Dominate Your Opponent in the Seatbelt Position: Four Moves with Ben Askren
There are many common positions in wrestling that wrestlers often end up in. Because of this, it is good to have an arsenal of moves you can hit in each scenario. The more you learn, the better you will be. One of these common positions is a seatbelt position. This is when one guy has a whizzer and you have your arm across their back. Wrestlers often get stuck in this position after they take a shot and the other guy uses a whizzer to defend it.
In this article, Ben Askren shows us four great options from this position you can use to score points. One great point that Askren makes in the videos is the guy with the seatbelt, not the guy with the whizzer, dictates where they are. It is important to remember this when drilling and wrestling live.
Rib Crusher
The rib crusher starts out with both guys down on the mat in the seatbelt position. To hit this move, you want to slide your arm deeper in to the whizzer. Then, you need to find the soft spot on their side, right into their ribs, and lock your hands with your thumb in that soft spot. Watch now Askren locks his hands up. He has the thumb on the inside and is locking onto the outside of his own hand.
Once you have it locked up, you are going to squeeze it really hard and make it really uncomfortable for your opponent. Then, you are going to pull it into you and rotate. Basically, hitting a body lock type finish. Be sure to avoid driving into your opponent as this may put you in danger. This is a great defense to a whizzer especially for guys with long arms, plus it has the potential for a pin.
Seatbelt to Snap
In you get stuck in a seatbelt position, one thing you can do is turn it into a snap down. When you are on the ground, even though the other guy has the whizzer, if you stand up, your opponent is forced to stand up. When they do, this will help to take a lot of the whizzer pressure off of your shoulder. If your opponent is smart, their near leg will be back to block you from dropping down to a single leg. So when the leg is back and the head is down, simply slide your seatbelt arm to an under hook and snap you opponent. Once you snap them down, you can easily spin behind or hit a front headlock.
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When you watch the video, look at Askren’s foot position. He is almost keeping his feet in line with his opponent’s until he goes for the snap. Also note that your opponent may try to throw you with the over hook, but just like in the video, if you are waiting for it, you can use it to your advantage and catch them on your back.
The Suck Back
The suck back is used then your opponent has a whizzer and tries to stand up or posts up with the near leg. When they do this, they have no support on that side because their near arm is locked onto the whizzer.
When they step up, bury your head in the side of theirs and use your seatbelt hand to hook onto their hip. Then you can suck them back in spiral like fashion just like Ben does in the video. This move is something you could actually try to bait your opponent into by stepping up with your inside leg to get them to step up with their near leg.
Limp Arm
The last move on the list is a limp arm, but it is a bit different than what is traditionally taught. To hit Askren’s limp arm, take the arm that is caught in the whizzer and bring your hand across your opponent’s butt, towards your own hip. This works because the whizzer only stops you from moving your shoulder, it should have no effect on your elbow or wrist.
While you are bringing your arm towards you, you are going to go over top of your opponent’s back and end up behind them. Normally it is a very bad idea to step over your opponent’s back if they have a whizzer, but in this case, because you have cleared your arm out, it does not put you in danger. Watch in the video how clearing the arm creates a space for the arm to slide right out. You can even try to catch their elbow once you have cleared the whizzer.
Hopefully these techniques help you to better understand what to do in a whizzer/seatbelt position. A lot of wrestlers get caught here and struggle because they simply don’t know what to do. If you liked these technique videos by Ben Askren, be sure to check out his entire wrestling video series titled “Ultimate Askren Wrestling by Ben Askren”.