journeyjjbluebelt

I had a flash back during Tuesday’s grappling class taught by Profesor Pedro. The wrestling coaches at my high school back in the late 80’s, Archbishop Spalding, Severn, Maryland, would constantly remind us, ” The person whom first achieved the takedown, usually won the match.” That was our mantra. From personal experience, it took a lot of energy to get the opponent to the mat by a takedown. It took a lot of energy to be on attack. Wrestling was physically exhausting. Three minutes seemed like an hour.

Once you got them to the mat, you had to hold them and prevent the escape. You worked hard for the position, you absolutely didn’t want to give up position. If you landed in the low mount, victory was very close. So, the focus of the grappling class, at least for me, was using my body weight on the opponent to pin in preparation for the finishing move. I worked hard for the take down, now, I wanted the win from the mounted position.