RealTalkAJ

I’ll be sharing my perspective on if freestyle wrestling is dangerous.

What are the five skills of wrestling?

• Stance
• motion
• level change
• penetration
• drive to the finish

The Importance of Having a Good Stance

Your stance is the root of an identity for a wrestler. It’s the beginning of every match and becomes the first thing you learn in the sport.

Freestyle wrestling moves

11 Life Lessons I learned in Wrestling (my experience)

What is Freestyle Wrestling?

This is a type of wrestling that’s done in the world and Olympic level.

Same as Greco-Roman wrestling it’s divided into 2 periods with 30 second breaks in between.

One of the main goals of all styles is to secure a pin or fall in the match.

You’re able to grab the legs of your opponent in this style for both offensive and defensive positions.

The difference from Freestyle and Greco is this major detail which could possibly play a role in why it’s considered more popular than it’s counterpart.

It’s flashy and attractive because competitors are able to do things on the fly in the middle of the match in order to score points on their opponent.

If there’s a delay in scoring between both wrestlers then the more defensive wrestler will get out on what’s called the shot clock to encourage points to get on the board.

The history of Freestyle Wrestling

According to Wikipedia they say that Freestyle Wrestling’s been around as an Olympic sport since the St. Louis Olympics of 1904.

It’s the style that’s monitored by the Olympic committee under the supervision of the International Olympic Committee.

Judging by when the sport was sanctioned that actually makes wrestling a sport that’s been around since the fourth ever Olympic Games.

Greco-Roman was actually introduced earlier when it made its debut in the 1896 Olympics.

As mentioned earlier, the two styles are similar when it comes to the final objective but the difference being that in Greco the wrestler can only use their upper body to execute attacks.

Some historians believe that wrestling even goes back to as far as the 1800s in Great Britain but it’s up for debate.

What can be agreed on though is the fact that it comes from European countries and was derived from multiple styles.

Freestyle Wrestling terms

First we should start off with saying that Freestyle Wrestling is where competitors can use both arms and legs in a match.

Next, here’s a few terms you’ll commonly hear in a match:

• Takedowns
• Turns
• Throw
• Seeds
• Repechage
• Gold Medal Match
• Bronze Medal Match
• Technical Fall
• Shot clock
• Caution

There’s systems set in place where they separate one wrestler from the other by leveling each one by color.

In Freestyle they use Blue and Red to understand who’s winning and losing during the match.

All of the terms above make up a good majority of what you’ll expect to hear if you’re trying to follow what’s going on.

Understandably the sport can be hard to follow but that’s where things can get clarified as the sport develops further and takes steps to make it easier to follow.

If you focus on familiarizing yourself with these terms then you’ll have a much easier time learning the sport.

Pros and Cons of Freestyle Wrestling

Freestyle Wrestling has plenty of benefits when it comes to adding a better grappling resume to your toolbox.

It transitions well to folkstyle, jiu-jitsu, Judo and even MMA.

If we focus on Judo then we have to focus on the fact that a lot of their scoring is done by holding Gis.

But that brings us to some of the cons that Freestyle poses.

Since plenty of the attacks involve legs it makes a lot of what’s done in that sport very ineffective.

If anything most of it can be useful to have a Greco background since most of the attacks are done from the upper body area.

One thing that’s worth mentioning is that most other combat sports force you to have a level of being comfortable that goes against what a wrestler would usually have when being on your back.

Wrestling can also be very taxing on the body which can be a turn off if you’re looking more for something that’s a little more relaxed or even having shorter bursts of energy use.

It’s seriously a grind if you choose to participate in any level of wrestling.

Ask most athletes who train Jiu-Jutsu religiously, the practices are more relaxed.

They work hard but it’s a lot less of a strain when comparing it to a sport that can have practices that last a couple or few hours.

 

High Level wrestling moves

There’s so many high level moves that can work at any level of the sport, but here’s a list of moves that could work really well:

• Penetration step
• Single-leg takedown
• Double-leg
• Sprawl
• Snap down
• Whizzer
• Switch
• Sit out
• Front quarter Nelson
• Chicken wing (armbar)

These moves range.

They’re good to use in certain situations depending on what it is.

They may be hard to execute if you’re forcing them, so that means they’re best in scenarios where it’s necessary (obviously).

Consult your coach if you’re unsure on when to use them, but also be sure to learn defense on them as well considering some can be dangerous as well.

Here’s a guide that could prove useful:

Also, here’s a throw from a former teammate of mine who was an All-American for my college as well:

These moves can be hit from a neutral position, some can be in par-terre and also just from getting out on bottom (if you’re wrestling folkstyle).

If you’re a heavyweight there’s a selection of moves that can work well for you as well:

• Hip-toss
• Fireman’s Carry
• Granby Roll (Folkstyle)

That’s just a few to name but they’re very effective.

How to get started in Freestyle Wrestling

The best way to go about getting started in Freestyle Wrestling is to find a local club that you can train at.

Depending on your region there should be teams that travel to tournaments across the country and compete domestically.

America has great opportunities for these teams when you take into account that there’s also RTC’s that you can train at.

RTC stands for Regional Training Centers and you usually have to be invited to train there seeing as they have well known coaches that sometimes coach national team members.

Granted you have to usually prove yourself first by placing at national tournaments it makes having some level of accomplishment first in order to train at a higher level.

If that’s a little too far out of your league then you can also pay to train at clubs that train combat sports in general.

They tend to welcome competitors of any discipline and work together to find resources that’ll help you reach the next level in that focus.

Freestyle Wrestling tips & tricks

The clip above is an example of the type of research you can do if you’re limited on resources and are looking to get a better wrestling IQ.

There’s a library of courses that you can find online which should be able to expose you to new moves and training techniques.

As far as things you can generally take with you for wherever you train there’s best practices you can follow.

For example, you can practice your hand fighting, improving your position in moves you find yourself in often and things close to that.

Just learning your areas of improvement is a big majority of where the good turn great.

That can even be things close to figuring out a good warm up routine for practices, post weigh ins and even recovery methods you can take after a hard training session.

These are things that you can totally control when it comes to both training and competition.

When you look at Freestyle tournaments and even other styles competing back to back is far too common and learning how to compound good matches to follow the next is a big key.

Final thoughts

Those are the freestyle wrestling moves that’s consistently used in the world class level.

Often at times it gets confused with the WWE (and that’s okay) but the grade level sport needs more attention.

Related post

What’s the most brutal wrestling match?

It’s weird cuz there’s been many athletes that moved over to the theatrical version of the sport.

I can remember talks where I would bring up wrestling or someone else would and mention that organization immediately.

My last competition was in 2020 at Senior Nationals.

There’s many different moves that can be done in freestyle.

Folkstyle Wrestling Moves

I’ll be sharing where you can find a few of the most effective folkstyle wrestling moves.

One of the best moves to learn that’s also one of the most basic is the single leg. It’s effective in employing an attack on your opponent that’ll also earn points if the attempt is finished properly.

Next is adding defense to have an equal balance. The cool thing about this defensive move is that it could also earn points if it’s done right. The move is called a sprawl.

I took the liberty of sharing a match of my own that at least addresses the beginner moves mentioned earlier.

But as far as a resource guide that could assist with adding more technique to your arsenal then I recommend you check out a 10 count guide provided by Evolve MMA.