Vision Quest it Ain't

 Today was Handsome's first wrestling tournament. It's been a long day, and it's already 11:00 pm, so I'll just do a little fatherly bragging and leave y'all to go to bed.

Now, of his three bouts, he lost the first and third, but won the second. He could have won that third one, that one was a little bit of a disappointment since he was doing really well against a second year wrestler, and this is Handsome's first season at it. We thought he had the guy for a while, and then he took advantage of a slight mistake Handsome made, and my boy didn't recover in time. Oh well, he's learning, right?

Anyway, on to the bragging. I'll just cover the bout he won, since I got a few good shots from that one over the course of the three 1-minute rounds.

Here is a shot of Handsome at the beginning of the bout. He got hurt in his first fight, and we told him to get all aggressive in his second. He came out looking a little more like a  bear than a wrestler, hands down and standing wide, and I think the other kid kind of laughed at the look on Handsome's face. Until Handsome got a hold of him, that is. This is Handsome (in the black t-shirt)  putting his opponent on the mat. Decisively. He pretty much grabbed him and threw him over, then just landed on top of him. I don't think the other kid knew what hit him.

Here is Handsome in the second round. They started the round with Handsome on all fours with his opponent on top, in the advantage position. The kid didn't stay there for long, as Handsome worked his way out from beneath him to reverse the advantage, all on the floor. Here, Handsome has the opponent's shoulder, with that arm pointing almost straight up. About a half-second after this, Handsome uses that arm like a lever to just slam the kid over backwards and go for the pin. He couldn't get it, however, and they got to go on to the third round.

Here, after starting the round in the Disadvantage position again, Handsome has worked his way into a nice position (after throwing the kid in red down every time he's tried to get up) and is working his hand and arm into that half-nelson position so useful for rolling the body over so you can go for the pin. You can't see the coach that the kid is looking toward, but you can see the expression on his face. How much longer is this gonna go on, Coach? Just a little longer, kid.







Here, the boy in red managed to slip that little arm-bar that Handsome was trying to get  him into, and actually got to his feet in an attempt at a reversal, but Handsome wanted none of that. He shifted his grip and put the boy right back on the mat where he'd come from. If this shot looks a little brutal, well, oh, it was awesome, you should have been there!
I mean, uh, the mat was well padded and everyone was fine. No children were hurt in the making of this blog.





Even after all that throwing his opponent around, Handsome couldn't seem to pin him. He won the bout on points, 6-0. But he won.
Huzzah!
I pulled these still-shots from the video I took of each bout. The video might have been better for you to see, and it sure wouldn't have required my explaining everything like I did, butt here was one major problem with offering you the video.  There was some jackass yelling the whole time, and all you can hear is him. It's loud even if you turn the volume all the way down, so I decided to spare you the annoyance of having to listen to this guy bray like that, and pulled the stills just for WYMOP.

Besides, I'm not sure I want you all to hear exactly what I was yelling.

Talk to you later!