Concluding the 2008 School-Age Tournament Training Program

After 3 months of hard work and mental preparation, we are finally coming to the end of the training program that I put together. I believe the group has improved in leaps and bounds in the last 3 months. I am happy to say that the team's attitude has been excellent and every wrestler has developed more of their talent into useable skills. The key theme for this training program was to work on the basics. To that end, we only learnt a few very useful takedowns and ground attacks. Rather than just learn moves randomly, we worked through each technique very thoroughly and also studied the setups applicable to each move. The takedowns that we learnt may have been basic, but they contained the core footwork and body movements that are required to learn more advanced moves. We also worked on getting a well-rounded defence and understanding the crucial things that can either make an attack succeed or fail.

Finally, towards the end of the training period, I worked with each wrestler individually to develop his/her style and to encourage them to use their best moves effectively.

Looking Towards The Future:

I have deliberately omitted a lot of ground attacks and throws from this training program. I believed that learning the basic setups, attacks and defences were the top priority for the group. My intention has always been to branch out and teach more diverse techniques in future. The challenge will be to incorporate these new techniques into the different styles of each wrestler without confusing them. Learning more techniques is fine, as long as one does not lose sight of one's overall wrestling strategy.

I can already see each senior wrestler developing his/her own style of wrestling. This has definitely been something that has only happened over the last 6 weeks or so. This is because each wrestler is getting better at their basic moves and can now try different things to make those moves effective. This results in different wrestlers developing different styles. Thus, one of the important goals for the future is to continue to develop the individual styles for each wrestler.

The greatest barrier, in my opinion, has been the lack of consistent training due to sickness or injury. This has affected almost all the wrestlers and has resulted in very few wrestlers attending 2 or more training sessions per week. I do NOT think that this has been a big problem for this tournament, but as we advance to higher levels of competition, the ability to train consistently will become much more important. The first goal for an advanced training program is for each competitor to attend classes consistently. Once this is achieved, then he/she will be able to work on fitness and strength training on days with no classes (Tuesdays, Thursdays and weekends). However, if the wrestler does not attend training regularly, there is very little chance of him/her being able to train their skills while also working on fitness/strength at the same time. Advanced wrestlers need to work both skills and fitness. This can only be achieved by attending training sessions to practise your skills and for sparring, while also improving fitness in your spare time. Every wrestler who wants to advance to more difficult training programs must understand that this level of commitment is required in order to train at a high level. But this level of training is not required for everyone. Future training programs will also cater for those who enjoy wrestling, but who are not able to commit to such a high level of training.

Nevertheless, irrespective of which level of training anyone chooses, the foremost requirement is: to display a good training attitude and respect for your training partners every time you attend a class. This philosophy will continue to be stressed in all future training sessions.

With these goals and challenges in mind, we will continue to learn, both as coaches and as wrestlers, and to strive for improvement in all areas of wrestling.

------ "Citius, Altius, Fortius" ------

This was a very good week of training. Wednesday's session for me was to take all the competitors on a one-on-one session to fine tune their technique and go over their match strategy. In particular, 2 things I stressed were: 1) Wrestle to your strengths. Use the techniques you know well and manipulate your opponent so that you help set up your best moves. 2) Be tough every time you contact your opponent. Every time you touch your opponent, it needs to be heavy and strong in order to keep the pressure on them. Move them around with snaps, jerks and pushes. Do not just tense up and grapple aimlessly with them.

On Friday, we did lots of match preparation drills. I made it clear that the drills were to be done with the same intensity and concentration as competitive wrestling, but we practised the moves cooperatively so as not to injure anybody before the tournament. The important thing was to stay mentally focussed and concentrating on maintaining a good stance all the way through the round.

This Wednesday's training was rather lacklustre. We did some more flow drills which focussed on centre penetrations following into the takedown. But due to a lack of energy and intensity, I switched the class over to doing lots of sparring in the end.

Friday was a lot better. There was more energy within the group, and as a result, we managed to revise our single leg shots and finishes. I was also very happy with the sparring sessions. Most of the wrestlers were very effective in the tie up and actively moved their opponents around to get a good leg shot. However, footwork and level changes still need to be worked on. Footwork involves penetrating deep in for a centre shot, or stepping in close to the opponent's foot for a side shot. Level changes need to be done at the same time as the shot. You cannot shoot and then try to level change after that. This will be our focus for next week.

We went back to revising snap downs this Friday. One common mistake that I observed was that wrestlers did not put enough body weight behind the snap. This problem can be solved by pulling the opponent towards you first, then sprawling all your weight on the opponent's head/neck. This puts much more pressure on their neck compared to just pulling them down. This move should be used in conjunction with headlock and go-behind techniques in order to score a takedown.

This week we returned to generally brushing up our takedowns. We need to keep practising those 4 basic takedowns until they can be done smoothly. Only then, can these lead on to more techniques. For example, the technique for ankle pick is based on the same footwork as the head-pull to single leg that we've been training. Techniques for footsweeps to single legs are based on the same footwork as the 2-on-1 armlock that we practised today. Peek outs and duckunders are based on the high-crotch technique. The sweep single teaches the knee movement techniques required to learn the low single. Therefore learning the basic footwork and setups in these 4 moves is a good investment because they are used in almost all other leg attack techniques. But even if you did not learn any other leg attacks besides these 4 moves, you can still win matches with them because they are the highest percentage moves in wrestling. Next week, we will revise another of the top 3 high percentage move in freestyle wrestling: the snap down. Also revised ground defence techniques on Wednesday. This is the area which I thought needed the most work from the X-Cup tournament.

We had some fun with a new move this Friday. The outside leg-reaping throw. This is probably the simplest, but most useful throw to learn in freestyle wrestling. It works really well when your opponent is off balance and you have a tight overhook/whizzer on them (usually when you sprawl correctly and grab the whizzer). Stepping in and throwing from here can get you a pin! The important things are to step towards your opponent's foot while pulling hard on the whizzer, then sagging down as you cut their leg with yours. Don't try to lift or use your hips to flip them. You must transfer your weight and sag downwards for this throw. Watch Kendall Cross of the USA do this move in the 1996 Olympic Finals (it happens at the first 30 seconds of the match). If it can be done in an Olympic Gold Medal match, you can definitely use it in your matches! This move is favoured by the tall lanky people in their weight class. When used properly, it makes if very intimidating for shorter opponents to shoot in on you because you could sprawl, whizzer and throw them.