Intro to Grappling

[Ben Christy]

Hi everyone. First post! Ive been lurking for about a year now
reading with great interest and ive finally decided to post. One of my biggest interests is grappling i have no previous experince besides childhood horseplay and would like to take a tenative step in this direction. My goal is purley inquistive i have now need to posses this skill i hope to never defend myself and have no copmpetitve desire just a thirst for knolwdge and experince.
That being said im somewhat baffled as what first step to take. Ive been considering bjj but am somewhat leary of its exponetial rise to fame and somwhat suspect it may suffer tae kwon dos fate of rampant commercialism. and yet i know of no other pragmatic systems to grappling. Please any advice on a first step would be greatly appreciated.

[Mike Cartier]

well i am biased as a BJJ guy myself but I love most grappling systems. Wrestling freestyle or greco-roman, judo is great as is japanese jiujitsu. But IMHO nothing is as good as BJJ for the simply reason they usually spar relentlessly and belt rank is directly related to your skill on the mat. Once you roll with someone who has a few hundred hours of rolling experience you will know why.

all arts can suffer from over capitalism but in the end its what you leanr thats important. BJJ's rise is because of its effectiveness in combat sports.

[Jake_Norwood]

I'll attest to BJJ's ability to make someone relatively effective in a short time. That's why the Army uses it as the basis for beginning level combatives.

Jake

[Ben Christy]

how does it compare to its historical eurpoean counterparts.

[Brian Hunt]

Another fine grappling art, and very western in it's origens is "catch wrestling." Famous wreslers such as Farmer Burns, Frank Gotch and others were great wrestlers/grapplers. Do a google search on catch wresling and you will come up with some really interesting info. This art is just as effective as Ju Jitsu.

hope this helps.

Brian Hunt
GFS.

[JeffGentry]

Hey guy's

Catch as scatch can <img src="/forum/images/icons/cool.gif" alt="" />

I am a big fan of this, here is a good link, they are selling video's they do have video clip's of some technique's, and some history and link's to history of this "sport".

http://www.catchwrestle.com/laoh.htm

Jeff

[Ben Christy]

Some of the stuff on the Catch wrestling page seems a little to good to be true. Perhaps its just my skeptical nature but some of those claims were hard to swallow yet ill try to keep an open mind. Do you have any personal experince is it realy the best form of grappling ever divised? I guess to be fair the proponents of bjj make similar claims.
Also is it posible to learn without former wrestling training. For someone quickly aproaching their thirtys.

[JeffGentry]

Hey Ben

Also is it posible to learn without former wrestling training. For someone quickly aproaching their thirtys.

Well give me about three or four month's and i'll let you know, I ordered an arm manipulation tape i would like to get a couple more so once i get them i'll let you know if they helped me, i'm rapidly approaching fourty and have no formal wrestling training.

Some of the stuff on the Catch wrestling page seems a little to good to be true

Most maritial art's have some claim of being the best, the thing i like is the fact that these technique's are mostly designed to produce lot's of pain quickly or to damage tendon's and joint's.

I have tried a couple of the technique's from the video clip's against some training partner's and they have done some on me and they work phenomanly well, the pain was immediate and severe.

One thing in BJJ's philosophy(correct me if I'm wrong) is position then submission, were as catch wrestling is you submit them no matter the position.

Jeff

[Brian Hunt]

There is a reson that it is known as "catch as catch can."

A lot of the top catch wrestlers won around the world. It is my understanding that it was developed by wrestlers who traveled a circuit (fairs and the like) taking on all comers, therefore they needaed a quick way to end a fight.Through lots of trial and error, catch wrestling developed into a powerful art. Therefore, it has a history that speaks of it's strength. Do a search for Farmer burns, he wrote a mail order course for wrestling. There are a couple of free downloadble copies of it on the web. If you hit Matt Fury's website, his stuff is for pay only.

There is some interesting info here.

http://www.sandowplus.co.uk/

and here.

http://stickgrappler.tripod.com/catch/catch.html

plus some history here

http://stickgrappler.tripod.com/catch/catch.html

Also, don't knock german ringen for a fine example of wrestling from the clinch, and there is a wide range of other techniques involved with this, including throws, submissions, strikes, kicks, and ground fighting.

And another fine art that is starting to see several attempts to ressurect it, is Greek Pancration. It has a lot in common with modern MMA's.

As has been said in another rather heated thread, there are 3 basic ranges to fighting. Learn them well, and you will be able to better prevail with and without weapons.

hope this helps.

Brian Hunt
GFS.

[Matt Shields]

I noticed someone gave a link to Tony Cecchine's website. I don't mean to contest the skill or ability of the turn of the century professional wrestlers, and nothing I am about to say is any solid proof, but I think everyone should take some things into consideration before spending hundreds of dollars on tapes that may have almost no historical validity. A couple of months ago Joe Rogan (Fear Factor Host and UFC Commentator) and his 150lb JiuJitsu instructor (Eddie Bravo) challenged Tony Cecchine via www.mma.tv after they had some supposed evidence that Tony Cecchine was using a pseudonym to harass the two of them which included calling them homosexuals. Now, this in itself wasn't really important, but Joe Rogan contacted a few of Tony's ex students to dig up whatever dirt he could on Tony, along with a few who came forward, and many had some detremental things to say.

All thats really relevant to my point and this thread is that there were serious questions raised towards Tony Cecchine's cedentials. For example, he has claimed to be a Golden Gloves Champ on numerous occasions, but he can't produce a record of ever competing. The contents of his Lost Art of Hooking tape set (which I own, along with a couple of his other tapes) had dramatically different contents from a promotional video he made less than a year before. This timeframe also mirrored his change in advertising the system as a submission grappling style and something that could easily defeat and/or complement Brazilian JiuJitsu, Judo and Sambo. There is also a record of him buying Gokor Chivikian's (Sambo/Judo under Gene Lebell) Leg Lock tape set only three weeks before filming the leg lock section of his ten series tapes, in which he performs a completely identical 7 leg lock chain. Tony's tapes do have alot of exotic submission holds a couple leg lock set-ups and an extremely strong emphasis on top position that Brazilian JiuJitsu simply doesn't have, and I know a few people who have sucsessfully added a few of these into their Submission Grappling game.

It's still possible that Tony Cecchine and his former associate Matt Furey (who claims to have been a student of Farmer Burns who died in 1937 and Frank Gotch who disowned him after 6 months) are the two holders of this completely legitimate and historically accurate style of wrestling. But the evidence seems to point in the direction that Tony Cecchine is a decent wrestler who spent a few years with Lou Thez (who admitted to only competing in two matches that weren't worked in his entire career) and supplemented existing material from the numerous instructional tapes on contemporary grappling styles he bought in his name, to make himself marketable to people interested in Submission Grappling with with Western (In the LOAH intro Pankration to Lancashire Wrestling to American Catch Wrestling) orgins.

Pro Wrestling matches have been worked since the thirties and it is most likely that Catch Wrestling only survives in some of the submissions that Brazilian Jiu Jitsu adopted from it (such as the Americana lock) and Karl Gotch's influence on Japanese Pro Wrestling, which was also greatly influenced by Brazilian Jiujitsu and Judo. Now, I don't mean to call Tony Cecchine a fraud, but I don't think his tapes are means to validate a strong tradition of submission holds in the Western World.

This art is just as effective as Ju Jitsu.

It very well could be, but the only evidence for that is Catch Wrestlers claiming they dominated people at BJJ schools and BJJ practitioners claiming they dominated Catch Wrestlers who came to their school.

[Mike Cartier]

You are quite right Matt, I know the story well, Tony Cechine has not proven his art to be superior to BJJ or even equal to it in competition either in MMA or on the submission wresttling circuit. To my knowledge no catch fighter has competed at a high level successfully. Some fighters have a touch of catch like Sakuraba and Josh Barnett, but they are usually either wrestlers using some catch tricks or shoot fighters adding some tricks.

Its still good of course but don't look for the same depth of concept and technique as BJJ. If it did have that sort of depth we would see it dominating or holding its own in sub wrestling tournaments but we don't. So i would look at it as a technique addittion to an existing grappling art rather than the only art you train.

[TimSheetz]

MF has a lot of big claims and his high tempo sales approach I despise. He also does a lot of Chinese Mystical BS or advertises it and I don't like that either. I do have his Combative conditioning manual and I like that a lot. I bought a couple vids and I think they do not include enough content - had I bought them not on sale I would have been totally pissed. I did get a couple videos from Dirtyfighting.com and I think they have some value and the method they claim to have used in the development of their techniques seems valid - Put the gloves on and go for it to test them out with uncooperative opponents. I think they are MMA type of fighting with BJJ as a grappling base... I think.

That, is about all I know about that, though I have never heard MF claim the knowing Farmer Burns.

Peace,

Tim

[JeffGentry]

Hey Brian

A lot of the top catch wrestlers won around the world. It is my understanding that it was developed by wrestlers who traveled a circuit (fairs and the like) taking on all comers, therefore they needaed a quick way to end a fight.Through lots of trial and error, catch wrestling developed into a powerful art. Therefore, it has a history that speaks of it's strength

That is exactly were catch wrestling came from, There were alot of great catch wrestler, Ed "Strangler" Lewis, John Pesek(SP?), Frank Gotch, too name a few other's, and these guy's were usualy not very big guy's, there was also one from England Bill can't come up with the last name and usualy they were taking on all comer's and winning.

Like anything you get out of it what you put into it.

So i would look at it as a technique addittion to an existing grappling art rather than the only art you train.

Oh yea i don't think there is a "magik bullet", i don't think there is one thing that is superiory to another, i look at all this as just addition's to thing's we know.

I would not spend what 200 dollar's for the 10 tape set, i would get what interested me and use what i could.


Jeff

[Ben Christy]

Just got in touch with a bjj school hoping to start in a couple weeks. Just wondering if i should start conditioning now im very out of shape infexible weak fat etc. Just wondeering about a good all round regiment free from lifting weights.

[Casper Bradak]

It's never too early to start getting in shape.