Wrestling as a Martial Art
My Son Ty has been doing Judo and Jiu Jitsu for a couple of years now. For the last few weeks he has also been in wrestling. As I have watched these kids wrestle, I find several aspects of it very striking, even as someone that has been doing Judo and Jiu Jitsu so a few years, and wrestled myself as well.
It really is amazing to watch. The level of athleticism of wrestlers is absolutely unmatched. I remember being in wrestling in high school, and chuckling when one of the football players would inevitably figure they would do a second sport, because it could possibly be as hard as football practices. They were painfully mistaken.
I wrote an article late last year about a concept in Jiu Jitsu and Judo that I referred to as “Bursting.” The concept of bursting is that you conserve your energy until the right moment, and then hit it hard.
Well, that not at all how wrestling works. Watching a good wrestling on the mat is more like watching a car that is running at what you really would assume is full speed the whole time, only to then see it open up the nitrous tanks, and blast through someone. It’s less about capitalizing on the energy your opponent creates, and most about blasting through them and dominating them with your own overwhelming force.
In looking at the overlaps, differences and conflicts between wrestling and other grappling arts though, a few really jumped out at me:
Overlaps:
- Balance. Learning to feel balance, and holes in it almost instinctively is something that wrestlers get very good at. In Judo this is referred to as Kazushi. I think anyone learning any of the grappling arts has a huge advantage when beginning another due to this.
- Solid base. This is an element of balance, but worth note. A good wrestler tends to have an amazing base. Far more so than most other grappling arts.
Differences:
- Athleticism. Feel free to disagree, but I think that wrestlers on the whole push their bodies farther. I think that supplementing your game with wrestling can help you gain this into your other skills.
- Height of center. Wrestlers tend to get much lower with the center of balance than most Judo or Jiu Jitsu guys. It seems that most wrestlers use this to target the legs for attacks. This makes wrestlers good at leg attacks (but can make them myopically so if they’re not careful.) I think that this low center could translate very well to many Sambo and Judo throws however (Ipon SeoInage, Ogoshi, and many others.)
- Ignoring of upper body. I know that there are upper body attacks and throws in wrestling (Duck under, head-and-arm (Koshi Garuma), Throw-by, etc.) But by and large most wrestlers aren’t nearly as good at upper body throws as they could be. I think that learning Judo in addition to wrestling could add a huge and unexpected element to a wrestler’s game. In one match alone this week Ty was able to hit Uki goshi three times.
Conflicts:
Perhaps the main area of conflict between Wrestling and other Grappling arts is rather or not you want your back on the floor. A wrestler is trained to keep their back off of the floor, which results in them giving up their back to their opponent and being an easy target for a choke. This is shockingly hard to unlearn. I haven’t wrestled in 20 years, and my instinct is still to find a way to my hands and knees when someone has me down. I have to consciously think about rolling over and pulling guard.
Conversely, in Ty’s first two matches this year his trained behavior was to pull guard, which didn’t work very well in a wrestling match. 
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