I started my step-son wrestling in 7th grade. Living in a southeast suburb of Phoenix, AZ, my biggest mistake was not necessarily starting him too late - it was letting him wrestle at his middle school when I could have been taking him to Sunkist Kids at ASU and wrestling with the best coaches in the state during the winter! But my son wanted the letter jacket and the swagger that came with making the "school team" plus he was still playing baseball in the spring so we skipped the freestyle season to play ball. He gave-up baseball after middle school so now he wrestles the folk and freestyle seasons. He is already a better wrestler than I ever was; he made the varsity squad as a freshman this year and has a winning record so far. He will not be a four-time state champ but I'm not sure that is what he wants and that is a decision that is most definitely in his hands.

His next younger brother turned 5 in last March. I have been chomping at the bit to get him started younger partly to give him the chance to be more competitive by grades 6-8. (Okay, I admit that I secretly want him to DOMINATE by 7th grade!) On top of that, we moved from AZ to AL two years ago and Sunkist is a distant memory. Youth wrestling is growing in AL but I do not kid myself into thinking any club in AL could compete with what we had next door in Tempe. Another factor in my decision to start him much younger is size. I am 6'6" and 300 lbs. My 5 year-old son is off the chart on height and 85% (and dropping) on weight. He will consistently be wrestling kids older and stronger than he is within his weight classes and I wanted to give him a chance to begin building his catalog of moves early so he will be more competitive when he begins wrestling in tournamnets when he is a little older - maybe 6 or 7 - since we do not plan to enter any tournaments this year. The other thing I wanted to do was teach my son how to wrestle for maximum points at a younger age. If he is going to be 184 or 215 as a senior, I know he will need to be a proficient leg rider to compete at the state level and beyond and that is so much easier to learn at the lighter weights.

Cary is dead right about body control; my 5 year old son is learning the basic moves but it is coming with A LOT of repetition and without any regard to what his partner is doing. He has no "feel" for wrestling yet and it may be several years before he does. The short attention span of the 4 or 5 Kindergarten kids in his club puts them at the back of the pack learning each move and counter. The good news is that we started all of our children in tumbling and gymnastics as their first sports activities; so my 5 year old has the best cartwheels and forward/backward rolls in the room. We started him in Karate at 4 and he also knows how to act in practice. But he has no strength at this age. I doubt seriously that he will do a pull-up in the next year and if he can climb the rope by the end of the season it will be a huge accomplishment in coordination.

We have two more children behind our 5 year old and my wife and I have already vowed to keep them in gymnastics several years longer and start them in Karate when they are 7 or 8. We'll see if I can hold-off on wrestling for them until they are at least 7! : )