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- Handfighting Basics & Distance Management
- Primary Offensive Sequences
- Counter Ties & The Value Of Patience
- Defensive Handfighting
- How Do You Beat It?
Japan’s Olympic Wrestling team just had the greatest performance in the program’s history. They won a whopping 8 gold medals (2 in Greco, 2 in men’s Freestyle, and 4 in women’s Freestyle) for a total of 11 medals altogether. While the exclusion of Russia from this year’s Olympic games certainly helped, especially in the 74kg weight usually dominated by Zaurbek Sidakov, several wrestlers who have previously represented Russia ended up competing under different flags anyway, such as 74kg gold medalist, Razambek Zhamalov, who brought home the gold for Uzbekistan.
Japan is usually one of the top three countries in Freestyle wrestling, along with Russia and The US, but this year’s dominance is unprecedented for them. While watching their Freestyle matches, the main thing that stood out to me was their handfighting dominance. The Japanese wrestlers all executed a fairly similar system, employing many of the same primary scoring attacks and setups, though each added their own individual flair to it. Their comfort and ease in mid-range tie ups made it very difficult for opponents to find positions they could score from and allowed them quick access to reliable setups, while also defusing their opponent’s pressure.
Handfighting Basics & Distance Management
A wrestler’s head and hands are his first two layers of defense for keeping his man off the hips - a simple matching of levels and frame with the head, or a stiff-arm can keep even the most explosive shot from finding its target. In sports with striking involved, getting past these layers tends to be fairly easy. Striking necessitates a higher stance, leaving the head unavailable to block, and a quick feint or punch upstairs can draw the guard up, freeing up the hips for attack. But nothing’s that easy in wrestling, where stances are built to get underneath an opponent and the hands are focused on denying them takedown opportunities while creating your own.While the handfighting in wrestling is often high paced and difficult to follow at first, for the educated striking fan there will be some recognizable similarities. Pay attention to what the hands are doing as wrestlers first make contact, and you’ll see many of the same tactics used in striking - feints, probing rhythm breaks, even parries. Every wrestler has different ties they favor and different positional goals, but ultimately the objective is a familiar one: finding and maintaining their ideal distance, setting up attacks, and denying opponents the ability to initiate.
Japanese and American wrestlers both tend to wrestle high-paced, grueling styles in comparison to the more patient and defensive Russians, or the explosive big-move Cubans. But the way they implement their pace and pressure differs greatly. In general, American wrestlers like to pressure with physicality, pushing with underhooks, snapping the head down with heavy collar ties, forcing their opponent to bear their weight and tire out.
Japan’s pressure, on the other hand, comes more from mobility. They stay active with buzzing hands, constantly feinting level changes, re-adjusting ties, and taking angles. It creates a sort of pressure applied not just to the body, but to the senses. Moving around in a wrestling stance is tiring enough, but constant fakes and motion pull opponents in and out of alertness on split-second intervals, dulling the senses to committed attacks.
The sort of heavy collar tie pressure that Americans are more known for operates best at close range. A collar tie uses a hand on the back of the head or neck to pressure the opponent’s head, and with it his balance, through a bent elbow straight to the floor. The closer the tying elbow is to one’s ribs, the more leverage they can get on the snap, and the better defensive value in closing off their own hips. It offers a way of slowing down an opponent while wearing on them and setting up offense.
In contrast, Japan’s wrestlers all have a fairly similar ideal distance and that’s a short step back from a tight collar tie. They operate best when they have a bit of space to move around and their opponent has to step in or reach out to find their head.
Japan prefers to enter on wrist control grips, looking to keep the match at mid-range while blocking their opponents from closing distance into tighter ties. They were very diligent in clearing any ties their opponents secured, looking to peel off collar ties to regain their desired range. In the first few clips above, you can even see 57kg gold medalist, Rei Higuchi, almost parry Spencer Lee’s collar tie attempts, slapping them off before they even reach his neck. If they lose the wrists, they move to a post on the bicep or shoulder with an extended arm, keeping the mid-range frame that affords them the mobility and space they work so well with while denying their opponent’s attempts to establish tighter control.
One of the primary downsides to this kind of looser, more mobile style is that it doesn’t afford constant control of the head and posture the way heavy collar ties do. But Japan’s wrestlers still make liberal use of snapdowns. Their snaps just come in motion and through handfighting transitions, rather than constant head pressure.
Level change feints and snapdowns play off each other, punishing the opponent for either staying too upright in anticipation of the snap, or too low to defend the shot. Snaps are also used often by the Japanese wrestlers to break opponent’s collar ties, briefly threatening their balance while they circle away from the tie.
They would enter on the hands and quickly move up to the head to throw the opponent’s weight down, disguising the snap behind handfighting. They also played them well off their constant lateral movement, controlling the opponent’s posture with the dual threat of snaps and level changes. It lead to several lovely sequences where a Japanese wrestler would threaten a snapdown or front headlock to set up a shot, taking an angle outside their opponent’s defenses as they tried to address it. Or alternatively threatening the angle first, prompting a level change from their opponent that they could exploit with a snap down. The above clip shows Akari Fujinami and Hayato Ishiguro hitting these snap to angle mixups.
The primary goal of Japan’s wrestlers was to drag their opponents into wrist ties and beat them with greater experience and superior process in those exchanges. The constant tying up of hands and blocking or stripping ties conditioned opponents to expect it and reach out in return to avoid surrendering the grip. But when the opponent reached out, they would time a level change underneath it, giving them access to their high percentage single leg attacks.
Rei Higuchi destroyed eventual 57kg bronze medalist, Aman Sehrawat, with this simple but effective strategy. He would strip his ties at range and constantly tie up the hands, frustrating the Indian who was looking to work into close range ties that he could use to physically pressure Higuchi. Once Sehrawat freed up his right hand for a moment, he would automatically reach out to take a grip on Higuchi, but Higuchi would change levels underneath it and penetrate onto the legs unimpeded.
Primary Offensive Sequences
The vast majority of Japan’s scoring work in their Olympic run was done with two high percentage techniques - the sweep single leg and the low single leg.The sweep single is perhaps the highest percentage penetration in all of wrestling. The attacker’s near knee falls on line with or outside the leg being attacked, and a pivot on the knee takes the attacker outside the defender’s hips. The value of getting outside the hips with a single leg is obvious, as it avoids a strong sprawl from the defender, but it’s even more valuable in Freestyle wrestling. Since Freestyle awards points for back exposure to the mat, an attacker can be scored on even while in on the legs via sacrifice throws, but those typically require the defender to have his hips between himself and the attacker.
Low single legs involve a deep level change and a lunge for the ankle. They’re typically longer range attacks, but can be adjusted for closer engagements by replacing the penetration with a level change and a direct reach for the ankle.
The Japanese wrestlers all have very low stances, usually putting them level with or underneath opponents in their natural stance, which allows them to quickly shoot underneath ties or downblocks. But low singles and sweep singles also have a few specific upsides in Freestyle wrestling. In American Folkstyle, you’ll often see upright finishes to a high crotch, where the attacker stays on his feet and runs the pipe. In freestyle however, it’s much more common for attackers shooting a high crotch to look to staple the leg into a crackdown position immediately, then reach down to the ankle to finish low. The reason for that is the exposure rules in Freestyle - finishing with high hips or entering high with lots of momentum can give the defender a chance to score with a big sacrifice throw, while finishes that put the attacker’s hips close to the mat present less risk.
The single legs favored by Japan’s wrestlers allow them to finish low in a controlled manner while avoiding easy momentum throws. But they also give them direct access to an ankle as they finish, which is where their leg laces come in. Freestyle wrestling awards two points for a wrestler on top turning their opponent’s hips to the mat, and one of the more common ways to achieve this is through weaving the defender’s legs together and gator rolling for as many points as one can rack up.
Leg laces are a specialty of Japan’s top wrestlers and their single legs put them right in position to score with the lace. In some of the less competitive women’s divisions, it’s not uncommon to see Japan’s representative run through their division, picking up quick technical falls by scoring one takedown, clinging to the legs, and spinning until the ref calls the match off. Different wrestlers add their own unique flare to it - 74kg silver medalist, Daichi Takatani, likes to shelf the shin on his hip and circle with it to cross it over the far leg, while 65kg gold medalist, Kotaro Kiyooka, prefers to stick his head between his man’s legs like he’s giving them a shoulder ride before locking his hands around the leg and rotating their hips around with his shoulders.
One of the major upsets in men’s freestyle this year was Daichi Takatani’s shock 20-12 win over Kyle Dake in the 74kg semi finals to secure his silver medal. And he did it mostly using the simple handfighting process we’ve covered so far and the leg lace.
Dake spent most of the match looking for heavy collar ties, hitting an ankle pick off his collar tie early on. Takatani kept his hands and elbows tight, staying reserved and picky about when he reached out, looking to change levels and spam low singles under Dake’s arms as he reached out. Dake would hang his rear hand in front of Takatani, posting on his head and playing with the threat of a long collar tie, keeping his lead hand low to downblock and almost daring Takatani to shoot so that he could stuff his head and throw with a chest wrap.
But as the match wore on and the pace began getting to the older Dake, his reaches became more predictable and Takatani was able to seamlessly time his level changes underneath them. The downblock would fail as Dake was too slow and Takatani’s timing too good, letting him get to the ankle before Dake could move his feet. And while Dake’s chest wrap worked at times, Takatani would retain control of the ankle as he went over, then use it to come back on top and flow into his leg lace sequences, negating and exceeding the points from the chest wrap.
Now that we’ve seen how the basic grip strategy flows into their single legs and leg laces, let’s take a look at more specific setups.
One of the most consistent single leg setups Japan’s wrestlers found was using their wrist control to change levels onto the ankle or enter a sweep single.
With a strong grip on the wrist, they could safely change levels while pulling the opponent down with them until their hand could directly reach the ankle, then quickly let go of the wrist, change levels, and take an ankle grip to pull themselves into a low single, or pivot outside with the sweep single. The beauty of this setup is that the wrist control ensures a clear lane to the ankle, and it doesn’t really matter what’s happening on the other side - ideally inside control on the far side would make it smoothest to change levels unimpeded, but even if the opponent has control of the opposite wrist or a strong tie, once ankle control is secured they’ll need to abandon it to keep their balance and start defending anyway.
Often these shots came from thumb-down wrist control, where they would take an outside grip on the wrist and roll their own wrist down. With the thumb pointing down, the natural way to break the grip is to roll the wrist back, which leads the attacker right into the ankle grip. But any attempts from their opponent to break wrist control provided an opening to shoot in on the legs while they were distracted with grip-fighting:
