COACHES CORNER
Analysis from 2011 World Championships
By Zeke Jones, U.S. National Freestyle Coach After each World Championships, we do an exhaustive review of the tournament aimed at identifying our areas of concentra- tion for the upcoming season as well as what our competitors are doing. We do this by breaking down every scoring action in the tour- nament. We identify every set up, attack, finish, turn, and clinch and break them down into categories so we know what the best wrestlers in the World as well as what our American wrestlers are doing.
In addition to the scoring actions, we break down points per minute scored offensively and scored against us defensively. From this, we can tell what our wrestlers and our competitors are doing both offensively and defensively, which leads us to what kind of style a particular country wrestles. For example, from the numbers we know the Russians are defensive, the Americans are offensive, etc. We call it combat behavior. Combat behavior is a study of how wrestlers behave on the wrestling mat.
Do they like to attack or do they like to play defense? Do they like to score early in the period? Do they like to score late? What techniques do they use?
By studying what moves they like to use and how they like to wrestle, we’re able to lay out our strategic training plan for the year as well as understand the skills necessary to fuel the inno- vation within our team. By doing this analysis, we start to think innovatively and start to create the new wrestling techniques and tactics we’ll use five years in the future.
By thinking ahead and using ingenuity, we will make the progress necessary and sustain the success America has been accustomed to. After evaluating this year’s World Championships, two glaring factors are apparent. One, we have one of the best offenses in the world. We can score. We scored early in each period, we scored turns off the takedown, we scored single and multiple point holds, we scored on the edge, and we stole periods. That’s good news and we’ll continue to make this an American priority and an American tradition. We have offense. But, another factor showed through equally as strong. American wrestlers give up too many points. And as a result, the spread between points scored and points given up, called “points efficiency,” was below standard. The bottom line was we were not as efficient on offense and defense as the top countries in the world. Like they say, offense sells tickets but defense wins championships. We must focus on continuing to score points, but also become better defenders if we want to win at the World Championships and Olympic Games.
So, if we’re going to improve in this area we need to under-
stand combat behavior and we need to know how to defend. Why? The analysis that follows breaks it down.
26 USA Wrestler
FACTORS INFLUENCING OUTCOMES
Combat Behavior by Country What is combat behavior? Every country inherently wrestles a particu- lar style. Some countries emphasize
Zeke Jones
technique, position, and slickness while others emphasis move- ment, aggressiveness, conditioning, and being physical. As a result, some countries are more offensive and some are more defensive. Different wrestling styles are primarily influenced by a coun-
try’s culture and the wrestling styles specific to that country. Combat behavior is not only shaped by wrestling behavior but by a country’s culture too. Certain cultures around the World reward an aggressive, attacking behavior while some value calm, controlled, introverted behavior with a crafty, sneaky men- tality.
Both styles have their advantages and disadvantages. In America, by nature we are an aggressive, offensive-minded country. From our value system, we teach our kids to be inde- pendent thinkers, self-starters, and go-getters. This is even rein- forced in the American wrestling style, folkstyle. Our folkstyle rules are set up to reward offensive, aggressive, attacking behavior.
This behavior is reinforced by a very popular rule, called
stalling which creates and supports an attacking mentality at all times. The rule says whether you are ahead by 10 points or you are behind by one point, you are required to keep attacking or you will be called for stalling. As a result, USA folkstyle rules require you to continue to
attack or be penalized. If you wrestle defensively, you will be penalized. This shapes our combat behavior and tells us that we must value attacking wrestling or be penalized. Because we have wrestled this way for so long, Americans believe that defensive wrestling is viewed as weak and a less superior strat- egy to being offensive. Although we can all agree that watching offense is more appealing than defense, defense has a signifi- cant place in wrestling particularly if you want to be a complete wrestler. Have you ever seen a wrestler lose who didn’t get scored on? Now it’s time American coaches and wrestlers support the complete wrestler strategy. What is it? It’s embracing the con- cept of The Total Wrestler. It’s understanding that the wrestler that has superior offense AND defense is better than just being great at offense only. WHEN IS IT OK TO WRESTLE DEFENSIVELY? When do you wrestle defensively as a strategy? You wrestle defensively because there’s less than 20-30 seconds on the clock and you have a one- or two-point lead. This is the time to employ the 100 percent defensive strategy. But just because you are in the lead and you’re wrestling defensively it doesn’t
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