Wrestlers gearing up for new year 

The first tournaments and meets might still be a few months away, but wrestlers at Kahnawake Survival School (KSS), Howard S. Billings High School, and the Kanien’kehá:ka Tehontatie:nas Mohawk Wrestling Club are training already to make sure they’ll be ready when it’s time to hit the mats. 

“We have a young team, more than half of them are rookies, so we're going over basic moves, basic positioning, and developing them,” said Brandon Stalk, head coach for KSS’s wrestling program.

Stalk said that this year, the team’s number of wrestlers has grown dramatically compared to the last two years, with at least 18 wrestlers having joined, and recruitment still ongoing. 

Prior to this year, Stalk said that the team averaged between six and 10 wrestlers since it’s reintroduction at KSS in 2022.

“We had a big increase, and that's what we were waiting for,” said Stalk. “More students are starting to hear about it. You hear about your friends on the team. A lot of the students and the teachers are encouraging the kids to join the team, to grow it.”

Stalk said that in the first practices, the most important thing is making sure the basics are covered – keeping a good stance, defending against basic takedowns, and basic holds like gut wrenches or half-nelsons.

Once the moves are understood, Stalk makes sure to ramp up the intensity.

“You're going to fight the way you train. If you train easy and slow all the time, that's how you're going to do it on the mat,” said Stalk.

Then comes sparring with teammates, emulating actual wrestling matches and switching partners frequently and not always staying in exactly the same weight class, to give wrestlers experience against a variety of opponents.

“You're getting a lot of actual experience in that way,” said Stalk. “That's where combat sports athletes gain the most experience. If you're not sparring, when you get into the real competition, it's going to be a big shock to you.”

With a lot more wrestlers on the team, Stalk believes KSS’s performance in events, like the Greater Montreal Athletic Association (GMAA)’s annual February tournament or smaller dual meets against other schools, will improve.

“We didn't have a team that was able to be competitive against most of the schools, because there's schools out there with 25, 30 wrestlers on the team,” said Stalk. “So even if we had four or five boys wrestle and win all their matches, we would still lose the dual meet because of all the empty weight classes that we were missing.”

Due to the skill the team is already showing and the number of boys on the team – there are currently no girls signed up, although Stalk said the team is trying to recruit some – he and his assistant coaches believe in the potential of this KSS team.

“With the numbers that we have on the team right now, and what we're seeing out of the rookies on the mat, it's looking like one of the best teams that I've seen at the school in a long time,” said Stalk.

Peter Montour, head coach at Howard S. Billings and of the Mohawk Wrestling Club, is also looking forward to the new year, with both teams boasting lots of fresh faces.

Twice per week, training is happening at the Quebec Olympic Wrestling Federation’s national training facility in Montreal, as well as at Billings.  

Montour said that usually training would happen more frequently for the Mohawk Wrestling Club at the Kahnawake Youth Center, but there is currently not enough availability to do so.

Along with teaching similar moves and techniques as those outlined by Stalk, Montour is teaching his wrestling cohort something he did not expect to have to: tumbling.

“I don't know what it is, but for the last 10, 15 years, kids don't know how to tumble,” said Montour. “We're actually teaching kids how to tumble in grade seven and grade eight, because they've never done it before in school.”

Aside from that, Montour is making sure that wrestlers cover all the techniques in training, so that they have a variety of them at their disposal come time to get on the mat against an opponent.

“You may learn two or three different kinds of ways, but you have to imagine that as another knife in your Swiss army knife,” said Montour. “Certain knives are good for spreading butter, or certain knives are good for cutting. You get a screwdriver in there. The more you have, the more you can do.”

Montour is keeping the Canada Games tryouts in mind along with dual meets and the GMAA tournament. Tryouts will be in May 2025.

“The GMAA is a finite season. But with the Canada Games, we're going to be training right up until August,” said Montour.

In the past, Kahnawake has sent three or four wrestlers to the Games, and the three-time Canada Games coach is hoping to send more this year.

“Most of the kids are trying for a Canada Games spot. It's once in a lifetime,” said Montour.

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