A Talk on Cross-Training
Saturday, February 6th, 2010I suppose when I give interviews, I should post them here.
Unfortunately, I usually just scratch the surface in these talks. I have a lot of interesting questions and provisional answers in mind.
I suppose when I give interviews, I should post them here.
Unfortunately, I usually just scratch the surface in these talks. I have a lot of interesting questions and provisional answers in mind.
Ray, That was a great interview. I never thought I was going to watch the full interview.
I did. It was well worth my time.
Ray!!! HOLY S**T, thank you for stating FIRST about “wrecking” young people’s experience.
I have seen this TOO much. In the area I grew up in there were several all state and several 2, and 3 time state champs at youth level and then they burnt out come high school, some never made it through high school wrestling.
I WISH i took up JUDO when I was wrestling. There is a famous JUDO club in the area, Cranford JUDO, and I encourage ALL my wrestlers to take it up, add a NEW, dangerous element to their wrestling.
Guys like Steve Mocco and his older brother went there as did other top NJ Wrestlers like Vinny Santaniello and the late Willie Carpenter.
I’d love to connect more with you Ray, I’m a 45 minute train ride from NYC, please keep me posted!
I added you as a speaker to my web site, I am psyched to spread your wealth of knowledge!
Thanks for an awesome interview, Ray!
Best,
–Z–
Hey. I’d be happy to meet with you, though I’m not sure when. I do have practice from 6-8 Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays at 145 Thompson in Soho. If you stop by, I could chat afterwards. Just give me a bit of notice.
Judo’s great stuff, though I can’t say I’m too happy with some of the rule changes they’ve made since I competed. I’ve always wanted to run it as a fall season, tournaments and all; pre-season folkstyle is pretty dull. Back in PA, I couldn’t get a room for it; athletic directors aren’t that keen on new sports coming in from the blue, and start talking about insurance, school-board approval, etc. And that’s without bringing up the small matter of chokes and arm-locks.
Awhile ago I wrote up a list of what I thought were the Judo throws most relevant to wrestling. I may dig that up and make a post of it.
Ray, if I am making a trip to NYC I will connect with you and give notice absolutely! If you ever want to stop by my gym for extra training pls say the word, train stations are a few minutes away and I’ll pick you up.
Are you wrestling or grappling now?
First time I ever heard you I was a young teen, saw you on the cover of USA Wrestler cranking a high single on Pat Lynch of NJ, who at the time was the most dominant wrestler in NJ History.
Pat actually lost states and regions his senior yr to a Football Player!!
–Z–
Mostly just coaching. There are some decent bigger wrestlers around, but none that come by practice dependably. On average, I get in about two workouts a week with a local grappler, which isn’t enough to get me in any kind of shape (which I’d like to be), but enough that if I stop my conditioning gets even worse.
Pat’s an excellent guy; he was my best regular rival in high school, and I got to know him pretty well. Frankly, though, in retrospect it’s easy to see him losing as a senior. His head wasn’t in the game, by that point; if it was, he’d have been a serious contender in college. We have a wrestling culture which routinely creates and then wastes exceptional wrestlers like that.
Dude, how right you are! In college I believe he went to Arizona, then maybe Georgia?
The athlete who beat him went on to play in the NFL, was in Buffalo, and was caught in some strange cross fire, wrong place / wrong time.
His younger brother was also quite the beast, beating a defending state champ in the finals as well, a few seconds left in the match, throws a head lock and wins by 1 point!
Ray, off topic but wrestling related question. My best friend and former teammate runs an inner-city middle & high school wrestling program. He is plagued with everything you could imagine: student athletes with poor grades, attendance issues, lack of resources, lack of exposure to wrestling before high school and during summers,etc. We were both teammates on an extremely successful high school wrestling team that was primarily composed of African-Americans (albeit at a high school that was in the suburbs and only 25% African-american) – regardless, I know it is possible to have a mostly or all black team dominate. BTW – he really knows wrestling ( Indiana state champ and former Clarion wrestler)…
Any thoughts on how to get the top caliber athletes who play other sports to commit to wrestling? Is it a fools errand to think you can get kids to an elite level in 2-4 years?
Is there anything you might suggest I do to help? I’m in a position where I can be very helpful financially (e.g. wrestling shoes, $ for freestyle and camps, etc.) but I want to make sure I’m not wasting my time and money. I’d love to see him build a successful program or even develop a few all-state caliber athletes. Wrestling changed my life and I credit the sport for a great deal of the success I’ve had in business and life and I’d like to pay it back.
Thoughts? Thanks in advance.
I’m going to give you a much shorter answer than this deserves, unfortunately; I’m pressed for time with my camp coming up in August. I’ve given a lot of thought to this sort of thing, since I’m helping out with Beat the Streets, which is attempting something similar on a larger scale.
Here are some semi-random thoughts: