Wrestle Ryu

Had a good class last night with the juniors. One of the guys is wrestling in middle school. ANALOGY TIME!

I showed them a couple moves I always liked. I wrestled for six years in school...I wasn't great but I could hold my own. I was always wrestling against great guys for the varsity position... they were always in the top 5 in the state... so I only wrestled in a varsity match a couple times, but I was pretty good in relation to who I was training with (I wrestled 142 pounds my senior year... team members had to wrestle for position on varsity each week. just 'cause you made varsity, doesn't mean you wrestled in the meet at varsity. Anyone could beat you for the spot any given week). At 142 I was bench pressing about 225 pounds and running a 6.1 50 yd. Aahhhh...to be young again...

Anywho, I was showing a couple basic things that they hadn't seen before. I immediately thought to myself that the coach must not know what he is doing...and almost fell right into my own trap!

I thought better of it and didn't say anything out loud but instead thought about it for a while...why wouldn't he show this...

Cause its their first year...duh! Wrestling is, for all intents and purposes, a martial art. And as such, there is a cycle of learning that revolves around repetition of basics for a very long extended period of time. You see, there is no way to teach how to "feel" something. You simply have to do it over and over to develop the feel. So, I gave myself a mental self-smack in the head and tried to reinforce what the coach was doing. Basics, basics, basics. I'm doing what so many karate sensei do...they try to use their knowledge of a complicated topic and try to teach these concepts to someone not ready for it. These guys have been wrestling for a month! Anyway, I've decided it might be cool to have a little wrestling practice for these guys after class to reinforce the basics. Feel is a matter of time, not understanding nor is it about learning a plethora of techniques. It is simply about time.

As a side note, a friend of mine wrestled in college. He was varsity. The guy always trying to take his position but couldn't manage it... a UFC Champion (I'll leave the names out to protect my butt). I've wrestled against this guy several times, he even took karate with his kids at the dojo for a while. I could never even get behind the guy...