Summer Wrestling Camp News at El Dorado Hills Wrestling Dojo

     El Dorado Hills Wrestling Dojo Summer camps are about to wrap up the fourth week of camp for the summer of 2013. The theme for this summer is "elements of danger," a term loosely used by Lennie Zalesky while coaching at UC Davis and branded by Jon Clark, who redefined the meaning of dangerous wrestling with his always exciting wrestling matches. Although "elements of danger" might be taken as wrestling moves that are dangerous to do in a match, that would be inaccurate. Elements of danger is a concept or style of wrestling that keeps the opponent second guessing what will happen even when they are in the lead.
     Many wrestlers become satisfied with developing a great double, a stand up and a tilt. If you can do this on anyone at any level, in theory there is no one that can stop you from winning. However, that may not be the case for everyone, and no one would be interested in watching wrestling. The sport would become very boring to watch if all we saw were double legs, stand ups, and tilts. Elements of danger are feet to back, high percentage, low risk, high return moves. Not only does it get you a big lead and potentially the pin, but also excites the crowd and gets people to enjoy watching the sport of wrestling. Developing these elements of danger will definitely wow the crowd and get you closer to victory!
     In our first four weeks of wrestling we covered several elements of danger concepts while building on some key fundamentals of wrestling. Here is a simple breakdown of some of the techniques we covered in the four weeks. If you were in camp and we are missing anything, don't hesitate to add a comment!

Week One:

Over Under Position - Knee drop 

Over Under Position - In-N-out 

Under Hook Chop Attacks

Week Two:

Double

Hi-C - electric slide to tombstone

Single - electric slide to three toes

Set ups

Week Three:

Granby - Jump

Peterson - Eugene Special

Step Around - Big Harn

Brace Back

Week Four: 

High thigh leg riding series

Leg Ride defense

     In addition to developing skills during the Tuesday and Thursday 9:00-10:30 am sessions, this summer MATCH HOUR was introduced to implement the new technique in the heat of the battle situations from 6:00 to 7:00 pm every Friday. Match hour is an opportunity to wrestler not only with other middle school and high school wrestlers in a match situation but also wrestle with experienced wrestlers in the area. The first 15 minutes of match hour consists of drilling and warming up and stretching for injury prevention, and the remaining 45 minutes is devoted to wrestling. If you would like more information on becoming a Dojo Wrestler give us a call 916 595 4064.

Dojo Wrestler

916 595 4064

EDH Wrestling Dojo

A Wrestling Poem: Dojo Wrestler El Dorado Hills

     Wrestling had a tremendous impact on my life growing up. We had a wrestling class when I was in elementary school and the high school coach who was our Physical Education teacher, structured the wrestling curriculum for everyone to have fun on the mat. Although I was first exposed to wrestling in fifth grade it wasn't until I was in eighth grade after I was cut from the basketball team when I began wrestling. Most of my friends were trying out for the basketball team and who didn't want to play in the NBA when they grew up. Not making the basketball team was probably one of the best things that happened to me. It was the first time in my life where I could see progress as a result of working hard.
     For the second summer in a row EDH Grappling will be hosting Summer Dojo Wrestler.  A wrestling program designed for local wrestlers from different schools to develop skills, improve, motivate and encourage one another while educating the public and becoming ambassadors to preserve wrestling as an essential sport in scholastic athletics. Here is a little more information about how Dojo Wrestler started.

     Dojo Wrestler is an innovative concept I started to implement after I began learning Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. I found that Jiu Jitsu taught and preached some of the same lessons that applied to the core of wrestling. During the process of earning my black belt in jiu jitsu, I began to realize the roots of wrestlings as being self defense and a type of martial art. At the same time, I also noticed how those roots have diminished over time.  Recently, we've seen an enormous drop in collegiate wrestling programs on the west coast, University or Oregon, Fresno State, Cal State Fullerton, UC Davis, UCLA, UC Berkeley, Arizona State (Although they were brought back with the financial support of a donor), Portland State University, are only a few programs that have been cut in recent years. I believe this is a result of wrestling becoming more of a sport and less of a martial art. Dojo Wrestlers are wrestlers who face the challenge of improving their wrestling on the mat and in turn facing the challenges off the mat. Our first off the mat project for 2013 Dojo Wrestler was to write and present a wrestling poem.
     These poems, some silly and some serious, reflect the wrestlers ability to put into words the work, time, dedication, effort, and teamwork required to be successful on and off the mat. Although it is a very difficult task to express the mental, physical, and metaphysical expression of wrestling in words, these Dojo Wrestlers have stepped up to the challenge of making that connection and expression what they do while  wrestling.

Eliot Kelly

916 595 4064

Be a Dojo Wrestler