Wheelbarrow Turn With Hudson Taylor
Adding turns to your wrestling game is important because different turns work better on different opponents and from different positions. In this video Hudson Taylor shows a very unique turn called a wheelbarrow turn which uses the opponent’s legs and hips to turn them to their back.
This turn is a little bit different. Let’s break down the move and look at it a bit closer to understand what is going on.
First thing that Taylor does is breaks his opponent down flat. Once he is flat, watch how Taylor puts both his knees in between his opponent’s legs and uses them to spread the legs apart. Once the legs are spread, drive your shoulder right into your opponent’s butt. It is important to keep pressure on so they do not raise their hips off of the mat.
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Next you will need to lock under the thigh of your opponent and lift the thigh and step up with your own leg. Put the opponent’s leg on the table. (In wrestling, the thigh is called the table when the foot is planted on the ground, the knee is bent, and the thigh is parallel with the ground like the top of a table.) Pay attention to how Taylor secures his opponent’s lower leg on his thigh.
From here, once the leg is secured on the table, reach over with the free arm and plant the free ankle down to the mat. Watch how Taylor turns his wrists which helps create more pressure and allows him to separate the legs. Separating the legs takes power away from your opponent. Then, start walking towards the head, keeping the ankle planted to the mat, until your opponent is on their back.
Once your opponent is on their back, be sure to keep your head and chest up. When you turn your opponent, they will be trying to turn in or away from you in order to fight off your back. Be sure to keep the ankle pinned to the mat and use it and the other leg to make adjustments as the guy tries to fight to belly down.
This turn is more of a tilt than a pinning combination. When you get the leg up on your table, you should have everything in place so be sure to take your time. Make sure you drill this move in practice to get the feel of it before you try to hit it in a match as it is a little different compared to most turns in wrestling.
Although he does not show this in the video, once you get your near fall count, you can use the hand that has the thigh to hunt for the head or arm and slowly work your way up to secure a tighter grip and get the pin.
Hudson Taylor is amongst the top ten pinners in NCAA wrestling history. If you want to learn more turns and pinning combinations from Taylor, be sure to check out his in depth video series titled “Magic Mat Work by Hudson Taylor”.