Kyle Dake Study -- Embrace the Scramble: Part I

BTW Kyle Dake just mopped the floor with 5 really good wrestlers at the World Clubs Cup Championships. I think he Teched everyone. He is a strong candidate for world gold this year at 79 kilos. USA Freestyle team will probably look like

Gilman
Steiber
Molinaro
Green
Burroughs
Dake
Taylor
Cox
Snyder
Gwizz

That's a solid team right there. 4-5 guys are least who are a threat to medal at any intl event.
 
Let's not miss the forest for the trees here.

I jumped in at the idea that Askren would have been better served by taking a different approach to the sport and that he was catching people in noob traps.

But if you followed the guys career from HS through 08 you can see that he improved against the field every year. He went from losing handily to Matt Palmer at Senior Nationals to beating Brad Dillion and Tyler Nixt in 1-2pt matches as a Freshman to bonus pointing anyone not named Pendleton.

In Freestyle he started out losing to Matt Lackey and Tyrone Lewis to defeating them and everyone else in the US.

As far as others emulating him I don't think anyone really copies any great wrestlers style but that doesn't mean you can't take pieces of their game and see if it works for you.

Nobody is coping Randy Lewis, Jason Nolf, Joe Melchiore but I would still study their game and implement anything you think you can make work.

How many people have the speed to copy John Smith or Jordan Burroughs style? Should you not work on angles because you can't hit a double from space?

I think we have to remember that this is a sport and athleticism of all kinds whether it be speed, flexibility or balance are part of the game.

And fuck you guys for making me defend Ben Askren. I honestly was never a big fan of the guy. I think I cheered against him in every NCAA finals he was in. I've never even watched him in an MMA bout.

I don't trust people with chins that big.

One of my favorite things about all grappling sports but especially wrestling and BJJ are that you can make almost any set of athletic attributes work for you if you're smart about tailoring your game to your strengths. So many sports there are must-have athletic qualities, and that's just not the case in grappling. You can be a traditional explosive, strong guy but you can also just be a dude with tremendous flexibility and great balance and if you structure your game correctly that can be enough to go pretty far.
 
I'll be the first to say me using terms like that was for the purposes of hyperbole; the point though was to draw parallels with (hence the scare quotes)/illustrate an underlying dynamic, which i hope was understood.

As defensive and counter-attacking methodologies i have little criticism for funking; in fact, for these purposes i think it is great. I understand that going beyond analysis or even constructive criticism and into contradiction of the way(s) a well known high level athlete does things carries significantly more social risk than either of the former ('well who the heck are you to think you know better huh?'); if it helps you at all do not consider this is a personal attack on Askren's 'worthiness' of a wrestler in general; my main sticking point concerns the study of film of Askren's college matches specifically, and what lesions, principles, or essentials one might derive from it.

Let me modulate this right here: i do not mean this to be hyperbolic, so don't take it as an absolute or comprehensive statement, but as indicating a component dynamic that trends higher on a continuum, relative to other methodologies; when you look at his feats, one of the big take aways i get is, 'this is a sublime display of superior prescience, mat sense, and balancing'. That is to say, that he did what he did in itself was a demonstration of above and beyond such manner of ability. Or in other words, when little timmy is asking you how he can do that; "well that easy timmy, all you gotta do is be more talented than your opponent"; "thanks coach, i'll get right on that".

I've mentioned before that i had been studying several different Schalles Award winners, particularly wrestlers who have won it more than once (eg, Scott Moore, Taylor Walsh, Ben Askren, and Zain Retherford), to see how they did what they did, if there were any commonalities amongst them, and what lesions could be taken way. In preliminary brushes i had in fact found some certain common threads, such as convergence onto certain rides (crossbody with power half was very common), or certain offensive tendencies (often a preference for takedowns that can lead directly into exposure from neutral, such as the reverse headlock). Askren however, stood apart; a data point incongruent with trends observed elsewhere.

When you've got a case of someone winning big in ways noone else is, it occasions a reductive first question; are they so great as to succeed ultimately despite their methodology? Or are their methods in fact more essentially virtuous than their competition in a way that others theretofore or since failed to appreciate? (Or is it, because they are so great, they can access such greater methods otherwise inaccessible to lesser competitors?).

To give an example, I have never really seen someone in greco-roman do things much the same way Karelin had, but watching his film, i found it easy to appreciate the methods underlying his dominance; in particular, his chronic and insistent pursual of the inside two-on-one/reenforced armdrag control (which, for lack of a term i could find, i've called 'polearm control'). Without fail, he would reach for that 2on1 arm drag position, and none of his opponents could really do anything about it except stall, which of course just got them penalized, putting them on the ground, where he would then go to his patented bodylock attack. He did pretty much the exact same stuff for over a decade, and noone ever really scouted him out on it; only father time took that L.

Of course his primary attack was sport specific, but it is also something that is not particularly inimitable; i'd say if you took another good guy and had him use the same methods in the clinch he'd also have good success with them; i'd go so far as to say that he came the closest any athlete has had to rendering a combat sport down to a solved problem.

Watching college film on Askren though often occasioned two thoughts; 'this guy is clearly a genius', and, 'im not sure how i'd square this with teaching a system to a bunch of different athletes'.

Was Askren's method great? Or was it Askren that was great?

>well why chose when you could just teach all of it

Yeah but you can't just teach all of it; nor would you want too, anyways.

>well what if it was both

If it's both, what reason is there to not be all-in-ing on the method, anyways? Wrestling is an old sport; pretty much everything people do now has also been done in the past, including what Ben did. It's an honest question then; why isn't it more common?

I understand the meta-gaming; even a highly marginal strategy can be(come) adaptive if few others are gameplaning or spending training time on the matter, or if so many are overspecializing into an essential 'meat' that the field becomes vulnerable to secondary 'potatoes'. Certainly i'd try to make sure at least one of my guys are each a specialist at different popular metas, if only for the purposes of camp preparation. The question becomes, at what point does trying to go 'uphill' through more essentially disadvantageous TTPs stop being contingently advantageous? I think in a lot of cases that margin in fact is fairly narrow, and if you've got a world class talent on your hands, and you're in charge of grooming them to stand on the podium, i think trying to make them a grappling hipster is doing them a disservice; the easiest way to beat the best is to do what the best do better (which is actually the hard way; which is the easy way).

Let me tell you, i post on these forums just as much for my own benefit as anyone elses; if you have good ideas on the matter by all means share, im interested in it. It's what we're all here for right?
Lets address this point by point.

  1. Someone with your vocab understands perfectly how your use of language came across, you can't complain of the "risks" associated with analyzing the greats when you are calling it "noob traps" and the way you wrote it. The entire post came across as the willful ignorance of an old timer justifying losses to "junk" technique or the ignorance of someone who doesn't barely know what they are talking about.
  2. The simple fact is that while different people are more suited to certain technique or styles than others, just attributing it to his talent or natural ability is willfully ignorant of the time and hard work he put into developing it that is a matter of record. In fact, something that annoys people like Mark Ellis his teammate and national champion at Missouri is how people over-attribute Askrens success to natural ability because Askren didn't "look" like he worked, lifted, ran, trained as much as the other elite.
  3. Continuing the "natural ability" point when talking to a young one about trying what Askren did, trying to fit a square peg into a round hole doesn't work the other way either, trying to make kids of a certain personality, build, tempermant and athletic ability try to wrestling like Terry Brands or Kyle Snyder is just as untainable as making a certain type of kid try to wrestle like an Askren. The greats ALWAYS have certain types of inherent physical gifts and personalities that are very hard to imitate. To actually teach the majority of kids to actually wrestling like a John Smith with his physical gifts would be much harder than teaching a kid to wrestle like Askren..
  4. In your studies of the pinners your analysis was too small, "just" studying those types ignores the much vaster collection of wrestlers who may not be on that level of success but have had very successful careers as either scramblers or pinners, for instance, you ignored one of my very relevant examples of Stephan Abas as someone who had success with such techniqes, or an AJ Schopp or even if you want to be current a Seth Gross I could go on
  5. As to imitating the amount of coaches that can actually teach is minuscule below the elite high school/college level along with flawed methods of teaching it
EDIT
I had a really long post going in detail over every point addressing the flaws or misconceptions if you will in your arguments but it got cut off and not saved. Polish made another excellent point about Askrens progression as an athlete..

But I’ll maybe do it later. My twin nieces turned 15 and while I’m super proud.. I’m also feeling old and like a curmudgeon because they’re starting to date and I want to tell them not to date and it’s time for cake
 
I thought like this would probably be a response, and i actually agree with it too a degree.* But i don't think it's responsive to most of the other points also.

*Too a degree, since, in my experience, nothing succeeds like success; if someone starts getting lots of high profile success with a certain method, lots of people start trying to copy them; and if those people also start succeeding more, it snowballs and a new equilibrium is reached. Topical example: the recent surge in leg entanglement development in submission grappling.
You really don’t seem to understand how commonplace or at the very “least” never surprised to see the scrambles/techniques Askren popularized are in college and elite high school.. it’s at the lower levels where there is much less coaches who know how to both do and more importantly teach the techniques. In fact many very knowledgeable wrestling people including Askren think one of the big reasons the Penn State wrestlers are so much more willing to attack and engage in actual offense vs wrestlers like places from Iowa.. because they both grew up scrambling because it’s commonplace in PA, and because they play wrestle and work on scrambles, so when they attack there is no fear of getting stalemated or funk rolled or countered because they know what to do and the “scrambling” is simply an extension of wrestling beyond the execution of the technique itself.. vs Iowa where because scrambling isn’t trained as much, the willingness to embrace and commit to offense that opens up more action and flurries is scary

Before it got cut off I went into detail about how scrambling is Essential to the meta of lower and middle weight folk wrestling and not at least underanding it leaves you behind just as not understanding inversion and 50/50 At lower and middle weight in Bjj leaves you out of the lurch and behind. And more, the big thing is though is that you seem to ONLY be looking at certain names when watching wrestling and not seeing the whole picture
 
That's a solid team right there. 4-5 guys are least who are a threat to medal at any intl event.
Well, 7 of them already have world and/or Olympic medals while Molinaro was a win away from Olympic bronze, Taylor teched and pinned 2-3 Olympic/world champs at the last world cup, and Dake has beaten Tsargush, and a bunch of other top guys. Should be a very solid team for sure.
 
Just uploaded Part II, FYI. Feedback -- especially from the experienced wrestlers -- is always appreciated.

 
Just uploaded Part II, FYI. Feedback -- especially from the experienced wrestlers -- is always appreciated.


Not trying to be a negative but it took over 7 minutes to actually show a “scramble”...
 
How much do you think technical repertoire matters in making a good scrambler? That is, are there certain styles that lend themselves better to scrambling than others? I'm thinking that someone with a game built on flowing around someone's offense rather than just stopping it would make you a better scrambler, e.g. someone like Ben Askren should be able to scramble well since he's used to getting into funk from lots of positions already, building up his base from the bottom, etc. In BJJ I certainly think that's true, if you're someone who specializes in subs like guillotines and kimuras that you can grab from lots of different positions you're generally going to have an advantage in scrambling over someone who specializes in, say, triangles from guard which require a more stable position to set up (as a rule).

I'm a bit late to the party here but I would say that Ben's scrambling style is based around getting to 3-4 hub positions - he has transitions to them mapped out from a variety of common spots, and from the "hubs" he has series of techniques 3-4 moves deep mapped out of counters, re-counters, and so on. At each level, if you listen to him talk about it, he's clearly thought about the finer details within each position (where exactly to grab, etc). From what I've heard, when he was in college, they set up mats in the basement and would spend hours every day screwing around in those various positions.

In my experience, the best scramblers do have an of an improvisational flair, but they are able to succeed at higher levels because they spend time in the lab trying to figure out how they can replicate and reproduce the stuff they pull out their ass sometimes.
 
I'm a bit late to the party here but I would say that Ben's scrambling style is based around getting to 3-4 hub positions - he has transitions to them mapped out from a variety of common spots, and from the "hubs" he has series of techniques 3-4 moves deep mapped out of counters, re-counters, and so on. At each level, if you listen to him talk about it, he's clearly thought about the finer details within each position (where exactly to grab, etc). From what I've heard, when he was in college, they set up mats in the basement and would spend hours every day screwing around in those various positions.

In my experience, the best scramblers do have an of an improvisational flair, but they are able to succeed at higher levels because they spend time in the lab trying to figure out how they can replicate and reproduce the stuff they pull out their ass sometimes.

I think that's largely true. A lot of it, as you said, is developing a way to get to your goal positions from almost anywhere. That's most of what a guy like Marcelo did: get to the back or a guillotine from everywhere, and the scramble largely takes care of itself.
 

I really really do like your series :), my only quibble would be a lot of the sequences in the last two are really scrambles in my opinion. But you do highlight some very important concepts. Overrall very good job
 
I really really do like your series :), my only quibble would be a lot of the sequences in the last two are really scrambles in my opinion. But you do highlight some very important concepts. Overrall very good job

Thanks, Jack.
 
No problem, but what do you consider a scramble?

I'm using a broader definition than you, I think. Basically, any situation in a grappling match in which control of a transitional position is still being skillfully contested. That's not a perfect definition, and I acknowledge that it encompasses a lot that would normally not be referred to as a "scramble." I'm including:

-The period from the shot / takedown set-up, to the finish (or neutralization/reversal)
-When top control from the referee's position becomes highly contested (Dake v. Taylor ankle elevation clip from Part 3, for example)

The first category is what I'm mostly showing in my videos. It's kind of subjective, but studying Dake's film, and coming up with general principles for winning these types of contested positions has been an interesting project for me.
 
I'm using a broader definition than you, I think. Basically, any situation in a grappling match in which control of a transitional position is still being skillfully contested. That's not a perfect definition, and I acknowledge that it encompasses a lot that would normally not be referred to as a "scramble." I'm including:

-The period from the shot / takedown set-up, to the finish (or neutralization/reversal)
-When top control from the referee's position becomes highly contested (Dake v. Taylor ankle elevation clip from Part 3, for example)

The first category is what I'm mostly showing in my videos. It's kind of subjective, but studying Dake's film, and coming up with general principles for winning these types of contested positions has been an interesting project for me.
Wrestling through a shot to a takedown with counters and recounters isn’t really a scramble but I understand your logic
 
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