Why is the heel hold not in any of the classic catch wrestling books? Not in Farmer Burns' book, not in Henry Stone's book, and not even in Spyros Vorres's "Wrestle to Win," the most complete catch wrestling book ever.
Does it actually even come from catch wrestling? Or is it from judo/jujutsu or sambo? Or some other source?
Can anyone give me a detailed history of the heel hold?
When was it first used? Who taught it to whom? Please state your sources!
they were called twisting knee locks I think and were illegal. I saw info on this site
http://www.ifrance.com/lutte-wrestling/
can't remeber where
I'll take a more detailed stab at this later but here's a quick thought or two.
I can understand it not being in Henry Stone's book. I wonder a bit about the Burn's work myself because I understand it may well have been a heel hook that Burn's beat boxer Billy Papke with in the Jeffries training camp challenge match.
The oldest pic of a heel hook that I've seen was of Ad Santel working one in a gym workout. I'm not sure of the date but would guess it was around 1910. Remember that Santel did travel to Japan so the date could tell alot.
I have alot of shots of Ray Steele working heelhooks and other footlocks, but of course these would be as late as the mid 30's.
Although I love oldtime wrestlers and defend them at every opportunity I have come to believe that the hold was picked up from the early jiu jitsu guys, but I'd love to be proven wrong.
The shots that ottmandus is talking about are of Steele and Deglane I believe. These are all 30's.
You have seen Spyros Vorres's "Wrestle to Win"?
I have a lot of old Catch material at home, I'll check, but I am pretty sure that I have seen it in some of them.
UC Berkeley, where I used to attend school, has a copy. I checked it out and photocopied it. The copyright date was 1930. So I'm not sure if what I did was legal or not.
Anyway, the book is very extensive. However, the drawings are pretty poor. I believe that they were traced off of photos.
Although I love oldtime wrestlers and defend them at every opportunity I have come to believe that the hold was picked up from the early jiu jitsu guys, but I'd love to be proven wrong.When were leglocks originally abolished from the judo/jiu-jitsu curriculum?
Wasn't the foothold an ancient greek pancrase technique?? The term I think became part of pop culture?
"When were leglocks originally abolished from the judo/jiu-jitsu curriculum?"
I don't know. Sounds like a good question for Jason.
I do know that in the pics of foot, ankle and heel-locks from the 30's, which are pretty common, they are usually captioned "Japanese Leg-Lock".
"Wasn't the foothold an ancient greek pancrase technique?? The term I think became part of pop culture? "
Agian, I don't know. I do know that the Gotch toe-hold, which was completely different, became a pop culture term. Got the world in a toe-hold and so on came from it.
Vic, I have photos of heelhooks dating back to the 30's and have seen one of Ad Santel which is much older than that.
I will make an effort to look through my collection of books, but I am sure that I have seen pics in them.
Does this quality as a double heelhook????
e. kaye, there is a shot of Ray Steele working what amounts to a reverse heel-hook in "Modern Wrestling".
The difference being that since he was attacking a man who would have turtled rather than pulled guard he locked the same side. Right to right, left to left, which creates a hell of a lock. Very dangerous. We had one pretty good grappler refuse to roll with that hold allowed and threatened to quit if he was ever put in it.
I think I have that book. I'll take a look.
Vic, LOL @ me. I was thinking.........well never mind, you know what I was thinking :)
Do you have any sources for the hold being used? I've seen very little about pancrase technique other than some written accounts of matches that were obviously written by non-grapplers.
actually, pancrase is not a couple thousand years older than his photos. Pancrase is a japanese fight organization. If you're referring to ancient greek Pankration, that's a different story. But the research done on it is a bit varied. Some of it seems to be a bit more like primitive kickboxing, with a few holds here and there, rather than like what you'd see as MMA today.