On Wednesday, November 12, 2014, students mainly from the 3rd to 7th grade took part in the wrestling program that lasted for 1½ hours at Melekeok Elementary School. There were about 40 students. The kids were so excited and eager to take part in the program. For most of them, this was their first time to experience wrestling on the mat and they had lots of fun learning something new. Since there was no indoor gym, that practice was held outside on the cement basketball court since the weather was nice and the school was near the beach. Awesome day.
This was a fun day for all the students who were exposed to mainly fitness activities on the wrestling mat. The main emphasis was to provide activities that would help improve our kids level of fitness while making it fun for everyone through participation in a number of wrestling games and drills that would help the kids build their level of skills, strength, and conditioning. The activities included warm up exercises, a little running, stretching, basic movements such as rolling, cart wheels and other types of exercises to help with their flexibility, motor/movement skills, strength and conditioning as well as building balance, strategy and confidence while having fun. After the practice, there were snacks for everyone to enjoy.
Our visit to the MES allowed us the opportunity to introduce our sport and new things to many of the youngsters from all ages, boys and girls. We hope that they too can experience, learn and become physically fit as wresting focuses on character building and fitness. Our aim is to provide an opportunity to every child so they can have a chance to have fun playing wrestling and to promote a healthy lifestyle through wrestling. We feel that wrestling is truly a sport for all and a sport for life. In Palau, it may not be as popular as basketball or baseball, but it is ideal for schools as both boys and girls can play, it is safe and helps builds fundamental physical skills, caters to abilities, easy and fun to learn. So whether it’s wrestling or some other type of exercise, we hope that everyone in Palau can be involved in some type of physical fitness in their lives. Who knows maybe one day they too can wrestling in college and get a scholarship. BWF has 2 wrestlers in college now wrestling so it’s our hope to see other kids use wrestling as a means to help further their education or one day represent Palau in competitions and maybe the Olympic Games.
Belau Wrestling Federation would like to thank and acknowledge Mr. Dean Terry, PE Specialist for the MOE, Principal Magaria Tellei, MES, and all the teachers that took part in the program and allowed us the opportunity and time to expose our sport to their students. We would like to thank Ms. Marlene Aguon for the use of their truck and trailer to Melekeok.
We hope to visit other schools before the end of the year and if anyone is interested in joining wrestling, then they stop by and join our practices that are held daily at the Palau National Gym from 5:30pm – 7:30pm. There is no charge and everyone whether male of female and youngsters can come out and join free of charge. Our aim is to also develop coaches so they can develop the skills, knowledge and confidence to plan and deliver safe and fun wrestling programs to children and youths. If anyone is interested in becoming a coach, stop by at the gym or let us know.
Again, thank you to all the students that participated and we hope you had fun learning something new from this wrestling class and hope to see you again in the future.
Last Modified on 17/11/2014 19:27