When you think of the virtues that the next generation will need in order to succeed and contribute positively to the world, what comes to mind? Fortitude? Commitment? Mental tenacity? Perseverance? They are found in many places, but not on the couch and not at the end of a video game console.
My young men are wrestlers at a high school in Southern California.
Approximately 40% of the wrestling team come from low income families, therefore fundraising can sometimes be a challenge. School is also a challenge for many of these young men, and many lack the normal influences that prepare them for the world. The wrestling mat can be quite the tutor for these youngsters when it comes to life lessons.
My Project
Crossfit founder Greg Glassman once said that physical exertion "is a testing ground for improving the will." Every day, my student athletes strive to improve their character through physical challenges.For young boys especially, the corporal challenge that come through the sport of wrestling is a sort of metaphor for "harvesting life’s riches and battling its plagues." For us, to continue Glassman's words, "highly developed human performance is art and personal participation in this art, at all skill levels, is a transcendent experience.”
The goal is to furnish an outdoor training facility with functional equipment, starting with the requested exercise balls. With these exercise balls we can do many movements that we would not be able to do with a chair or bench. On the physical plane alone, the exercise balls are excellent for strengthening and mobilizing the core, which is critical for teens who sit so long in desks.
Today's young teens need a physical challenge that is "out of the box." The same old equipment at the same old gym is not inspiring.
With the equipment from this and other projects, we will be able to make an outdoor training facility totally made of functional equipment that the athletes will use in the course of their training. It will be different, it will be fun, it will be challenging, and it will forge character in them.
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