Downblock Defense With Nate Jackson

There is a fairly decent amount of sports coaches, competitors and analysts that say that defense is the most important aspect that an athlete or team can have. While that is certainly up for debate and probably will be up for debate for the entirety of the existence of sport, there is no doubt that defense is extremely important. 

The problem is that most training sessions and classes tend to focus more on offensive techniques. It’s pretty easy to see why, offense is what most people build their games around and it's just so much more fun and interesting to train. The problem is that this can lead to defense getting ignored in training. 

Defense can be the difference between winning and losing a match just as much as offense can. Defense can also be what helps you set up your shots because if you have a good defense you will have the confidence that you can stop whatever your opponent tries to set up. 

In this video, Nate Jackson goes over an effective non-committal technique to help defend against your opponent's shots. 

This video focuses on a small tip for defense that man wrestlers might overlook. When it comes to wrestling defense against shots the natural go to is of course to sprawl. This is natural because sprawling is just such a good option. Nate Jackson talks about it in this video that sprawling is a great option for both single and double legs. Not only does sprawling defend against your opponent’s attacks but it will also trap your opponent under you in a bad position. This allows you to set up your own offense from a very safe and dominant position.

Sprawls are great and if you are able to sprawl on 100 percent of your opponent’s double legs then it is perfect. The problem is just because your opponent ducks down and reaches for your legs, doesn’t mean that they are actually going for a shot. Since wrestlers, especially the more high level they get, are really good at faking and feinting, most of the time your opponent is going to be faking rather than actually shooting. This means that if your only defense to shots is sprawling, you are probably going to bite on some feints and sprawl on nothing. Not to mention that you are going to be in a very bad position. 

This is going to expend a ton of energy if you end up biting on a ton of feints. This is why you are going to need to have a less committal and more energy efficient technique to be your first line of defense. This is where your down block and head positioning become very important. 

If you're able to keep your head in front of your opponent’s and down block as a first reaction, instead of just sprawling, you will be able to not onl stop your opponent’s defense and use less energy,but also still be in a strong position after biting a feint. 

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