventual purchase of a permanent facility. Due to the cost, help is needed to seek corporate donors, foundation grants, or private donors to make this a reality. Competition Travel Schedule: Young athletes need direction on when and where to compete. This committee works to select appropriate cost benefit for each athlete and to make it possible for them to achieve their match count and qualification goals. The head coach works with this committee to coordinate an appropriate coach to travel with the team. Coach Development: We are open to all new methods of teaching and we spend time training our coaches when we find effective methods. Teaching finish first, stretching after practice (not before), and attacking from bottom position are examples of recent philosophical improvements to our program. Consistency among coaches is a very important part of our program. We understand that it is impossible to provide a coach with a world class wrestling resume for every class. However, when we hire a world class wrestler/coach to run a clinic or we tap into the knowledge of world class wrestler/coach, we do our best to incorporate their insight into our knowledge base and our coach development program. Recruiting: Our club provides a neutral center of excellence for the sport of wrestling. We envision a future where the best wrestlers from each weight class and age workout in the offseason and together raise their game to new heights. We envision a future where the collective knowledge of all local wrestling coaches is shared for the benefit of young people in our community. We envision a future where all local wrestling coaches pool their resources so each youth wrestler can receive more personal attention without asking each coach to sacrifice all their family time. We are interested in developing any and all youth wrestlers. Our door is open to any person of good character who wishes to improve the sport. Members of the club are expected to recruit coaches, parents and wrestlers who are inspired by our vision. Thank you for your interest and we invite you to join us in our effort pass on the oldest known sport to the youth of our community! |
Physical hand-to-hand combat is the oldest known sport and these ancient games have developed into modern wrestling and mixed martial arts. Wrestling is unique because it is a full contact sport where the athlete owns 100% of the glory for a win and 100% of the responsibility for a loss. The physical skills learned provide excellent self defense, however the mental toughness and confidence gained are priceless talents that help a person thrive under the pressures of adult life.