I just have some questions about the sport. I know that wrestling involves a lot of technique, but is a lot of the technique built on things we do somewhat instinctively when wrestling? I have watched dogs and cats’ wrestle. And they seem to mimic a lot of the moves I see in Olympic style wrestling. I took lessons for a few weeks when I was around 12 and always regretted not following up with it.
I was on the wrestling team in high school for four years and I was pretty good at it. That said, I graduated almost 30 years ago. I would argue that human wrestling, even when done as part of play, is learned not instinctual. Once you start rough housing, you’re going to learn the most effective ways to knock someone down, to grapple, to escape from a grapple, etc., etc. Even as a kid, I didn’t start out knowing how to wrestle, but I got better at it the more I did it.
I was on the wrestling team for just a year in 9th grade, back in the 80s. It was a good program at my school, with some guys winning at the county and state levels. From day one we were taught a lot of moves, techniques and counter-moves. Some of them were numbered. It was actually a lot to absorb.
But of course, those with some knack for it would prevail over those who were simply good at learning technique. I was sort of a “batting practice hitter” in wrestling, meaning I was good at learning the moves, good at mock matches, but didn’t do well in actual competition. I didn’t really have the cutthroat instinct and didn’t know how to manage the stress of real matches. I don’t remember that being taught, but if it was I didn’t get it.
There was also some emphasis on safety. We were taught that if you took your opponent off his feet, you had to put him back down safely. It was not professional wrestling where you can make them submit.
The best wrestlers I saw were sinewy, quiet guys. I saw a heavily muscled kid who looked very tough get beaten by such an opponent. We had a state champ on the team who looked very unassuming in street clothes, and almost skinny in his singlet. But he had a real instinct for wrestling and had great technique. I remember lightly practicing against him once and immediately knew I would have no chance at all against him, though we were the same age and weight.
I wrestled in high school in the late 1970s. My coach kept telling me I had natural instincts but was not aggressive enough to take advantage of them. Because of that I sorta sucked.
Yes, there are moves. But everyone knows them.
mmm
Very often, I found the kids with big muscles often got tuckered out fairly quickly. i.e. They lacked endurance. Every January we’d get some football kids join our program during their off season, most of them there to work on their endurance, and since I was bigger, I ended up practicing with them because most of them weren’t small fries. My general strategy when wreslting them was to perform a take down and allow them to escape. I’d just keep doing that because they’d get tired and I wouldn’t.
My inner cynic wonders if he simply told everyone that: not because he’d already figured out that you lacked what he was looking for, but in hopes that he could then see which wrestlers would get fired up and show him a thing or two and which would respond with a Because Of That I Sorta…
I don’t think so. He was specific about my strengths and my potential, and he verbalized this (as well as my lack of drive) in front of the team.
Also, his analysis was correct.
mmm
My sister’s three sons wrestled in high-school and were very good. Their dad helped coach the team. Whenever they told me how wrestling was going, I always suggested they grab a folding chair early on and hit their opponent with it. They explained that wasn’t allowed.