Learn To Dominate Your Opponent With Low Single Legs
When you are wrestling on your feet there are many different types of shots you can take in order to get a takedown. One shot that is a bit more advanced, but extremely effective is a low single leg. One of the wrestlers who made this shot famous is Jon Smith who is regarded by many as the greatest US wrestlers of all time. During his time competing for the United States, he won four world championships and two Olympic gold medals which makes him a six time world champ! Because of this, this shot is often called a Jon Smith low single.
There are many different reasons that it is a great shot. The first reason is you shoot it from open space which means you don’t have to tie up with your opponent. This can be beneficial if your opponent is a lot stronger than you and seems to dominate tie ups in every exchange. Another great benefit of it is really difficult for your opponent to sprawl and defend it once you are in on the leg.
Check out this video of Olympic gold medalist Henry Cejudo where he teaches how he likes to hit a low single leg.
When you hit a low single leg, the first thing you need to do is a quick level change. Just by dropping low, you are able to get your opponent to react for a split second which gives you a chance to shoot. The other important thing lowering your level does is puts you in an explosive position. A low single is an incredibly quick shot and when you drop down, you are in the best possible position to shoot.
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Another important point is that you are attacking your opponent’s lead leg. When you shoot, your aim should be down towards their heel, not straight across. Once you have the heel secure, watch how Cejudo quickly brings his knees under his hips to stay in a good position. From here, a lot of wrestlers like to put their head on the inside of the knee and drive and circle while attacking the other leg with their other hand.
This low single leg takes a lot of work and practice to get all the small technical elements down, but once you feel comfortable with it, another thing you can do to be even more successful with a low single is to set it up with misdirection. In wrestling, misdirection is when you fake a shot to one side in order to get your opponent to react. When they do, it usually creates an opening on the opposite side to hit a shot. Check out this video of world champion and Olympic gold medalist Vladimer Khinchegashvili where he demonstrates how he likes to use misdirection to shoot a low single leg.
As you can see in this video, this is very similar to a normal single leg, it just has a fake to the opposite side first. When you watch Vladimer hit this shot, you will notice that he fakes to the side with the foot back. In order to hit the fake correctly, Vladimer’s lead leg is opposite to that of his opponent’s. One important aspect to the fake is he hits the mat with his hand to help sell the fake. This makes his opponent react just enough give him an opening to shoot to the opposite side. One last important point to note is that when he shoots this shot, he fakes to one side then immediately shoots to the other. If there is any hesitation between shots, it probably won’t work.
Low single legs can be a very effective offensive weapon when your are wrestling on your feet. On top of that, if some of the best wrestlers in the world are using low singles, then you know you can be successful with them too.
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