July 26, 2024,
In female submission wrestling, does might always make right?
Often, mostly, but not always. What can help neutralize the situation?
A good strategy.
In our book, a good strategy masks your weaknesses and amplifies your strengths. It helps you seize opportunities and take advantage of them.
Digest that for a second.
When an effective plan and strategy is implemented, the coach in the blue shirt, who just beat your football team 30-0, can change his shirt to orange, give you his blue shirt (after he washed it), also give you his players while he takes yours, play another game, and beat you 40-0.
A great plan and strategy can work wonders.
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At FCI, we feel real life examples work best and are transferable from one sport to another.
Right now, the 2024 French Open and Wimbledon has just been completed. As of this writing, up next is the mighty 2024 US Open.
At the high school level, here is a real life example of how incredibly well a good strategy works.
REAL LIFE EXAMPLE
As shared by, indygrit.community, “Mike Tyson famously said, "Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth." This response was to a reporter's question regarding whether he was worried about Evander Holyfield's fight plan.”
So, understand that a Plan typically is about Plan A.
Always remember this. A strategy is what you do after Plan A doesn’t work.
A strategy could involve the implementation of Plan A, B or C, depending upon how things go.
What you do with your important goals is more about your strategy because it involves many sub-plans that need to be executed, especially if others go wrong or completely fail.
A plan is generic. A strategy is comprehensive and detail oriented.
Now for the real life example.
We have an associate on our team who we will call Mark.
Mark’s teenage daughter approached him before her senior year in high school to ask him to coach her. For about a decade Mark was one of the top ranked amateur players in the Northern California city that he resided in.
After certain ground rules were established he agreed.
Her previous won lost records as a sophomore and junior were 4-10 and 3-11. She could barely hit 3 balls over the net.
Mark explained to her if, she followed his plan, by the end of the year, she would be ranked in the top 20 of their major daily newspaper.
What was the plan?
THE PLAN
We’ll start by asking you a question.
How do you turn a young tennis player into a winner who has no real weapons?
The plan is to create strengths.
Mark played four years of organized football in high school and was All League in soccer.
If she has no weapons?
We need to create artificial ones.
As Mark learned from his football practices, fatigue is a massive enemy in the 4th quarter.
So he trained her every day for 9 months, with double sessions, just like football, on Saturday and Sunday. The plan was for her to be able to compete for 3 hours in 100 degree weather at game time.
Understandably the plan involved her keeping the ball in play more than three times.
And that was the plan. That’s it.
See what we mean? It’s linear.
The goal has been set. We want to be ranked in the top 20, in a major Nor Cal city by season’s end.
Now it is time for the strategy. It is more involved. Time for the details.
STRATEGY
First, her strength will be something she can control.
Keep the ball in play. Don’t go for big shots which will avoid creating unforced errors. After months of training in the hot sun, her leg muscles were spectacular. She could run for three hours easily.
The second component of the strategy was her opponent’s two most likely biggest weaknesses.
Hitting unforced errors and getting tired from the hot sun.
Now the strategy was to keep her ball in play, run down her opponent’s shots and just gently hit the ball back over the net.
Another element of the strategy was to keep her opponent in the hot sun for at least 45 minutes during the first set. Before you serve, bounce the ball at least three times and not one. During change overs, take your full time allotted. The 100 degree sun is beating down upon your opponent’s head.
Take your time on everything and look at the clock.
Always.
If the first set is over in, say, 25 minutes, even if you won the first set, that’s not good. Your opponent may be fresh for the second set and just used the first set as a warmup.
This may place that in proper perspective.
Every high school team has 6 seeds who play one another. There were 8 teams in the league. When the season began, 48 seeds were marching towards the final four championships.
His player was not one of them.
Not only was she going to have to beat the other teams seeds, she would have to “challenge” the players on her own team, beat them and slowly become a 6th seed, 5 seed, fourth seed etc.
Only the number 1 and 2 seeds of each team play matches that count towards the championship.
On her team, she challenged up and finally landed at the all-important number two spot.
What was the challenge?
Those other players are seeded for a reason.
They can hit that tennis ball big time. Many of them played at private clubs with their families. Many of them had powerful ground strokes and can hit you off those courts.
This is not a new league.
A number of them were champions in summer leagues.
Some of them were ranked USTA Warriors.
Are we painting a picture of what his previous 3-11 player is up against?
She absolutely has to tire them out in the 100 degree heat. Just keep their ball in play. What is their magic number before they make an unforced error? Is it 4? 5?
Figure it out.
Keep the ball in play and they will defeat themselves. If she keeps them out in that hot sun for 45 minutes in the first set, a teenage girl will want to exit early in the second set and start going for big shots.
Unforced errors will be the result.
His strategy worked to perfection.
At one point during the season she won 13 and lost zero.
Yes, 13-0.
The most telling statistic was that all victories were 2 sets to love. No three set knock down drag outs and tie breakers.
She would be voted her team’s Most Valuable Player, led her high school to the playoffs for the first time in the school’s history and earned her way into the leagues final four championships.
Think about it. Before the season began, where was she ranked among the 48 seeds?
She wasn’t ranked.
By year’s end she was ranked number 4.
That is the importance of having a plan and implementing it with a comprehensive strategy.
Were there bumps in the road along the way? Of course.
That is why you have a Plan B and C.
For summary, Plan A was to make it in to the top 20 rankings in the city.
It is linear.
She more than surpassed that by implementing a strategy, which involved a number of plans that propelled her to end up ranked number 4 in a decades long established league.
She would eventually end her tennis career ranked number 65 in Northern California in the USTA. And to think.
At one time she was 3-10 and relegated to doubles.
WHAT HELPS FEMALE WRESTLERS WITH STRATEGY
You can have the best strategy in the world on paper and it won’t do you any good until you have performed some basics. Here they are.
Get in great physical shape. Workout at the gym for looks and strength.
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Learn Jiu-Jitsu. Learn MMA. Learn it well. Some female submission wrestlers feel they can survive on Greco styled grappling alone. Very few. But whoever they are, they really limit themselves.
You must learn the full menu of MMA.
Arm and shoulder strength is really important. The fight usually begins up top.
That is Plan A.
Always remember, when Plan A doesn’t work, that is where your strategy begins.
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