I’m not the most knowledgeable technician that wrestling has ever known, but I’m close. And I mention this because most of the wrestling you see today, which is referred to as funk, started with me. Actually, it was called garbage wrestling when I first started to experiment with techniques in the 1960’s that weren’t common place. Then eventually, when people started seeing a lot of great wrestlers being felled with garbage, I knew it was time to start referring to my style as being funky instead of the demeaning term garbage. Then, eventually the wrestling community dropped the ‘y’ and it’s where it is now, being referred to as funk.
So Wade, of all the things that your contemporaries consider to be technically sound, what makes you say grrrr the most?
Answer; watching coaches on Instagram demonstrate technique that are either wrong, or definitely incomplete. What I notice the most are instructors clinging to what they’ve been taught, without ever questioning the validity, or effectiveness of what it is they’re demonstrating.
As an example, let me ask; where should you look when you’re pinning someone. Should you look to your left, to your right, up, or is it down? Since 1842, I believe most coaches will say you should look up.
Nope, just the opposite. You should look down . . . always!
Okay, now that I’ve got your attention, most of you are probably disagreeing with me on that. And the why is simple. It’s what your coaches taught you, and their coaches taught them, and so on through the years.
But up until Galileo, all the world’s greatest thinkers felt the earth was at the center of the universe. Not that I’m paralleling pinning to the planets, but I believe one should always question what they see, most of what they read, and all of what they hear.
As to where should a wrestler look when he or she is pinning someone, I answered that above. Look down.
Let me ask you a question? Define what a pin is? Isn’t it gluing your opponent’s shoulder blades to the mat? So, why would, or should, anyone look up? What’s up, besides the ceiling? How does knowing how many lights there are in the gym help you with your pinning?
Yea, you might say that looking up puts pressure on your opponent. And it does to some extent.
But you can achieve the same amount of pressure by looking down and pulling your opponent up into you with your arms.
If you’re not convinced, how about this? If the referee isn’t slapping the mat, why isn’t that happening? The answer may have something to do with one of your opponent’s shoulder blades isn’t touching the mat?
And given that the referee isn’t going to tell you which shoulder blade that is, how do you know whether you should push into him by sliding forward or adding pressure by sliding back? Actually, that’s why so many pins aren’t called when they could be.
Only if you look down can you see what the challenge is.
Looking up is the same as shooting a gun down range while you’re looking behind you at the refreshment stand. Chances are pretty good that if you do it that way, you aren’t even going to hit the hill that’s behind the target.
On a separate note, who has sold, by far, the most technique videos in wrestling? There’s a reason I have because the technique’s shown, even though some of them were filmed decades ago, is exactly what you’re seeing in action today. Check them out at fanaticwrestling.com
