3/25/22 Third Track Meet?

     I hate to say, but Baby A did not improve from the last track meet, and in fact, threw kind of horribly.  On the one hand, he says he doesn't care as much (wrestling is his true love), which is fine, but he won't be happy if he ends up as a JV thrower, they are taking the top three throwers for the district meet, and one of the sophomores is throwing at least as well as he did this last meet.

    If there is any silver lining, the coach says she has identified his problem.  There are different ways to throw the shotput.  The most basic way is to just go and stand there and chuck it without moving the feet too much.  Then there are two competing motions, the glide and the spin.  The glide is probably my choice if I had to direct him one way or the other.  You start at the opposite side of the approximately 7 foot ring facing away from the field, and in one swift motion, kick your weak leg back, glide to it with your body and then pivot your body through and release the shotput from it's held position of your dominant hand and the shotput resting against your neck.  The third is closer to the rotation used by discus throwers and again you start at the farther end of the ring and in a series of spins develop as much energy and speed to release the shotput as you rotate.  This is much more complex, but when done right, looks absolutely beautiful and powerful at the same time.

    The problem for Mijo, as the coach has identified is that he is not using his lower body, he is just standing there and throwing close to thirty feet by just chucking it with his arms and shoulders.  This is a boy with a 600-pound squat, he should be employing his legs for strength.  She will be working on this with the team, so there is still hope.  I know he is as strong as most of the other team's throwers, he is just not doing the motions correctly.  I hope this does help (getting his lower body involved), because when he is barely getting to 30 feet, some of the better throwers are approaching 50 feet, and Mijo might not want to "care" about the sport as much, he is a competitor, he also doesn't want to suck just for the hell of it.

    The rest of the track meet was fine.  I love just hanging back and listening to them arguing about silly stuff and just carrying on.  The coach is also great, she just gets these boys.  Knowing they are eventually going to wrestle, she tells them just step away from the ring, go off to the side away from people, so we don't get embarrassed by other coaches.