Wrestling with Life

Wrestling is an outstanding sport (not WWF style pro wrestling for entertainment, but amateur Olympic and collegiate wrestling). Wrestling requires coordination, awareness, balance, strength, timing, and control. As with many marshal arts, good wrestlers use the movement, weight, energy of their opponent to move them in a desired way. Sometimes to get an opponent to move forward, you push them away. If you are going to throw an opponent, you need to use their momentum and weight to accomplish this most effectively.

One of the most famous wrestling throws occurred in the 72 Olympic games against US Olympian Chris Taylor. Taylor was a 2 time national champion heavy weight from Iowa State. At over 400 pounds, Chris Taylor was the largest Olympian ever. Taylor faced off against Wilfried Dietrich, a West German wrestler whom he had beaten in freestyle competition. Dietrich knew he would not be able to out muscle Taylor so his strategy was to push Taylor around the mat until Taylor pushed back. Then, at the right moment this occurred:

Next time you wrestle with a weighty problem, you might want to consider Dietrich’s tactic – its akin to the 12 step idea of “power through powerlessness”. Stop trying to out muscle those things that are bigger than you, acknowledge the weight of the issue, then use it to accomplish a change in direction.

-John