my boy was a true first year kid last year he was 6 and had never seen a bit of wrestling till his first practice. We entered him into several novice tournaments and he was known to let kids up just to take them down he knew he could gain easy points that way. My kid won two or three novice tournaments, so we put him in a few more novice tournaments at 8 and under. He did well in those so we moved him to open tournaments. He went on to qualify for 8 and under state. I guess point is I was worried as a parent to throw him into open tournaments cause I didn't want him getting murdered he was a true first year novice and he gained alot of knowledge from his novice experience.