Big Rick Rock said:you just brought back some memories.
The first time I wrestled freestyle was the summer after 8th grade. I was lifting weights during the summer and not doing much wrestling. I just decided to enter the tournament a week before, not knowing anything about freestyle rules, except that they allowed you to do full nelsons and high amp throws and even rewarded you for pulling off a big throw.
My first match I got double under hooks on the kid in the first 10 seconds and threw him to his back with a nice hip toss. When he hit the ground he bellied down and just stayed there(didn't try to scape like in folk style) I was like "whut the?" then I tried to put a half neson on him and didn't have much luck, a few seconds later the ref made us get back on our feet. I had no clue what was going on. The kid got a nice single leg in on me and took me down, while I was on bottom I tried to scape and got turned over 3 times, I didn't think I was loosing since my back was never exposed for more than a second and I managed to scape from bottom when he got a take down...
I lost the first match by 7 points and the next one. I had no clue how the point system worked and the "slip" points worked... My second match the kid tried to pull and arm throw 3 times and he didn't get me, he hit the gound and I got behind him for the take down BUT the ref did not award me any points since he counted them as "slips". The slip is basicaly a way to get wrestler to be more agressive with big throws, if you mis the throw and end up falling to the mat then your oponent will not get the point for a take down.
Knowing the rules and how to play them is one of the most important part of making the swtich from Folks to Freestyle Wrestling IMO.
i bet my first freestyle match lasted 45 seconds at max. it was at camp and these guys from nebraska who had been wrestling since the womb just whipped the hell out of us for a week solid.