The Importance of Self-Knowledge

We spend a lot of time focusing on knowing yourself as a wrestler. It is vital for you to understand where you are strong and where you feel comfortable.

For example, what ties do you feel comfortable in, what are your go to shots in the third period, what is your favorite setup, what are your go to moves on top, and the list goes on.
Knowing yourself as a wrestler allows you to feel more confident going into matches as well as allowing yourself to focus on what you are going to do rather than what your opponent is going to do.

The concept of self-knowledge is closely related to the concept of a predator-prey mindset. If you recall, predators are focused on what they do while the prey is focused on everyone and everything else.

As it applies to wrestling, the predator wrestler is focused on what he or she does best, and the prey wrestler is focused on what other wrestlers are going to do. Without adequate knowledge of yourself, it is impossible to have a predator mindset.

How can you focus on your offense, your shots, and your setups if you don’t know your best offense, shots, and ties? Without proper knowledge of yourself you are forced to have the prey mindset and focus on what other wrestlers are doing.

In our podcast with Dan Dennis, Dennis talked about that no matter who in the world he was wrestling, no matter how good they were, he was comfortable in a two on one tie. That is the benefit of self-knowledge.

We place an emphasis on self-knowledge because when you understand your best positions, you can have confidence in your abilities and your capacity to beat anyone.
When you understand the areas where you are strong you can focus on getting to your best positions rather than worrying about your opponent’s best positions, and you can wrestle YOUR match!