Coaches Corner Article: Getting your athletes to fight the opponent's Collar Tie

Coaches: Getting your athletes to beat the opponent's Collar Tie

One of my pet peeves when watching matches, is seeing an athlete allow his opponent to control him by hanging on the head. The reason it bugs me so much is, against the majority of athletes, its just way too easy to not only counteract the collar tie, but use it against your opponent to give you a scoring opportunity. There are many ways to fight the collar tie. One is the "Clear the Elbow" drill, as we call it. Get his elbow with the same-side hand - put your thumb on top and your fingers underneath. Then shrug your shoulders. At this point, you should already have his offense shut down! If done right, he should not be able to lower that arm for an attack. You now have the advantage. To finish it off, circle into his collar tie, then punch his arm down to the mat while you level change.

When watching my athletes wrestle, I have a clock that starts in my head every time someone grabs their head. "1, 2, 3, 4..." I tell my athletes, I shouldn't get past 2 before you are fighting this off and taking control of the position. I put the athletes through a head-fighting drill - one guy does nothing but pounds the head aggressively, while the other guy has to fight it off and maintain his position, meaning, he has to stay in the center, or even push the head-fighter around. This is an excellent drill to get your athletes comfortable fighting off collar ties. Make sure you also implement a version of this drill where the head-fighter can leg attack, so your wrestlers keep proper position. This is an excellent live drill, along the lines of the hand-fighting drill.

Other techniques I teach athletes include the Baseball Grip, Shucks. Slide-bys, and Overtie Shuck, Duck-under, and Underhook, all off the opponent's collar tie. There are also elbow shrugs and boot scoot (made famous by Lincoln McIlravey), but I tend to emphasize a few of them and want my athletes to be proficient at those that we drill. If your athletes are training with me, they will be working on fighting the collar tie effectively. It is just an essential skill.