High Up Single Leg Defense With Hayden Zillmer

While it is not as fun to train as offense, defense is something that must be trained constantly. The ability to defend against your opponent shots is a great way to stay in control of the match and demoralize your opponent. If you're able to defend against your opponent’s best moves, you are already halfway to victory. 

The problem is that some takedowns are harder to defend against than others, and there are some many moves that you need to be ready to work against. One of those takedowns that can be hard to defend against, especially for newer wrestlers, is the high level single. 

When newer wrestlers are put into this position, they usually have no real answer to it, as it is a somewhat strange and unique position. This usually leads to the newer, defending wrestlers hopping around on their one leg, just waiting for their opponent to hopefully transition to something they can defend against.

In this video Hayden Zillmer goes over a defense to this technique so you can choose when you can stop standing on one leg. Hayden Zillmer was NCAA All-American for North Dakota State and competed multiple times in the U.S. open wrestling tournaments. 

The defense itself is very simple. The first thing that you need to do once your opponent gets you to this position is to get a leg of control on your opponent. This means that you need to keep them as far away from you as possible. This will get them to try and come after you, as they need to be close to try any attacks or transitions. This means that even in this bad position, you have some level of control.

You are going to extend and push your leg to get it out of position and you are going to use your hand to push off their elbows. This will get your leg out from underneath their armpit and on to their torso around at the chest. 

From this position, you are going to use your toes to kick them off. If you have experience with any striking martial arts think of it like a teep or a push kick. From there you should be able to escape. 

If your opponent has a strong grip and is good at maintaining it you are going to need a way to make sure that your leg can escape. If this is the case, after driving off your opponent with your foot, you are going to turn your knee downwards and rubber leg to escape the grip. 

To get the most knockback off of this technique, you should try to position your toes on the upper chest of your opponent. This will force their upper body and head to lean back more when you drive off and where the head goes, the body follows. 

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