Catching If You Can

             

              In the realm of Martial Arts there are those few that a not practiced often today but yet one has become a dying art with a little heart beat left and that’s the sport of Catch As Catch Can Wrestling. It is a style of wrestling that requires great practice (as does most Martial Arts) but yet it has a scientific feel for it, it’s a mind game like Physical Chess, you have to think certain moves ahead in order to defeat an opponent but it never gets easy. It may be a dying art but it hasn't sunk into the grave yet and has been rising in the last decade. This is the pinnacle of Submission Wrestling.

            The first rule of Catch is to get into the best condition possible. The reason why is because if you’re in a fight and you have your technique down but don’t last too long, you’re a goner before you can say “Damn.” Before you ever step on a mat, you should train with great intensity to become a conditioned individual. No one knew this better than the great Karl Gotch. To be able to get something, you have to earn it. I've heard about a lot of guys that love wrestling but never get down to condition because they don’t care about the work that goes into it. You want it bad enough; get your ass into gear.

            There aren't many who are left to teach the sport of CACC because most of them are gone including the late Karl Gotch but there are those that are out there that can help bring the sport back from the dead with the new generation. The one that sticks out the most now is the legendary Wigan wrestler Billy Robinson who coaches and helps out with seminars around the country with Scientific Wrestling front-runner Jake Shannon. Learn from who you can because it’s not everyday you learn about wrestling from the old school ways.

            Catch Wrestling has been around for decades has its roots in England, Eastern Europe and even in America with greats like Frank Gotch, George Hackenshmidt, Tom Jenkins, Farmer Burns, Fred Grubmyer and possibly the greatest American wrestler Ed “Strangler” Lewis aka (Robert Julius Fredrick). It is important to learn about our roots about mankind’s oldest sport and how it became what it is today. It is man’s birthright to wrestle, you didn't start out with a ball or a track or a racket, you started by getting your man to the ground and making him cry uncle to be the dominant man. You didn't have the Romans duel to the death by shooting a basketball, you certainly didn't have the Mongolians take down half the world by scoring touchdowns, they fought with powerful weaponry and the might of their body to wrestle and kill if needed to. From my understanding Catch is probably at the top of the list of being the great self-defense program and if you can strike, kick and wrestle masterfully, you’d be a dynamo.

            Not many want to earn their place because of how tough it is to get there. Look at this from a perspective, the conditioning is actually the easy part, it’s the consistency to keep it up and wrestle over a period of time is the hard part but that’s the beauty of it. Training is a constant state of motion and yeah it takes guts and the balls to get through it but at the same time it’s a preparation to help you stay in the game. Very few see that perspective and the rest bitch that they can’t handle it so they just up and run away like a scared mutt. I love wrestling and I've learned that if I want to be good at it, I have to earn my way to get there just like when I had my accident, I wanted so bad to train and walk again but I had to earn it through progression, drive and the will to get what I wanted and I made it happen. If I want to wrestle and learn the holds, I have to go through the trenches first to get there and if it means getting up to 500 Squats and 250 push-ups consistently so be it.

            To learn Catch Wrestling, you have to catch yourself and grab a hold of your conditioning and your will to get to where you want to be, if you want it bad enough, you won’t turn it into a nightmare, you’ll turn it into a dream you’re making come true and knock down the metaphorical brick wall to make that happen. Get at it and catch that light that is Catch As Catch Can Wrestling.