Great topic. My coach when I was a HS wrestler would limit me to about 3-4 takedowns if I was the superior wrestler in matches. He would then give me a signal to finish the match and put the other guy away. Problem is I would get only about 1-1:30 minutes of mat time. The problem for myself was by the time I was a junior and senior most of my matches were this even out of state tourneys so it was difficult to find the right amount of mat time for larger tournaments at the end of the year and in the spring. Looking back now almost 20 years I agree with what my coach asked me to do and I always respected his wishes as I would not want to bring discredit among myself, team, community, or him killing me afterwards. But once a wrestler is at an high/elite level it is really tough to balance between the need for quality mat time and knowing when it is time to put a kid away if you have the ability to do so.


Cheers,
Mustang Bilby
"Lace-up"