Andy Bisek won a bronze medal in Greco-Roman at the 2014 Worlds in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Robbert Wijtman photo. Continued from page 34
insulation that wraps nerve fibers and increases signal strength, speed, and accuracy. When these certain signals are sent down the nervous system, myelin wraps around the nerve fiber. The thicker the myelin, the better the signal. Thus, “skill is myelin insulation that wraps neural circuits and grows according to cer- tain signals.” Skills and talent allow individuals to perform at a higher level, faster and better than those who don’t have talent. Malcom Gladwell in his book “Outliers” describes the 10,000 hour rule, which basically states that if we practice any subject for 10,000 hours we can become World Class. World Class is Olympic medal caliber, top one-percent types. Gladwell never said you need 10,000 hours to be and expert at something. 10,000 hours is for the phenoms, the truly elite. If this is the case and you want to be the best in the world start logging the hours. If you want to be great, say win a state cham- pionship or a national title, I have some tips on how to hack the talent code in wrestling. I have tested this for the past decade at Team Quest my MMA gym. We all know wrestling is an essential skill for MMA. We have all seen what happens when a guy doesn’t posses enough wrestling skills or knowledge. They don’t go too far in the sport. We have seen the top strikers learn enough of the principals to stay competitive using a sprawl and brawl type style. To truly get to the top now days the top guys all have all become adept with wrestling.
I have had the opportunity to send over 20 athletes out of my gym onto the Ultimate Fighting Championship, some have fought in championship level fights and even held titles in the UFC. I developed a style of fighting known as “Dirty Boxing.” Dirty boxing employs the basic principals of Greco-Roman wrestling with strikes.
Just like Greco, dirty boxing uses control positions and angles to stop your opponents attacks and give you opportunities to attack or counter.
The two control positions that Greco-Roman emphasizes are 2-on-1 and the underhooks. The third control, comes into effect when your opponent does- n’t want to engage in a chest to chest battle and back his hip away.
I have successfully been able to take guys who have never
wrestled a single match in their life, to out pummel and out wrestle college level All-Americans. Coaches and other fighters often ask me where my fighters wrestled in college. Using some basic principals and deep practice of these positions, my fight- ers have constantly out wrestled most all of their opponents in the cage fighting arena.
I want to share these basic concepts with you in hopes that you will use them in your wrestling to improve faster and hack the talent code of wrestling. In these moments, this is time we could be building skills. Having to react and correct their actions, motions and posi- tions. Building skills is literally myelin insulation that wraps neu- ral circuits and grows according to certain signal. When wrestlers are required to stay in constant contact fighting and attacking from the correct chest to chest position they get more circuits firing in the right parts of the brain and for the correct muscle groups which allows them to optimize there circuity. So if we can get to a position in wrestling where we are required to train in a constant contact chest to chest position, this will create the right atmosphere and leverage our time on the mats and improve wrestling skills faster.
This will compress the essential skills and place wrestlers in the deep practice zone, making and correcting errors, and con- stantly coming up with solutions and adjustments to correct those errors.
If you want information on myelin, please do your own research. If you want to get better at wrestling fast, spend time training in a chest-to-chest, head-up position, like in Greco- Roman. I am not saying you can’t trip, sweep, prop or pick up a leg but all attacks should start in this position. In MMA, it’s referred to as the clinch position. I am not saying there is not a time and a place for an outside attack, what I am saying is give my theory a try.
Have practice once a week that requires from this position without separation.
Make it a challenge for every time the coach see’s you not in
constant contact taking a step back as he implements a penalty, I use ten burppies or pushups.
Make it fun and keep it light-hearted, as you start to see the improvement, increase the time you spend training in this posi- tion.
USA Wrestler 35
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