Tony Purler’s High School Team Technique Camps

It’s all technique, not live. All high school teams typically go to live wrestling team camps, but I don’t think those help much in developing wrestlers or a wrestling team.

We go much faster than we typically do at my other camps.  The coaches should be there, as it’s a quick ‘in and out’ type of camp, and they can watch, help, film the camp, etc.  I only cover a scoring routine, so the techniques covered are ones that solve problems and build position form common positions, as opposed to just being random techniques. I feel that I know enough about the sport that I’m able to actually simplify the sport, not complicate it. And the skills needed aren’t usually flashy, but they work.  Like I tell kids all the time….men win world titles with singles and doubles, blocking skills, controlling ties, etc.   I try to give all my wrestlers a core recipe for improvement.  This attempt would become futile were I to show a ton of random moves.  Again…the system a coach should cover with a group should be core fundamentals and solve problems and build position.  There is plenty of room for individuality in our sport, but a technique system needs to be bound by common positions (both good and bad), and fundamentals.  It’s not a sport of perfection, so wrestlers need to be okay with taking risk, getting into some not so good positions, and know how to wrestle. When kids learn to force their offense, as they are confident in troubleshooting troublesome areas, they will in time become more aggressive and be more offensive. This is my experience anyway. No one wants to see wrestlers only being aggressive when they are in a mismatch.  They should wrestle harder and be just as aggressive against the best kids in the state, as opposed to showing aggressiveness and confidence in their matches where they are facing a poor wrestler with minimal skills.

We will cover 5-6 hours on day one, 6 1/2 hours on day 2, and 4 hours on day 3.

I know that as a coach, we want to get the skills taught in a week or two, and then create explosive drill sessions for the next several months. No coach should be teaching new moves in December or January. Get the system taught quickly, and then clean up positional issues thru the next several months of drill sessions, and work to make the system 2nd nature to the wrestlers. This is why having a team attend a camp is so beneficial, as the coach can get all the kids on the same page in a few days, and the teaching is done.  All that is left is training and refining the skills.