My thoughts on how to learn grappling efficiently/become a good grappler

[gsjackson]

I was a wrestler in high school. It's a good sport. You don't learn any of the illegal stuff that would be more effective in a real fight, but it helps you develop upper body strength and coordination.

I had two fraternity brothers who really didn't like each other and were always giving each other a hard time in the tube room. One was a scholarship football player, about 6 foot, 190 lbs, the other wrestled in a weight class around 125-130 for the university wrestling team. When it all finally came to blows it was over in seconds -- the wrestler had him pinned on the floor and begging for mercy figuratively speaking, almost before anyone knew what happened.

[galii]

I was a wrestler in high school. It's a good sport. You don't learn any of the illegal stuff that would be more effective in a real fight, but it helps you develop upper body strength and coordination.

I had two fraternity brothers who really didn't like each other and were always giving each other a hard time in the tube room. One was a scholarship football player, about 6 foot, 190 lbs, the other wrestled in a weight class around 125-130 for the university wrestling team. When it all finally came to blows it was over in seconds -- the wrestler had him pinned on the floor and begging for mercy figuratively speaking, almost before anyone knew what happened.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWWWXyVuOos&t=392s
6'8" fighter against 5'3" jiu-jitsu master in a surreal battle! | David VS Goliath | DWT

[WilliamSmith]

My girlfriend beat me wrestling in the sack recently, LOL, f**k this is embarrassing.
I have way more upper body strength than her, but her big strong legs and lower body and the fact she used to be in the army spelled doom for me in that particular bout.
(We'll see if I regret admitting this publicly, but there's no going back now.)

P.S. Thanks for the tips from more experienced grapplers, I screenshotted a bunch of it to read over in the coming week when I won't have internet access for a while.
I feel no need of a rematch with my woman, by the way, but if I ever got thrown in a prison someplace for naming the jew or something, I would want to know some good basic grappling and wrestling technique, so... thanks.
Also, even though I've always been a striker vs grappler personally, I second the observations here noting that wrestling and grappling are your best foundational bets, because I've also seen similar cases where wrestlers (just American high-school wrestlers, I might add) quickly dominated fights vs good strikers who came up short in the grappling and wrestling department.

[WilliamSmith]

1. Wrestling as our base

In the other thread I recommended wrestling as the best base for MMA. I recommend wrestling as the best base for grappling also. Wrestlers are generally better grapplers than Jiujitsu players. Right from the beginning of their training path, wrestlers learn how to control an opponent's body and smother him with pressure. They also learn how to move efficiently and win scrambles while maintaining top position. Jiujitsu players at the lower and intermediate belts are generally not good grapplers in the sense of body control. Sure, they have a good knowledge of submissions and submission defense, but when it comes to controlling an opponent, they are often quite lazy and a lot of Jiujitsu consists of stalling in positions. Jiujitsu players typically develop solid body control much later in their training path. Good knowledge of wrestling will definitely make you a better submission grappler once you make the transition, not to mention a high-level takedown artist to boot. In my view, an aspiring grappler should begin with wrestling and then apply the superior positional dominance, balance, top pressure and explosive scrambles that he has acquired from wrestling to submission grappling. Wrestlers often rise through the ranks of Jiujitsu and other submission grappling arts at an extremely fast pace.

@Lucas88
@Cornfed
@MrPeabody
Do you more experienced grapplers have any opinions re: the respective merits of police ground-fighting techniques and/or military techniques vs freestyle wrestling?

[Cornfed]

Do you more experienced grapplers have any opinions re: the respective merits of police ground-fighting techniques and/or military techniques vs freestyle wrestling?

Military wrestling techniques are kind of an oxymoron in the modern world. In the words of a somewhat famous military trainer "If you're wrestling you're wrong", so that takes them out of consideration.

[Lucas88]

Do you more experienced grapplers have any opinions re: the respective merits of police ground-fighting techniques and/or military techniques vs freestyle wrestling?

If you mean ground fighting techniques from police and military combatives, they're pretty damn poor. A Jiujitsu practitioner or wrestler would run through anybody using them on the ground. Those police and military techniques might work a little bit if you end up mounted by an untrained attacker and need to defend yourself. But they'd be utterly useless against even an average Jiujitsu practitioner or wrestler who knows how to control bodies on the ground with pressure and correct positioning.

If you want to learn effective ground fighting, just learn Jiujitsu or submission grappling. Even with just six months of consistent training you'd be able to easily wreck most police combative types and traditional martial artists.

Learning how to fight is simple for the most part. Just study real martial arts. Boxing or Muay Thai for striking. Wrestling or Judo for throws and takedowns. Jiujitsu for ground fighting.

[WilliamSmith]

@Cornfed
@Lucas88
Thanks for the responses, I'm actually surprised military and police ground fighting tactics aren't more effective (especially police groundfighting techniques, since the cops are often under the gun to bring their marks in alive, unlike soldiers).
I didn't know much about it but heard military mostly trained jiu jitsu and krav maga anyway when it comes to groundfighting...?

I already plan to mainly study wrestling and some submission grappling anyway myself, so maybe I'm not missing much.

[Cornfed]

Thanks for the responses, I'm actually surprised military and police ground fighting tactics aren't more effective

If you wrestle with people in a military situation, most of the time what will happen is that someone will turn up with a gun and shoot you. Also, you can't guarantee that you are not outnumbered, that the opponent isn't way bigger than you, that you are not injured etc. so it makes sense that the wrestling training is limited to escaping holds so you can strike the opponent.

[WilliamSmith]

Thanks for the responses, I'm actually surprised military and police ground fighting tactics aren't more effective

If you wrestle with people in a military situation, most of the time what will happen is that someone will turn up with a gun and shoot you. Also, you can't guarantee that you are not outnumbered, that the opponent isn't way bigger than you, that you are not injured etc. so it makes sense that the wrestling training is limited to escaping holds so you can strike the opponent.

Well, if you say so, but it's a good thing this based German soldier had good enough groundfighting skills to get the better of this hook-nosed kikeroach on one of those occasions where they were out of bullets and it came down to hand-to-hand combat:

https://www.bitchute.com/video/twr0srs3euYd/

[Cornfed]

Well, if you say so, but it's a good thing this based German soldier had good enough groundfighting skills to get the better of this hook-nosed kikeroach on one of those occasions where they were out of bullets and it came down to hand-to-hand combat

You learn standard escapes from those sort of situations. In that case, the escape is to tie up his arms, bring your knee up to his tail-bone, straighten your leg and roll to the other side. Once you are not trapped you don't try to wrestle, but try to get in position to strike and then reach for a weapon. I think Geoff Todd is still well known in the military CQB community. I was his student for a year or so way back when and one of his mantras was "If you're wrestling you're wrong".