every time i see someone hit a switch i always wonder why no one properly counters them. shouldnt they be posting 1 arm between their opponents legs and hipping over to the side the are switching? instead of being reversed they will be working for sidemount.
or is there a grappling thing im just not seeing thats preventing them from doing it? i want to say ive seen joe daddy do it against maybe nate but im not 100% sure. so anyone else have insight on why they dont do this?
Michgan241 - every time i see someone hit a switch i always wonder why no one properly counters them. shouldnt they be posting 1 arm between their opponents legs and hipping over to the side the are switching? instead of being reversed they will be working for sidemount.
or is there a grappling thing im just not seeing thats preventing them from doing it? i want to say ive seen joe daddy do it against maybe nate but im not 100% sure. so anyone else have insight on why they dont do this?
I just assume it's because the level of wrestling being taught in MMA is very low level.
NCAA wrestlers take the time to learn BJJ and Striking.
But I don't think BJJ guys/Strikers learn Wrestling to the level they should (unless they started out as Wrestlers).
There's also sort of a cap on competition in wrestling because if you didn't do it in college, by the time you graduate there really don't seem to be wrestling competition for novices to enter the game. Wrestling seems to end in college. You can't find Wrestling dojo's on every street corner where you can just walk in and start at white belt like you can in BJJ, Judo, Striking, etc.
Where as in BJJ, there are plenty of tournaments that a BJJ novice can enter. So BJJ seems like something that can be learned later in age but Wrestling you have to learn it before you graduate college or it's going to be hard to catch up.
You would have to take the GSP type route, of training with Canadian Olympic Wrestlers to reach that level without going to college. But even with GSP his wrestling prowess might be just limited to takedowns and not other areas such as counters, reversals and referee's position.
yea but they do have wrestling coaches who i am sure know what they are doing you would have to think they have covered things like this? there has to be some grappling reason for why it isnt done right?
ttt
I think there is a good market for a reputable wrestler with coaching and/or winning comp. credentials to start teaching at different levels.
There are a lot of little muy thai schools and small bjj schools. I'll bet in a lot of cities if someone opened a spot for just wrestling they would do just as well.
subwrassler - I think there is a good market for a reputable wrestler with coaching and/or winning comp. credentials to start teaching at different levels.this is so true and yet no one seems to pick this up. it is odd.....
There are a lot of little muy thai schools and small bjj schools. I'll bet in a lot of cities if someone opened a spot for just wrestling they would do just as well.
same reason that you see in every gif that mma fighters drop their hands to throw a punch or combo.... basics of other sports aren't followed.
if you had a gym that taught wrestling you go bankrupt after running out all of your students out with the conditioning necessary.
its best taught in a subsidized program IMO, like schools.
subwrassler - I think there is a good market for a reputable wrestler with coaching and/or winning comp. credentials to start teaching at different levels.
There are a lot of little muy thai schools and small bjj schools. I'll bet in a lot of cities if someone opened a spot for just wrestling they would do just as well.
so is there a reason not to counter the switch? or is it they just havnt drilled/gone over it enough?
FRAT warning
Wrestling schools in general are tough business wise.
A school in my area, "Wrestlers Come Alive" opened up with some great coaches (A D-3 national Champ, a two time state placer, and a D-1 wrestler from Boston University). They had monthly dues and catered to wrestlers of all levels.
I had ZERO wrestling when I started going there. I practically lived in their wrestling room and worked with all the local high school wrestlers that would come in. The school could never really take off though, in fact at one point the majority of their business were my jiu-jitsu students.
At one point the business was tanking so we teamed up. My program took off and their fizzled. The main problem was that most people who didn't wrestle growing up had no interest in learning the sport, the current wrestlers relied on their parents to pay. Parents didn't like paying for something the school offered for free (unless the Dad wanted his kid to be a state champ, which accounted for a handful of hardcore kids). Most BJJ/MMA guys didn't like learning the sport of wrestling. They were very closed minded and only wanted to be "shown a few takedowns". Very few put the time in to work mat wrestling or hand fighting. Wrestling is much more drilling intensive and attribute based which turned off many Jiu-Jitsu guys (no matter how hard I pushed the program). Also, many of the purple and brown belts didn't like the fact that they had to "start over". None of the high school kids that were throwing them around thought they were impressed that they knew triangle chokes, this was a major blow to some of their egos.
The wrestling program sank, but I decided to hire the coach (Ian) to teach two nights a week at my BJJ school. Then, by the most amazing stroke of luck, I had a 2-time Olympian named Dan Sanchez stroll in and start taking Jiu-Jitsu classes with me. This guy was a wrestling encyclopedia and a great coach - he even beat Randy Coutoure in Greco back in the day. Yet somehow, the classes Dan and Ian teach have remained my least popular by far. My boxing, BJJ and muay thai classes are filled every night, but wrestling never gets more than 6-8 guys. Its enraging but I don't know how to change people's minds, they just don't like to wrestle. In some ways its benefitted me though, I get so much one on one coaching so my wrestling game has grown by leaps and bounds.
Great post Brian.
The Fishnet actually works very well at stopping a switch. I wasn't at all a great wrestler in college by any means, but I have plenty of wrestling experience. Whenever I roll with Eddie Bravo, we'll be in Twister side control for a while, and we just kind of wait to see what happens. When I first started training at 10th Planet a couple years ago, I got a switch on Eddie a few times, ever since then, it's very risky for me to try that, because he'll flow right into a fishnet/twister position when I move to the switch (which forces me to put my legs at the angle he wants them).
As far as wrestlers learning BJJ faster than BJJ guys learning wrestling...well, there's a lot of BJJ schools...and aside from high school/college, hardly anywhere to truly train in-depth wrestling on any type of regular basis. That's why I think you find that.
Also, wrestling is really hard to pickup later on, I think. Most people do not want to go through the huge learning curve, since it can be very rough on the body...and the ego. With JJ, you just tap & it's not often really uncomforable. In wrestling, since you don't submit people, you do whatever you can to get them in a dominant position -- and it definitely doesn't feel good!
Also, a lot of truth in the post above me (Brian)...wrestling is very drill-intensive -- and post people just "wanna roll". That doesn't work very well in wrestling.
Though, I would say I think most BJJ guys could really grow a lot from more drilling (I've been trying to drill with some buddies in JJ, the way I used to drill in wrestling -- and really get in those repetitions...).
like kying said...great post, Brian. I hadn't thought of some of those things in a while.
ttt
ttt for some switch counter gifs
I think it was Couture who said about Machida that he's one of the few non-wrestlers who has actually put the time in to really learn wrestling fundamentals. Might be one of the reasons wrestlers have such a hard time with him.
Machida has spent years training with the old RAW team, Rico C and Vladdy
this thread is useless without......gif's
Great post as usual from Brian.
The thing too is that BJJ caters a lot more to casual person who wants to "do 10 on each side and then roll", stop in the middle of a roll to offer a tip or make an excuse, etc.
With wrestling, that gets you NOWHERE. I think if BJJ adapted the wrestling outlook on drilling schools would lose 50% of their clients but the remaining guys would get 100% better.
If wrestling for MMA was only about takedowns then it wouldnt be next to impossible to sweep and submit an NCAA champ.
ttt
gif's plz...