Catch Wrestling Memories

From the looks of things, it appears that there is some interest from visitors to my blog on my catch wrestling piece so I will go ahead and continue on with some more memories.

As mentioned before, my father would help me with wrestling during my wrestling days in middle school and high school. He would also instruct me in some of the catch wrestling moves that he knew.

One the moves, from a position where you are face down on the mat and the person is on top, is to reach and pull the opponent’s arm and place it between your shoulder and head. Be sure to have the arm locked in as deep as you can get it. Securing it there, start to forward roll into their shoulder forcing them over your back and onto their back, where you then quickly release the arm you rolled them from between your head and shoulder and secure it with either your legs or across your mid section and pin down their upper body.

Guess I should make a youtube video to demonstrate……..

Another comment I wanted to follow up on was about the wrestling strongmen that would come into town that my father would tell me about. These were the catch wrestlers/submission specialists that would take on the local populace for a fee and would offer prize money to who ever could either beat them or last 5 minutes with them.

These wrestlers usually had a particular move that they were famous for. These finishing moves were called “the python choke”, “the pretzel hold”, “the half nelson”, etc. And these wrestlers would use these moves to submit their opponents.

With the introduction of BJJ into the states, we are seeing a return of this labeling with MMA fighters who, while they have a whole bag of weapons at their disposal, find themselves being identified with a particular move (ie: reverse triangle specialist, etc.)

I think it is very interesting to see how things come around and go back around again.

What’s old is new and what is new is old.

More later. Until then, check out this blog if you are interested in catch wrestling: http://catchwrestlingunited.com/