WHAT IS FREESTYLE OR GRECO-ROMAN WRESTLING?

Freestyle wrestling is a style of amateur mrestling that is practiced throughout the world. Along with Greco-Roman, it is one of the two styles of wrestling contested in the Olympic Games.  American High School and college wrestling is conducted under different rules and is termed Scholastic and Collegiate Wrestling.

In Freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling, like Scholastic/Collegiate wrestling, the ultimate goal is to pin your opponent.  In Freestyle wrestling, also like Scholastic wrestling, wrestlers are allowed to attack and use their legs for offense and defense.  In Greco-Roman wrestling, the use or touching of legs is not allowed, let alone anything below the waist. 

In Freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling, there are numerous ways to score, not only from an offensive position, but in a defensive position as well.  Holding a wrestler on his back is not required in Freestyle or Greco-Roman wrestling, in Scholastic, a wrestler must hold his opponent down for a certain amount of seconds before he can be awarded points. 

Why have we decided to put this on our website?  Well, some of you may have wrestled freestyle or greco-roman before, but may not know the importance of learning these two styles.  Yes they are fun, but they have much more reward and advantage than it just being fun.

Here is an article from the US Men's National Team Coach, Zeke Jones, on the importance of learning these styles.

http://www.wvmat.com/whyfree.htm

For those of you who have never seen what freestyle or greco-roman looks like, here is a cool clip.  It is pretty much the same, but can be much more exciting!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJgiKN_tYNY

Once the scholastic season finishes, which is after the states, we will be focusing on Freestyle and Greco-Roman Wrestling.  Anyone interested is more than welcome to join us and learn.  We feel learning these two styles of wrestling are extremely important to the development of a wrestler.  Hope you enjoyed the clip.