Wrestling Blogs - Mike Tamillow

I’m so over it. After sixteen years of wrestling repetition seems to be an overwhelmingly emphasized subject. Do this. Ok now do it again. Ok now do it forty more time. Now do it EVERY DAY FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. Haha, ok it’s not that bad, but really now, is it necessary? What makes someone a great wrestler… repetition? coming in every day to wrestle? Pushing yourself to the limit everyday, despite injuries and illness? I’m over it.

There were several wrestlers on my youth team that did gymnastics before they ever started wrestling. From what I saw it seemed to help. There is always some wrestler who comes into high school without wrestling a day in his life and whoops up on everyone. He gets tagged as talented or athletic. And yet other kids may work really, really hard. Coming in every day, following everything the coach has told them. Repetition, repetition, repetition. Out conditioning their opponents. Training and training for that day of glory… two three four years. And then the chance comes, only to get out wrestled by… a gymnast… who just started this year!

What really matters is what you do for seven minutes. Seven minutes of wrestling. Some people try to claim it’s a lifestyle. Others worry something will effect their training. Let me break it down for you. What happens on that mat?… does the ref ask you how many salads you ate? Does he ask you how many times you ran the stadium? Does he ask you why you missed that practice on Sunday, when really you slept in because…“hey I like to sleep, chill out man, it’s no big deal”? No! the ref calls the match, he determines whether based on your movements and positions if you deserve to win. I’m over it, I just need to find out how to win.

Ben Askren talks about dairy queen blizzards when he describes what some people have that others don’t. (I just watched this again, and not surprisingly found out he isn’t a fan of repetition either) It is the ability to pick up whatever it is that it takes to be a great wrestler. And he says some people have it and some people don’t. I think this is half true. There is a ton of improvement that can be made by any wrestler, great or not, but this won’t be made by repetition to death.

How this is made is a whole different matter and probably the most neglected aspect of wrestling. It’s called learning, this is different from something a ton of coaches do called teaching. There are a few things I should tell you about learning first. Everyone learns differently. This means that just because you learned it one way doesn’t mean it will work for everyone. Learning happens in an almost random fashion. It may slowly occur, it may click all of the sudden, you could teach and it may not help at all. After twenty different methods of teaching, the most unlikely method may work. People can even learn spontaneously years after being taught. (So if you’ve been sitting around for the past ten years working a desk job, and think you may be better at wrestling than you were during your competition days, there is a chance you could be right.). Don’t expect teaching to help learning. Remember teaching and learning are two different things.

That being said what I really wanted to talk about was dance. I took a few dance classes in school. Like gymnastics, dance helps with the most essential part to wrestling that coaches often downgrade. The essential part to wrestling I’m talking about is movement. Perhaps there is a feeling I personally won’t learn by wrestling that is beneficially to my wrestling. I could learn it by dance, I could learn another way to think about it, or I’ll just absorb it, like I absorb a delicious dairy queen blizzard.

So absorb this stuff and then come back to my blog --- Laban Movement Analysis

There is a good chance that you didn’t actually learn anything there. I presented how each aspect of the movement has a time and place in wrestling so you can try to learn it again in another way. Each of these different aspects of a movement is on a continuum and each has a time and place in wrestling. To find the balance of these is optimal

Space
Indirect – a great way of feeling out your partner. When I get warmed up in practice I toy around with the concept of space. I test out my duck-unders which require some foot motion and doesn’t commit me to making an attack. Using this type of space is useful in attacking over and over again. My opponent has to prepare to defend a lot of options.
Direct – very effective for making a clear attack. Once I am sure my opponent is open to an attack, I cannot wait. Therefore my shot must be certain and intended to finish in one quick motion. Make sure to find different amounts of directness. Know whether what you intend to do is your only motion or if you have a range.

Time
Quick – like throwing a fastball in baseball. Wrestling is a sport of rhythm. I am finding my opponents rhythm and then I am attacking right through him while he is counting his beats. I love to hit quick attacks when I see a pattern. He reaches, I bat his hand down, reaches again, happens again, third times a charm, dos puntos.
Sustained – is about changing rhythm to slow down so the opponent doesn’t realize he is being attacked. As hard as this one may seem to be to understand it is actually kind of easy to do. It makes wrestling look pathetic. Here’s what I do, grab his leg and slowly penetrate through his leg as if I were testing the shot out. Takedown, Iowa Style.

Weight
Light – This method is used to try to evoke a response. I usually use weight very much if my opponent is in a different weight class than me or if I feel we are different strengths. The light use of weight is faking a shot or hand fighting GENTLY!! Be gentle when he’s rough. He tries to push you around, go with it. Let him think you are weak.
Strong – Instead of looking for a response, the strong wrestler blows through the response. If 300 pounds of pressure are on your back, you should squat it up. This movement has to be in response to an opponent not being ready. Set him up in some way and then blow through. Don’t get 300 lbs of pressure on your back. (Which is possible at many weight classes), try to get a workable amount of weight by hitting your opponent when he isn’t ready.

Flow
Free – What can I say. This is flowrestling. So that means just go with it. This type of free flow goes by a Timmy Cysewski philosophy which is “the person who makes the last move scores” Free flow is what you do to never give up a takedown. You should be comfortable going with your opponents move freely and looking for your move right off of it, before points get awarded.
Bound – Being the opposite of free flow the philosophy should be the exact opposite. I think the philosophy to bound flow that corresponds without contradicting is “the first move will be the last move.” This type of flow is about securing a move from a standardized attack. It requires initiating from a set position.

Try to imagine a picture and a feeling for each of the following movements. It’s really hard to even find that continuum much less utilize it. But once you understand where it is you’ll have another way to learn wrestling, perhaps faster and easier. As far as dancing goes, I doubt it ever hurt anyone to have amazing dance moves (and it’s a better pickup line then “I lost my number can I borrow yours?”)