When you’re a boy, wrestling is all about having fun, as it should you be. There is no need to cut tons of weight or do 5 sets of Power Cleans when you are 10 years old, but there is a need for a boy to learn proper technique while he is having fun. If you don’t learn proper technique, only learn one move like the cowcatcher, and just want to wrestle all the time, you might win some matches, but eventually, your competition will catch up with you, which will decrease the thrills from victory. As we know, it’s always more fun winning than losing.

If you have dreams to wrestle in High School, College, or in the Olympics, you have to learn how to wrestle. I know your thinking, “Thanks for that profound sentence Slay!” But, I mean it! I see so many wrestlers dominate as kids because they are stronger and have one good move, but because they rely on these things and don’t learn how to wrestle, their competition catches and passes them by.

I run an open Freestyle practice at a local HS on Tuesdays from 4-6 pm, and last week a particular young man came for the first time. As I taught, he was lying on his back and acting like he was bored. He kept asking when we where going to wrestle. I finally called him out. I said, “When I was in HS, I was similar to you. All I wanted to do was wrestle, but when I entered Penn’s wrestling room, I was technically behind many of the other freshman which caused me to seriously regret not focusing on technique in middle and high school.” The young man seemed offended I called him out, but I wanted to teach him and others a lesson. Finally, it was time to wrestle, and since the supposed technical genius weighed about 220 lb, I asked him if he wanted to wrestle a 2 minute go.
He said yes, and I really think he believed he was going to take it to me. I blew through him with a double leg, and he said, “Ahh, I let you have that one.” So I said, “Ya, maybe I got lucky on that one.” He blocked off with a collar tie for the next 30-40 seconds so I hit with a single leg and ran the pipe to finish. After I took him down, I whispered in his ear, “Did you let me have that one too?”

The point is: Technique Matters. Experience matters. Focusing on the little things in wrestling makes a big difference in your ability to win matches. All wrestlers, young and more experienced, need to focus on technique daily. If you just wrestle all the time, you will never reach your full potential. There should be at least one practice a week when you don’t wrestle at all. On that day, you should come in, warm up, and focus on improving your technique. One of my favorite authors, John Maxwell states that we should spend 70% of our time working on our strengths, 25% on new things, and 5% on our weaknesses. John speaks of these percentages in regards to all aspects of our life, but I think they are good percentages for wrestling too. As you drill your strengths (Double, HC, Single, Duck Under), you can drill them at a faster rate, but when you drill new moves and your weaker moves, make sure you start out drilling slowly so you will develop good habits like head up, back straight, hips in, staying off your knees, and staying into the man. If you don’t get a take down or get taken down, it’s probably because you weren’t adhering to one of those 5 keys to wrestling. If you want to hit proper technique in a match, you need to drill proper technique in practice.

Some youth ask me why they should learn a particular move if they don’t think they will ever use it in a match. Even if you think you’ll never use a certain move in a match, you never know, and it’s good to be prepared. Plus, you may not choose to do an arm throw in a match, but if you know how to do it, your arm throw defense will be much better.

The more technique you learn, the more options you’ll have as you wrestle certain opponents. The more technique you learn, the more you can give back to the sport now and in the future.

Webster’s states technique is the systematic procedure by which a complex task is accomplished, and wrestling is complex. Life is also very complex. I challenge you to listen to your parents, teachers, coaches, and mentors to learn the proper technique for succeeding in this life.

Great technique matters in wrestling, but more importantly, great technique matters in life.

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