Should wrestling really be considered no gi experience?

[Nick Paul]

I agree and disagree. Your inexperience in jiu jitsu makes it feel unfair, but I swear from competing against experienced wrestlers that you guys are way tougher to handle than you probably think you are. For the first few comps it may seem ufaair, but you're going to improve drastically in a short amount of time.

I think there are a few reasons why your experience is worth a lot. mentally you're probably much tougher than your average guy, and you probably have more experience competing. Wrestlers are hard as fuck to sweep, and you guys have ridiculous base, pressure, and don't concede sweeps easily. I don't think takedowns are all that translates. i think the mental toughness translates, and I think your ability to attack front headlocks, leg rides, whizzers, underhooks, gable grips, are all big advantages. Certainly novice is too small. At least beginner. I don't really believe in sand bagging, so that's a whole other discussion, but we have a guy that wrestled 4 years in high school that just came to our gym and he could definitely compete at the blue belt level, simply because of his top game.

Remember, no-gi isn't technically BJJ. You're doing submission wrestling, and things that you might have experience with in wrestling are going to help you a lot. I think that fact is key. If you were in the gi you'd be in the white belt division, but since you're no-gi, they want to consider all disciplines. Sambo, BJJ, wrestling, all factor into the experience level. You're basically doing MGA (mixed grappling arts) when you do no-gi.

I think there's a lot of crossover in technique that you just may have no seen yet. As a wrestler you're already geared to have a nasty darce/guillotine and front headlock attack game. You'll probably have a nasty truck game. You'll probably have a nasty leg drag and back attack game. Once you see some techniques I bet they'll start to gel and make way more sense to you faster than most people.

Most people with 3 months of training could not even win a match in the intermediate division at all. The fact that you were able to takedown and control from the top for long enough to win says a lot.

You're going to be super happy about it when you grow and learn way more than anyone else that's starting at the same time as you. Just hang in there man.

I totally agree with this. In the last year and a half I'm super happy with how fast I've progressed, and you basically described my game lol. Again, I'm happy I started out intermediate and not beginner. I've also gotten obsessed with lockdown and I consider that one of the strongest parts of my game. I definitely feel like the 10th planet system has made me a more we'll rounded grappler

[Chris Herzog]

There is weird connection with wrestling=no technique. This couldn't be further from the truth. Wrestling like Jiu Jitsu is made up of individuals, each having their own strengths and weaknesses and strategies. There are specialist, just like in Jiu Jitsu. Not all Wrestling is the same, just like not all Jiu Jitsu is the same. Some guys are way better mat wrestlers, than they are at shooting. Some prefer take down from a clinch. Some are better at leg ridding, or turn overs. You can't all lump it into one category as say it can only help with takedowns, that's just ignorant. Being in the appropriate division based on time training any grappling art, including Wrestling, Judo and Sambo, etc. its because they are all relevant.

[Mike Nall]

There is weird connection with wrestling=no technique. This couldn't be further from the truth. Wrestling like Jiu Jitsu is made up of individuals, each having their own strengths and weaknesses and strategies. There are specialist, just like in Jiu Jitsu. Not all Wrestling is the same, just like not all Jiu Jitsu is the same. Some guys are way better mat wrestlers, than they are at shooting. Some prefer take down from a clinch. Some are better at leg ridding, or turn overs. You can't all lump it into one category as say it can only help with takedowns, that's just ignorant. Being in the appropriate division based on time training any grappling art, including Wrestling, Judo and Sambo, etc. its because they are all relevant.

Totally. I've always found it very weird that everyone acknowledges that wrestling is very technical. But when people talk about wrestling in gi or no-gi jiu jitsu all of a sudden people talk about it being less technical and "attribute based" or "just athleticism". No one does this when they talk about wrestling in the Olmypics or even wrestling in MMA. But for some reason when it comes to jiu jitsu many of the straight jiu jitsu folks wanna hate on wrestling.

[Neil Kiernan]

Totally. I've always found it very weird that everyone acknowledges that wrestling is very technical. But when people talk about wrestling in gi or no-gi jiu jitsu all of a sudden people talk about it being less technical and "attribute based" or "just athleticism". No one does this when they talk about wrestling in the Olmypics or even wrestling in MMA. But for some reason when it comes to jiu jitsu many of the straight jiu jitsu folks wanna hate on wrestling.

Wrestling is steadily taking over MMA. There is only one champion left (Other then Rousey) who is BJJ based, Aldo. And he rarely goes to the ground anymore. Some of the best BJJ MMA fighters like BJ Penn, have been unable to adjust to the wrestling revolution. This sort of thing tends to breed resentment. Particularly to the crowd that thought that if they became BJJ black belts they were going to be invincible.

Wrestlers fight hard and are very intense. They are freakishly strong. They are generally aggressive. People who only do BJJ can be intimidated and put off by them. But there is absolutely technique involved. I see it up close when my daughter who is considerably physically weaker then the boys she faces still prevails with good technique. Her mentor is a skinny waif of a girl who will double leg you if you blink, and will have you turned before you have time to know what just hit you.

And now we have the resurgence of Catch Wrestling. You see how quickly the Gracie Breakdown had to run damage control when Josh Barnett won the championship. Or the enigma of people like Kazushi Sakuraba.

Wrestlers are a threat to BJJ's dominance in the grappling world. The only thing holding them back was the fact that Catch Wrestling stopped being practiced actively after it ceased to be an Olympic Sport. That's changing now.

[Nick Paul]

Wrestling is steadily taking over MMA. There is only one champion left (Other then Rousey) who is BJJ based, Aldo. And he rarely goes to the ground anymore. Some of the best BJJ MMA fighters like BJ Penn, have been unable to adjust to the wrestling revolution. This sort of thing tends to breed resentment. Particularly to the crowd that thought that if they became BJJ black belts they were going to be invincible.

Wrestlers fight hard and are very intense. They are freakishly strong. They are generally aggressive. People who only do BJJ can be intimidated and put off by them. But there is absolutely technique involved. I see it up close when my daughter who is considerably physically weaker then the boys she faces still prevails with good technique. Her mentor is a skinny waif of a girl who will double leg you if you blink, and will have you turned before you have time to know what just hit you.

And now we have the resurgence of Catch Wrestling. You see how quickly the Gracie Breakdown had to run damage control when Josh Barnett won the championship. Or the enigma of people like Kazushi Sakuraba.

Wrestlers are a threat to BJJ's dominance in the grappling world. The only thing holding them back was the fact that Catch Wrestling stopped being practiced actively after it ceased to be an Olympic Sport. That's changing now.

I agree with you on a lot here. Wrestling gives you great balance, helps with top control, generally makes your posture better. But I don't think that wrestling is really what's taking over. It's the combination of wrestling and jiu jitsu. If you don't have both now adays it would be difficult to be competitive at the top of any division (I mean just adding wrestling to your training, you don't have to come from a wrestling background). Just to be clear I do think that wrestling should be factored into experience, but it's not quite as valuable as jiu jitsu for submission grappling is, year for year. And nobody mentions how wrestling is generally 3-4 months out of the year. As for the pure jiu jitsu guys view of wrestlers, I think that's pretty accurate. People fear whatever they're not familiar with, but the same goes for wrestler's view of jiu jitsu guys, "these guys who will tangle you up and choke your lights out once you get to the ground". When I first started training, it was the guard players that really scared me, even though they may have been intimidated by my wrestling.

[Neil Kiernan]

I agree with you on a lot here. Wrestling gives you great balance, helps with top control, generally makes your posture better. But I don't think that wrestling is really what's taking over. It's the combination of wrestling and jiu jitsu. If you don't have both now adays it would be difficult to be competitive at the top of any division (I mean just adding wrestling to your training, you don't have to come from a wrestling background). Just to be clear I do think that wrestling should be factored into experience, but it's not quite as valuable as jiu jitsu for submission grappling is, year for year. And nobody mentions how wrestling is generally 3-4 months out of the year. As for the pure jiu jitsu guys view of wrestlers, I think that's pretty accurate. People fear whatever they're not familiar with, but the same goes for wrestler's view of jiu jitsu guys, "these guys who will tangle you up and choke your lights out once you get to the ground". When I first started training, it was the guard players that really scared me, even though they may have been intimidated by my wrestling.

I watch far too much MMA. (This is both a good and a bad thing.) I agree with a lot of your points as well. The problem I am seeing is that there was a time when BJJ Black Belts were an "I-win" button to people who didn't have them. Then you get guys like Chael Sonnen, and Randy Couture, neither of which have ANY rank in BJJ and just learned passable submission defense and destroy people under them all the time. Don't misunderstand in that I am not saying that BJJ will ever be irrelevant. But the "Just do BJJ and Muay Thai...." style a lot of people trained for doesn't work anymore. You see it on TUF all the time when these guys come in with BJJ Black Belts and even have good expirience in world class grappling matches losing to guys with good wrestling and only passable BJJ.

Catch Wrestling poses even more of a problem as it literally just plugs submissions back into Folkstyle Wrestling. I talked to a Catch coach who took a guy who just wrestled varsity for high school and he was able to teach him enough Catch to start taking first in BJJ tournaments within a few months, because the foundation for everything in Catch is sitting there in Folkstyle.

Then there is also the psychology. And work ethic. It's off the charts. Rousey's mother has a pretty good blog post about it you should check out. Judo is also dealing with the "Wrestling problem" and their solution was to simply remove leg attacks from the rules in Judo. But she pointed out that wrestling practice is generally so much more intense and athletic then anything most martial arts schools do. My kids just did a practice with a highly regarded club here in Michigan and they do this thing called "The Grind" where you free wrestle hard as you can for a period then jog laps, then free wrestle again hard as you can, then run laps, do this and repeat over and over and over. It was insane but it made the kids so tough.

Watch this documentary sometime. Anyone of any background can appreciate it, but it will give you a glimpse into what makes a world class wrestler. They are cut from a different cloth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QdcHrPotm4

[Neil Kiernan]

We had this conversation in another thread with a lot of great replies.

http://www.10thplanetjj.com/threads/...xplanation-why

[Neil Kiernan]

This is that article from Rousey's mother I was talking about.

http://drannmaria.blogspot.com/2011/...lers-dont.html