Technique
Scroll to bottom for Video and Analysis's of Techniques.
Leg Riding
Defense: (Best defense is to block a leg rider with elbows or grab there foot so they don't get there legs in.) If they happen to get a leg or two you need to fall to one hip and try to pry there leg out or sit on your butt and dig your heels into the mat and scoot yourself away from your opponent. If you can scoot yourself away you can arch back and grab there head or get one of there legs out.
Offense: Thinking about riding legs yourself? Well don't just stick your legs in, try spiraling your opponent first and getting one leg in at a time. If you get two legs in your should force your knees outward to flatten out your opponent. If you can only get one leg in make your life easy and make your opponent fall to there opposite hip by cross facing them or chopping there opposite arm, after this you can pin them or rack up on back points to get a technical foul and win the match.
Neutral Position
If you are asking yourself what should I being doing in neutral to easily take my opponent down then you came to the right place.
First you need to follow some basic fundamentals to protect yourself from getting taken down.
#1 : Never touch your opponents head without grabbing there wrist.
# 2: Always keep your hands in front of you and have your hands ready to grab your opponent if they try to get in on your legs. Keep your elbows slightly bent so they don't just push your arms up and shoot in.
# 3: If they do happen to grab your legs DON'T SPRAWL slam your hip into there face and run into them to knock them over or cross face them. Sprawling is taught wayyyyy to much and is not realistic for many situations. If you opponent gets in on your legs you better beat them up with your cross face or say hi to there face with by slamming your hips into there body. You can practice your hip slams by standing up with your hands against the wall and lift up one knee. Touch the knee to the wall in and make sure the pressure moves in a straight line forward. This will help you develop the correct motion in your hip to defend a double.
#4 Touch the mat with one hand to make sure you are in a low enough position to shoot, to protect your feet and to spring into your opponent if they try to pull you down to the mat. (Yes you nee strong legs to be successful at this, so work on your hindu squats for speed)
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Suck at shooting? Well that's probably because your coach doesn't teach the slight almost unnoticeable foot patterns that top olympians use to shoot at a slight ankle and confuse your opponent (try creating your own patterns two or three is all you need and you will begin to understand foot movement). Or your legs and hips aren't fast or strong enough. So try this: shoot in on your opponent and when they sprawl (which most athlete were trained to do) then step to there left or right to slide around them and secure a claw. Once you get good at doubles you will be able to take anyone down and it should be the only real move you need!
Bottom Position
1. OH NO! Your on Bottom! The only real goal here is to create space between your opponent. Ninety percent of the time it's as easy as doing a knee slide properly and grabbing your opponent wrist to defend yourself in neutral so they don't shoot again.
2. If you can't get your opponents arms out from around you try to create at least some space so you can twist and grab there leg so scramble or double out; or grab there foot from between your legs; very important tip: if you don't want to get thrown then keep your opponents knee directly behind yours by blocking them with your hands. When pushing your hip out to create space DO NOT push straight out instead pushing the boney part of your hip out and SLIDE your opponents hands down the front of your leg.
Top Position
Um I can't flip my opponent to get back points coach and I ran out of moves, what in the hell do I do? CRADLE CRADLE CRADLE CRALE you will here this a hundred time in your career and still not use it on each and evey opponent. When you master all the little almost unnoticeable nuisances of how to do a cradle you will literally get it on everyone. This is how much practice it takes and how many things you need to do at once for this to even work at all: 1. pull opponents wrist and push elbow keep there arm close to there body on there far hip. 2. take your knee place it on your opponents knee -NOT ON THE MAT - 3. Keep shoving you back knee into there butt so they fall on the hip that you other knee is pushing into (Both of your knees and feet should be coming off of the mat completely at time as you push there but and pressure there thigh with your other knee aka PRESSURE.) 4. When your opponent falls to there hips learn to clamp them hard with your thighs and to roll when they try to get on top of you or to block them from rolling. If you learn to roll you can just cradle them again and get more points. 5. Once they are on there back pull there arm into there body hard and suck them into your control.
STILL PRACTICING A CRADLE? Well just knee chop your opponent to that mat, starting slightly behind them works even better. Once they are flat do whatever it takes to put your weight on there lower back or they will get up again if they are any good. Try a bow and arrow at this point it works every time when done properly.
Other best move from top: Another time tested effective move is spiraling your opponent, sneaking a leg in, pressuring there hips over to there weak side (side without the leg) and crossing facing them to the mat. Keep there arm flat on the mat by grabbing there wrist to stop them from moving.
I'm Stuck flat coach!
Some tight waists are tight! Drag yourself forward while digging your hip into your opponents arm and hurt them! Then that tight waist will loosen up. You can even use this technique if they get a tight waist while you are still on all four. Simply throw one of your arm forward and slam you hip into there arm and drag yourself and there tight waist on the mat with your hip. The goal is to punish them. Once you do this grab there tight waist wrist by the palm of there hands and pull there wrist back, block there other hand with yours and get up by rolling to all fours first or just standing up.
Big moves!
So your down by ten points and its the third period and you want to hit a big move huh? Well guess what throwing your opponent seven feet over your head or having them welcome you to a headlock is not very realistic and your opponent would need to fall asleep for this to be a viable alternative. But wait! What about a sneaky knee pick? All a knee or ankle pick really is is getting your opponent's weight on there heels and pushing them while you hand is behind there knee or ankle. So at like you really want to win and push the hell out of your opponent and pick them behind there knee. You better hurry up and learn to get on top of them before they roll to there stomach. This is really the best and most sneaky alternative, unless you are really good at other types of throws, but keep in mind your opponents hips will be back.
Head Lock
This is one of the easiest moves to get out of, think about it. You opponents arm is in the perfect position for you to cradle them.Grab there arm like you are going to do a cradle, roll and clamp there hips! It's literally that easy, but first you need to master a cradle!
Grabbing an opponents Leg
OMG! Coach I have my opponents leg. . . Well don't just stand there and look at me run backward as fast as you can and kick there other leg out or run backwards then plow them down! They can't do anything if your running backwards and keeping there leg high. Remember to always keep your close hand's palm facing upward when you grab a leg so your using its bicep strength.
If you can't get there leg high or run for whatever reason you better learn to take a big step and lower your hips to get there butt on the mat.
Opponent grabs your leg
Oh no! Coach my opponent is try to jack my leg up. Well you can do a backflip and almost kill yourself OR grab there wrist if they have your ankle in there chest and pull your foot out OR if they have near your knee your objective is to face them because they will keep trying to get to the side of you. So face them and dig your head into there head and pull there elbows upward to get your leg out and shoot a double leg!!! or just guard your own legs once your leg is free. This should work every time.
My opponent is really good at low singles blah blah blah
Yes if someone is good at low single they are like a cheetah stocking there prey which is YOU. Put you have a secret weapon to defend this cheetah, and its called a knee cap to there face!
My OPPONENT is Good at riding legs: If your opponent is good at riding legs then he knows the best secret of riding legs; point your knees outward. There are to primary methods to defend a leg rider. 1. If you opponent has one leg in sit/fall to the same hip his leg is on to pin his hip down and dig our heel into the ground and slouch down so your hips are not flush with your opponents now you have created space between your hips so you can take you opponents foot out by grabbing there toes and pulling back or pinning there knee to the mat. 2. If you opponent has two legs in the philosophy is similiar but you do not want to sit to a hip or role; instead you want to sit on your butt dig both of your heels in to the ground and slouch downward this will allow you to bridge out and grabs your opponents head OR simply pull there legs out or scoot your butt over their legs. If you can get one leg out you can stick your arm under there other legs and role out and sneak out from behind there legs as well.
My opponent stood up what do I do to keep control? This position should not be a fight to keep your opponent down if it is you were not taught to gently toss your opponent to the mat properly which doesn't take a lot of hip strength or energy. Here's how its done, start directly behind your opponent. 1. Lock your hands together at the corner of your one side of your opponents hips this is usually the side of the leg that is farther back or there non dominant leg or get them to step so you can switch to the side with less support. (One fore arm should be across there body) 2. step to the side you just locked hands on so your in a squatting position. 3. lifts your locked hands up so your tilting the front of there body to the mat. (in freestyle you can toss them from this position but in folkstyle you want to scoop them lay them back down to the mat. Keep in mind you will most likely need to chop there arm when the hit the mat to hit a tilt so keep you hips tight and pressure them forward with your knee to there butt when they touch them mat.
My opponent wizards my arm: grab there opposite hop with your near arm, get in a squatting position aka bend there close knee with yours, and lift there near leg up with your other hand. OR do the motion where you throw a base ball with your near hand to slip your arm out.
Other Things to keep in mind:
- Coach my NOSE IS BLEEDING! Well stop taking so much ibuprofen and Advil and clean your nose with a neti pot so it will heal! If your muscles get tired after cutting weight, you are cutting to much weight and not gauging your progress like it tells you to on the training routines page. Or your not taking cordyceps or rhodiola roses consistently. If you really need to take advil because your tired then go back to mother nature and ask her for some White Willow Bark. Also, Did you warm up and wrestle a match with your teammate before even wrestling a live match? Because if you didn't then you will get tired, so will every top athlete on the planet. Another MUST is to flow wrestle (wrestling at 50 percent but connecting move after move and letting your opponent get moves in as well int he same manner to see what your would do in certain situations and think about what you would do or ask question when stuck.) when your cutting weight, working out and running all night will exhaust you! You simply need to learn to flow wrestle with your teammate to create body friction, sweat, and heat and work on your skills for the next day.
- Coach what should I eat during a tournament? Did I give you my homemade protein bar recipe on the nutrition page?
- Coach I can't make weight I am a pound to heavy: Well, did I teach you how to flow wrestle?
Develop a Killer Half
Technique 1:
1. Break opponent down flat.
2. get the half in.
3. Pull your opponent towards you harshly.
4. Flip them over now that you sank the half in.
Technique 2:
1. Break opponent down flat with knee grab or something.
2. Get the Half.
3. Grab your opponents wrist with other hand. (one on one grip.)
4. Roll your opponent wrist and suck it in/ at the same time put your hand with the half on top of their head and roll their head down while forcing them forward, this will roll them on their head, and you will definently pin them.
My favorite move: Bow and Arrows! When I break an opponent down there is nothing like sitting on there but pulling there laces up towards your chest sticking your knee under there thigh of the leg you just pulled up, clamping down and cross facing them into bow and arrow. My next three favorites are tilts, doubles, and stand up knee slides.
Defense: (Best defense is to block a leg rider with elbows or grab there foot so they don't get there legs in.) If they happen to get a leg or two you need to fall to one hip and try to pry there leg out or sit on your butt and dig your heels into the mat and scoot yourself away from your opponent. If you can scoot yourself away you can arch back and grab there head or get one of there legs out.
Offense: Thinking about riding legs yourself? Well don't just stick your legs in, try spiraling your opponent first and getting one leg in at a time. If you get two legs in your should force your knees outward to flatten out your opponent. If you can only get one leg in make your life easy and make your opponent fall to there opposite hip by cross facing them or chopping there opposite arm, after this you can pin them or rack up on back points to get a technical foul and win the match.
Neutral Position
If you are asking yourself what should I being doing in neutral to easily take my opponent down then you came to the right place.
First you need to follow some basic fundamentals to protect yourself from getting taken down.
#1 : Never touch your opponents head without grabbing there wrist.
# 2: Always keep your hands in front of you and have your hands ready to grab your opponent if they try to get in on your legs. Keep your elbows slightly bent so they don't just push your arms up and shoot in.
# 3: If they do happen to grab your legs DON'T SPRAWL slam your hip into there face and run into them to knock them over or cross face them. Sprawling is taught wayyyyy to much and is not realistic for many situations. If you opponent gets in on your legs you better beat them up with your cross face or say hi to there face with by slamming your hips into there body. You can practice your hip slams by standing up with your hands against the wall and lift up one knee. Touch the knee to the wall in and make sure the pressure moves in a straight line forward. This will help you develop the correct motion in your hip to defend a double.
#4 Touch the mat with one hand to make sure you are in a low enough position to shoot, to protect your feet and to spring into your opponent if they try to pull you down to the mat. (Yes you nee strong legs to be successful at this, so work on your hindu squats for speed)
-------------------------------------------
Suck at shooting? Well that's probably because your coach doesn't teach the slight almost unnoticeable foot patterns that top olympians use to shoot at a slight ankle and confuse your opponent (try creating your own patterns two or three is all you need and you will begin to understand foot movement). Or your legs and hips aren't fast or strong enough. So try this: shoot in on your opponent and when they sprawl (which most athlete were trained to do) then step to there left or right to slide around them and secure a claw. Once you get good at doubles you will be able to take anyone down and it should be the only real move you need!
Bottom Position
1. OH NO! Your on Bottom! The only real goal here is to create space between your opponent. Ninety percent of the time it's as easy as doing a knee slide properly and grabbing your opponent wrist to defend yourself in neutral so they don't shoot again.
2. If you can't get your opponents arms out from around you try to create at least some space so you can twist and grab there leg so scramble or double out; or grab there foot from between your legs; very important tip: if you don't want to get thrown then keep your opponents knee directly behind yours by blocking them with your hands. When pushing your hip out to create space DO NOT push straight out instead pushing the boney part of your hip out and SLIDE your opponents hands down the front of your leg.
Top Position
Um I can't flip my opponent to get back points coach and I ran out of moves, what in the hell do I do? CRADLE CRADLE CRADLE CRALE you will here this a hundred time in your career and still not use it on each and evey opponent. When you master all the little almost unnoticeable nuisances of how to do a cradle you will literally get it on everyone. This is how much practice it takes and how many things you need to do at once for this to even work at all: 1. pull opponents wrist and push elbow keep there arm close to there body on there far hip. 2. take your knee place it on your opponents knee -NOT ON THE MAT - 3. Keep shoving you back knee into there butt so they fall on the hip that you other knee is pushing into (Both of your knees and feet should be coming off of the mat completely at time as you push there but and pressure there thigh with your other knee aka PRESSURE.) 4. When your opponent falls to there hips learn to clamp them hard with your thighs and to roll when they try to get on top of you or to block them from rolling. If you learn to roll you can just cradle them again and get more points. 5. Once they are on there back pull there arm into there body hard and suck them into your control.
STILL PRACTICING A CRADLE? Well just knee chop your opponent to that mat, starting slightly behind them works even better. Once they are flat do whatever it takes to put your weight on there lower back or they will get up again if they are any good. Try a bow and arrow at this point it works every time when done properly.
Other best move from top: Another time tested effective move is spiraling your opponent, sneaking a leg in, pressuring there hips over to there weak side (side without the leg) and crossing facing them to the mat. Keep there arm flat on the mat by grabbing there wrist to stop them from moving.
I'm Stuck flat coach!
Some tight waists are tight! Drag yourself forward while digging your hip into your opponents arm and hurt them! Then that tight waist will loosen up. You can even use this technique if they get a tight waist while you are still on all four. Simply throw one of your arm forward and slam you hip into there arm and drag yourself and there tight waist on the mat with your hip. The goal is to punish them. Once you do this grab there tight waist wrist by the palm of there hands and pull there wrist back, block there other hand with yours and get up by rolling to all fours first or just standing up.
Big moves!
So your down by ten points and its the third period and you want to hit a big move huh? Well guess what throwing your opponent seven feet over your head or having them welcome you to a headlock is not very realistic and your opponent would need to fall asleep for this to be a viable alternative. But wait! What about a sneaky knee pick? All a knee or ankle pick really is is getting your opponent's weight on there heels and pushing them while you hand is behind there knee or ankle. So at like you really want to win and push the hell out of your opponent and pick them behind there knee. You better hurry up and learn to get on top of them before they roll to there stomach. This is really the best and most sneaky alternative, unless you are really good at other types of throws, but keep in mind your opponents hips will be back.
Head Lock
This is one of the easiest moves to get out of, think about it. You opponents arm is in the perfect position for you to cradle them.Grab there arm like you are going to do a cradle, roll and clamp there hips! It's literally that easy, but first you need to master a cradle!
Grabbing an opponents Leg
OMG! Coach I have my opponents leg. . . Well don't just stand there and look at me run backward as fast as you can and kick there other leg out or run backwards then plow them down! They can't do anything if your running backwards and keeping there leg high. Remember to always keep your close hand's palm facing upward when you grab a leg so your using its bicep strength.
If you can't get there leg high or run for whatever reason you better learn to take a big step and lower your hips to get there butt on the mat.
Opponent grabs your leg
Oh no! Coach my opponent is try to jack my leg up. Well you can do a backflip and almost kill yourself OR grab there wrist if they have your ankle in there chest and pull your foot out OR if they have near your knee your objective is to face them because they will keep trying to get to the side of you. So face them and dig your head into there head and pull there elbows upward to get your leg out and shoot a double leg!!! or just guard your own legs once your leg is free. This should work every time.
My opponent is really good at low singles blah blah blah
Yes if someone is good at low single they are like a cheetah stocking there prey which is YOU. Put you have a secret weapon to defend this cheetah, and its called a knee cap to there face!
My OPPONENT is Good at riding legs: If your opponent is good at riding legs then he knows the best secret of riding legs; point your knees outward. There are to primary methods to defend a leg rider. 1. If you opponent has one leg in sit/fall to the same hip his leg is on to pin his hip down and dig our heel into the ground and slouch down so your hips are not flush with your opponents now you have created space between your hips so you can take you opponents foot out by grabbing there toes and pulling back or pinning there knee to the mat. 2. If you opponent has two legs in the philosophy is similiar but you do not want to sit to a hip or role; instead you want to sit on your butt dig both of your heels in to the ground and slouch downward this will allow you to bridge out and grabs your opponents head OR simply pull there legs out or scoot your butt over their legs. If you can get one leg out you can stick your arm under there other legs and role out and sneak out from behind there legs as well.
My opponent stood up what do I do to keep control? This position should not be a fight to keep your opponent down if it is you were not taught to gently toss your opponent to the mat properly which doesn't take a lot of hip strength or energy. Here's how its done, start directly behind your opponent. 1. Lock your hands together at the corner of your one side of your opponents hips this is usually the side of the leg that is farther back or there non dominant leg or get them to step so you can switch to the side with less support. (One fore arm should be across there body) 2. step to the side you just locked hands on so your in a squatting position. 3. lifts your locked hands up so your tilting the front of there body to the mat. (in freestyle you can toss them from this position but in folkstyle you want to scoop them lay them back down to the mat. Keep in mind you will most likely need to chop there arm when the hit the mat to hit a tilt so keep you hips tight and pressure them forward with your knee to there butt when they touch them mat.
My opponent wizards my arm: grab there opposite hop with your near arm, get in a squatting position aka bend there close knee with yours, and lift there near leg up with your other hand. OR do the motion where you throw a base ball with your near hand to slip your arm out.
Other Things to keep in mind:
- Coach my NOSE IS BLEEDING! Well stop taking so much ibuprofen and Advil and clean your nose with a neti pot so it will heal! If your muscles get tired after cutting weight, you are cutting to much weight and not gauging your progress like it tells you to on the training routines page. Or your not taking cordyceps or rhodiola roses consistently. If you really need to take advil because your tired then go back to mother nature and ask her for some White Willow Bark. Also, Did you warm up and wrestle a match with your teammate before even wrestling a live match? Because if you didn't then you will get tired, so will every top athlete on the planet. Another MUST is to flow wrestle (wrestling at 50 percent but connecting move after move and letting your opponent get moves in as well int he same manner to see what your would do in certain situations and think about what you would do or ask question when stuck.) when your cutting weight, working out and running all night will exhaust you! You simply need to learn to flow wrestle with your teammate to create body friction, sweat, and heat and work on your skills for the next day.
- Coach what should I eat during a tournament? Did I give you my homemade protein bar recipe on the nutrition page?
- Coach I can't make weight I am a pound to heavy: Well, did I teach you how to flow wrestle?
Develop a Killer Half
Technique 1:
1. Break opponent down flat.
2. get the half in.
3. Pull your opponent towards you harshly.
4. Flip them over now that you sank the half in.
Technique 2:
1. Break opponent down flat with knee grab or something.
2. Get the Half.
3. Grab your opponents wrist with other hand. (one on one grip.)
4. Roll your opponent wrist and suck it in/ at the same time put your hand with the half on top of their head and roll their head down while forcing them forward, this will roll them on their head, and you will definently pin them.
My favorite move: Bow and Arrows! When I break an opponent down there is nothing like sitting on there but pulling there laces up towards your chest sticking your knee under there thigh of the leg you just pulled up, clamping down and cross facing them into bow and arrow. My next three favorites are tilts, doubles, and stand up knee slides.
Doubles: Watch this video to find at least three patterns you can find in his movement. Don't worry about who is winning or loosing watch the foot patterns of the guy in blue.
The athlete above is known for his Effective feet maneuvers and speed. Let's watch the video and contemplate what we can do with our feet to have more effective double leg takedowns. In these video you will see him using small efficient duking and I will also put to other effective techniques that he briefly uses to touch the opponents legs and has used in other matches. 1. Small Efficient Duking - Touching the mat with hand, stepping with lead foot, stepping deep forward then backing up, using the back leg and moving it in a triangle pattern without moving the front leg to make opponent think your are moving to one side or penetrating forward, or backing up. 2. Blast double: Stepping to the right or left twice, then stepping once to the opposite side and then shooting into the opponent with the back leg (don't touch knee to ground) and blasting there arms up. 3. Outside Single: Steeping to the right or left twice then using the front leg to shoot to the side of the opponent and grab his leg. Use hands to keep away opponents arms. Further Analysis of above match: The German in Red is Keeping the American away because he is very good at keeping his hands in front of him to defend blast doubles. The American in blue does a good job of using number 3 above or the technique of outside singles to counter his opponent and get in. Doubles: Try hitting a double then duking under your opponent arm while getting a claw on there shoulder. to sneak behind them. you can also do this and wrap your arms around there hips and get behind them or roll them to the side you want if they sprawl. |
Athlete's Video to Watch on Youtube:
1. For Low Singles: John Smith. 2. For Ankle picks: Cael Sanderson and Kyle Dake. 3. For basics: Carl Adams. 4. For Doubles: Jordan Burroughs. Let's talk about other great wrestlers and what they to do be effective with there particular style. |