How To Avoid Being Pushed Out With Frank Chamizo
In wrestling, it is important to work and be prepared for all areas and scenarios that can happen out on the mat. It is obviously important to work on things like takedowns and shot defense, but when you are wrestling someone who is really good, it can often be the small details that can make a difference between winning and losing a match. One of these areas that can make a big difference that many wrestlers might not think about working on is how to avoid being pushed off the mat.
Push outs are a big deal if freestyle and are becoming more important in folkstyle as well. In freestyle, a push out is worth one point and in college wrestling, a push out is an automatic stall call for the first time then each time after that, points will be awarded for each push out. These points and stall calls can really add up, especially in championship matches where guys are very closely matched in skill.
So what should you do when your opponent is pressuring into you, trying to push you out? Well if you have not worked on this, when it happens in a match, you might not know what to do or if it is late in the match and you are tired, you may know what to do but are unable to execute it properly.
Frank Chamizo is one of the top wrestlers in the world. He is a two time world champion and Olympic bronze medalist for Italy. If you want to learn from one of the best wrestlers in the world does when they are being pushed out, check out this video of Frank demonstrating his technique to avoid being pushed out.
As you can see in the video, Frank has a great system to avoid being pushed out. One of the first things you will notice is his footwork. Late in a match when you are tired, it is easy to get lazy and start to walk backwards as you opponent drives in. To avoid this, Frank stays with a really staggered stance and plants his back foot into the mat and uses it to brace so he doesn’t get pushed back. Planting the back foot allows you to stay strong in that position, even when you are tired.
Take a look at the Fanatic Wrestling collection! Click Learn More!
The next step in Frank’s system is to circle. When you watch the video, you can see that he steps with his back leg, then follows with the front. So if your right leg is back and planted into the mat, you will be circling to the right. By circling away from the edge of the mat, it takes away the possibility of being pushed out and giving up a point or stall call.
The last thing that Frank does when being pushed out is he lowers his level. This does two things. First, it is pretty much impossible to push someone out of bounds when they are on a knee and really low, but as he talks about in the video, in freestyle, if you were to just drop to a knee when you are close to the edge the ref will stand you. That is one of the reasons why you circle first, so you are able to drop your level. The other important thing lowering the level does is it puts you in a position to score. As you can see in the video, when Frank drops his level and circles, he is in a great position to take a shot. This is one of the reasons he is a world class wrestler, he is able to turn a situation where he is almost about to give up a point for a push out to putting himself is a great position to take a shot.
It doesn’t matter if you wrestle freestyle or folkstyle, it is important to practice and drill an edge of the mat situation. It may seem simple, but knowing what to do in this scenario will not only save you from being pushed out, but hopefully give you an opportunity to score.