We are so fortunate to have the opportunity to speak to wrestling's unsung heroes around the world. Coach Maryam was introduced to us through our friend, Hooman Tavakolian of Tavak Partners, a sport diplomacy company. Hooman was kind enough to make the introduce us to Coach Maryam to get to know her better and spread her story. 

Seeing her for the first time, I was a bit taken back. She wore a hijab, long sleeves, and pants underneath her gi. The cultural differences between us were obvious — I was only wearing a t-shirt under my gi and my hair was left uncovered. Even though I had trained at this dojo a hundred times, this was the first time I had ever worked out with an athlete who covered themselves. I was soon put at ease when we shared laughs as we worked on our judo. She was a fierce competitor, and didn’t back down from me at all. I could tell she really loved practicing judo. I left the dojo that day thinking about issues bigger than myself. We may be different, but the love we feel in sport unifies us. I was impassioned at how sports can truly bring people together. I asked myself, “could it bring the world together?” For so long, we have viewed the Muslim culture as drastically different from our own world. But as opportunities for women in combat sports are on the rise, we can see a new beginning and a new feminism for Muslim women.

If you are approaching college or already in school, you may have heard from coaches or teammates about the option to redshirt a college year. But what does this mean for you as a student and as an athlete? How does it change the coarse of your college career? Through advice of Cliff Cushard, current head women's wrestling coach for Adrian College, this blog aims to give you the best tools to make an educated decision. 

For parents and athletes, making the decision to commit to a college wrestling program can be daunting. There are numerous factors to consider in order to choose the right school, let alone the right coach and team. We know that the academic needs are most important. It should be a huge factor in choosing a college. When I attended Menlo College, my father Lee Allen coached and directed all the athletes towards success in the classroom. Graduation was priority and the goal was to find a career after sport. This article specifically focuses on analyzing the team and coaching aspects, which will be important in deciding a program that fits you. 

There have been major breakthroughs in the knowledge of how the brain works and our ability to study that process. For years philosophers, psychologists and the medical community believed that the body and its brain functioned like a machine. With the advancement of the computer many said “that is it, that is how the brain works!”

For the past decade, I have been coaching boys and girls high school wrestling. It has been easier enrolling girls to wrestle than boys because I myself am a woman, and wrestled for the high school where I am currently coaching. Feedback from the athletes has been vital in order to encourage boys and girls to wrestle for the first time. It helps me understand how I can best support their goals and keep them coming back to the mat. Typically, I ask a new athlete why they want to join the sport. There are various reasons to why a young teen wants to join wrestling: getting into shape, being more confident, but my favorite is to be a part of a family. Over the last five years I have reiterated to high school athletes that wrestling isn't just a team, but a family and a culture to help shape and support becoming a better individual all around.

As the fastest growing sport in the US, wrestling is attracting new females to the sport. The US is well on it’s way to sanctioning girls wrestling in every state in order to have all-girls teams. However, while sanctioning is a work in progress and states are growing their participation numbers, this means many girls across the US who want to wrestle must compete against the boys. This poses a challenge for the athlete, the parents, and the coaches. This article chronicles two female athletes who were the only girls on their high school team. Forrest Molinari grew up wrestling in California, and continued her career to make world teams for Team USA. Rose Martines started wrestling her Junior year in Oregon, and completed her Senior year as the only female on her high school team. Neither athlete had a female wrestler come before them as the example for how to be the only girl on the boys team, they were the trend setters. As we continue to encourage girls to try this amazing sport, we are going to need the experiences of others to forge a path each generation that comes to the mat after us.

There is a lot of pressure for young athletes to be successful. Being successful on the playing field has education, career, and social implications. The better the athlete, the greater the scholarship amount to play a collegiate sport, the greater chance of continuing on a professional level. The better the result, the more recognition the athlete or the parent receive from those around them. The notion that sport is fun, which instills healthy active lifestyles and teaches life skills, has been put on the back burner. The idea that multi-sport athletes produce whole athletes with better overall skills, has become second to specialization. It is believed that single-sport sport specific skills produces the highest quality. Here's the danger with this mentality: it feeds the mindset that if specializing at 18 years old is ideal, then specializing at 13 is even better. And if this is the case, then we should begin specializing our children in one sport at 8 to get an earlier start ahead of peers.

Preparing for a national tournament takes focus, and if you have more than one major tournament each year, you will have to have a good training plan. A training plan is comprised of phases that take you through increases and decreases in volume and intensity to help an athlete peak their conditioning. Each phase below is about two weeks, but allows you to customize the time.

Wrestling has a problem: women aren't coming back to coach. And when they do, they face an uphill battle because they fail to internalize their own accomplishments. This is called Imposter Syndrome, a term coined in 1978 by a clinical psychologist. It has become a buzzword in recent years, and couldn't be more relevant to the sport of women's wrestling.

Attending the US Marine Corps Folkstyle Nationals in Oklahoma City was the first time in quite a while I was able to watch a national high school wrestling event. It was a great opportunity to get the know the wrestlers, have them get to know me, and ask what kinds of content they would like to see on LuchaFIT. After all, this website is all about creating fun and valuable content for the wrestlers, coaches, and their supporters! As with most national tournaments, I saw a lot of excitement, a lot of heartbreak, and a lot of desire to become better wrestlers. Here are a few key pointers I saw that those attending (and even those wrestlers not in attendance) could learn from.

Mallory Velte started her wrestling journey in California. Despite first being told she could not join the team, she has pushed past obstacles to become a 3x college national champion, a junior and senior world team member, and one of the top wrestlers in the country. Read about her decision making for wrestling in college, and how the lessons she learned can help make your search more simple.

It's easy for many of us to name of few things we're terrified of. Whether it's public speaking, vegetables, or competition, it's the great equalizer that we all have to deal with. Our mind is a powerful asset that helps us grind through a tough practice, but just as easily can be the reason for losing a competition. A technique that has become more and more popular as of recent is called "mindfulness." The concept of the mindfulness is not to push away or ignore our fears, but instead recognize their existence and learn to live with them. No problem has ever been solved by ignoring it. You learn to understand that your fear is a roommate hanging out in your brain, and it's okay if they stay. You will learn how to live together.

We all want to learn technique and do it fast. I often have to tell athletes to slow it down so I can help them work on very specific areas. When you are challenged by technique, you need to break it up into its equal parts. Breaking down technique requires a major slow down and simplification of an area.

In 2012, shortly after qualifying for my first Olympic team, I began to feel a pop in my collar bone area while wrestling. Training at that point was specific and tailored to the olympic team. I was constantly aware of this injury, but didn't have the luxury of taking time to address the problem. It eventually went from discomfort to sharp pain. I would drill with someone much lighter than me, and just grabbing my normal standing single, I would literally see red. It wasn’t really a time to panic and true to my nature, I really didn’t discuss it outside of Terry Steiner, Kim Martori of Sunkist, and my physical trainers at the Training Center.

Kelsey Campbell has been a pillar in the sport of women's wrestling. From famously beginning her wrestling career late in high school, becoming ASU's first female wrestler ever, and making the 2012 Olympic team in historic fashion, Kelsey has had a long and full career. But it hasn't been without setbacks. She has continued to find a way to make it look easy to someone on the outside, but is able to reveal the hard work and resiliency that is the backbone of her career. Kelsey brings us up close and personal with her injuries in sport and how they have made her tougher.

When it comes to fully taking advantage of your training, there can be different scenarios. Sometimes we are new to sport and don't have the tools yet to know how to have our needs met. Sometimes we are the only girl on our wrestling team and may feel intimidated by an all male room. And other times we realize advocating for ourselves is a skill that can take a long time to master. Here are some great tips so you can start practicing now.

We have a bit of a dilemma in the US: if you want to wrestle on your high school team in most states, you must wrestle the boys. Unfortunately, most parents and athletes are not comfortable with the idea of competing in a contact sport with boys. This means female athletes who would like the sport of wrestling are less inclined to join. As prideful as it may be to compete against the opposite gender and be successful, it doesn't always prove fruitful for the sport in the long run.

As wrestlers, there's a few basic motions that translate into the variations of movement needed for wrestling technique. Focusing on a few basic body weight exercises can make a huge difference in your wrestling game. Not having any gym equipment isn't any excuse! Use your body, get outside, and sharpen up your skills off the mat.

Rope climbs are an awesome way for wrestlers to build their core, arm strength, and stamina. Its the kind of exercise that helps you get gritty... you can't let go and you have to fight to the top! It can be very representative of a wrestling match, which makes it so applicable! Once you can advance to climbing the rope without the assistance of your legs, you are reaching a new level of strength. Here are your steps to advancing your rope climb.