There are no moves, just movement.

When I was in High School, my coach passed on to me a book his coach gave to him. The book had a lot of step by step pictures on executing wrestling moves in addition to philosophy and a lot of sound advice. Now that there is instagram, there is no shortage of accounts that show wrestling moves. Both show methods produce wrestlers that came to practice and asked the coach the same question: “coach, there was a move I saw, could you help me with it.” I hate this question to be honest. Because I think instead kids should watch matches. Instead of looking at moves, they should be looking at movements. This is because during a match there are no individual moves, just movements.

When a wrestler executes a double leg, that double leg begins a long time before the first penetration step. The double leg begins at the first set-up, which is often blocked and so they have to go to a second or third set-up which is where they finally come in for that double leg. However, the opponent responds to the double leg with a defense, and so the first finish will not work and so one switches to another finish and another and sometimes it is a long scramble battle until they finally get the two. At that point a good wrestler will transition to the pinning combination, which will be defended and so they will naturally go to another and another.

This is the reality of wrestling for first place, this is what it is like to wrestle those who will not give up. To wrestle like that memorizing cool moves, even a hundred cool moves won’t help.

To be a good wrestler one cannot train a move, one must train movements. This applies to wrestling and life. You don’t do a single problem in physics, you learn an approach to a type of problem and you combine different formulas and different topics to solve problems. You don’t learn how to take out one dinosaur from the ground in paleontology you learn how to approach a dig and how to deal with the problems that come up.

Most people expect a brilliant move or a hack to a match, which they then expect similarly for life. Instead wrestlers should be learning movements and that will teach them not only how to win a match but how to approach life.

So next time you get on the mat: don’t drill moves, drill movement.