Is olympic wrestling taught in a lot of places?

[SteveSmith]

I looked about what several gyms have to offer in my area. I see boxing, muay thai, BJJ, kickboxing, and a bunch of martial arts. But I don't see any of them teaching wrestling. Is it normal? Can you become good at MMA without knowing wrestling?

 

[flyingknee16]

I looked about what several gyms have to offer in my area. I see boxing, muay thai, BJJ, kickboxing, and a bunch of martial arts. But I don't see any of them teaching wrestling. Is it normal? Can you become good at MMA without knowing wrestling?

you can still become good at MMA without training specifically in olympic/freestyle wrestling, but it definitely helps. but if you train in bjj, i'm sure you'll run into guys who are good in wrestling and will help you with your takedowns and sprawls and such.

 

[satchmo]

Where do you live? Freestyle wrestling clubs are all over the country, although more popular in some states than others. In Indiana they usually start up in the spring after the high school season is over. I'm sure in other states with large clubs (Sunkist Kids, NYAC) they practice year-round.

 

[grecoguy43]

olympic wrestling can be freestyle or greco.. meaning they use legs or not. go to a larg highschool or college in your area durring about jan - march and ask about the wrestling club. itll be about 40 bucks or so and youll get to practice almost every day and there will be a tournament every weekend to g o to untile the middle of the summer. usually greco meets are friday night and then you wake up sat and do freestyle.

 

[grecoguy43]

oh yeah... go indiana

 

[alexgncw]

if you train bjj, sambo, etc you should learn some wrestling as part of training ... we do wrestling takedowns, td defense, etc all the time in bjj

but i guess going to wrestling camp over the summer or something won't hurt either ... the answer to your question is yes you can become good in mma without wrestling but it is a good tool to have

 

[LCDforMe]

You can definitley be good at MMA without having a wrestling background. If you train for an MMA fight, you will work on a few things like your ground game, striking, clinch, conditiong, and takedowns. Your ground game would most likley incoorperate a lot of jiu jitsu. Even guys like Matt Hughes, fantastic wrestlers, evolve to using BJJ techniques in addition to their superior wrestling. Along with the multiple forms of Martial Arts that you train in, you will come across your takedowns. Most takedowns will stem from Judo or from Wrestling. Most any gym that trains for MMA fights will definitley teach you takedowns (derived from wrestling). So I guess the point of this paragraph is that you don't need to be a wrestler but it could help. Even if you don't wrestle, you can definitly find people at your gym who have to help you work on the parts of wrestling nesscesary to MMA.