Watch video & learn! Video watching is a great way to learn and improve your understanding of things. Technique videos are good, especially when the instructor truly understands the mechanics, principles being applied, and is able to communicate effectively.  However, it’s also good to watch video of the technique you want to learn being done in full action. The strategy, timing, and tempo is often overlooked and difficult to communicate in a technique video.

This isn’t just true in the realm of sports. Watching the “live” action of the technique desired to be mastered is an extremely important practice for mastery of a skill. This method of acquisition can be done deliberately, but also seems to take place inadvertently at times. For example, when a family comes back from a tournament weekend, even if the kids were just playing around in the stands while Mom or Dad were competing, they can be seen moving and doing technique that has never been shown to them. It’s as though osmosis took place during their time in the competition arena.

Peak performers looking to polish up their skill should study the ins and outs of the technique they look to acquire and implement, but also should spend time studying live action. Live action, being done in practice or competition, has more explanation than just the technical moving parts. While that is important, there is a sense of tempo, give and take, strategy, timing, that all play into the effectiveness of a technique. A scripted dialogue is different from an improvised conversation. The scripted conversation might include the necessary technical elements, but it might lack the natural flow of a conversation. In the end, it’s important to keep in mind that there is more to successful implementation than just technical integrity. All things need to come together.

Thinking back, I remember watching hours of Jon Smith in competition as a wrestler in college. His technique is incredible. I’ve seen him “play” wrestling with Dave Schultz once when he was warming up for a tournament, but a little different from this. This video of Jon Smith playing around changed the way I look at the fireman carry. No wonder he’s a 4x world champion and 2x Olympic champion, and the head coach at Oklahoma State University. After watching this, I went in to try the carry in practice, and it’s worked better than ever. I could feel the mechanics click into place immediately. The fireman’s carry is one of those first to learn in wrestling moves that I’ve never felt comfortable mechanically doing. A technique that took a little over 20 years for me to finally understand and hopefully execute in competition one day!

This simple “play” wrestling taken in Italy, while the OSU wrestling team travels to compete in Italy, is a perfect way to study a technique in live action. It’s simple but fundamentally sound.

Here, Jon Smith and Dave Schultz warm up before 1989 world cup. It’s a great example of technical wrestling and movement play. Watching the two drilling together is a different study. It’s important to understand that drilling is one component, but might to include all of the elements that are involved in the live application of the technique.