FROM LAME TO FAME #4 - By Assaf Levavy
Hi again, dear wrestling fans and wannabes. This time I'm going to talk about cooperation and in-ring action.

There will be three major subjects.

1. Cooperation with your opponent
2. Submission holds
3. Dangerous moves (High-flying action, piledrivers, etc.)

Let's start with oppenets cooperation. As I said before, wrestling takes two to perform. You need to work with your opponent at all times. This means that the better you cooperate, the better the match will be. Let's say you want to perform a suplex. A back suplex, for example, is done simply by lifting your opponent. But a vertical suplex is far more difficult to perform all by yourself. You can do snap suplexes using power, but to do a full vertical suplex is hard without the opponent jumping as high as he can, to make it look real. Now, if you want to hold your opponent up for a few seconds, like the British Bulldog used to do, that takes even more cooperation, because it takes a lot of training. You need to find balance, make sure you two are holding each other and work on your timing. Me and my friend, back in 1996, started working on a standing vertical suplex and got 4 seconds of me holding him up. As time passed, we even reached 20 and more seconds of me holding him. But it didn't come instantly, it took a lot of training, and even more time on performing the move during our matches. So it all comes to cooperation and working together to make it look great.

Submission holds are called submission holds because they are very dangerous if done with a lot of power. For example, a Texas Cloverleaf can really hurt, and it does hurt no matter how you're doing it. But if you learn the move, and study it step by step, you can reduce the power you're using on it, so it won't hurt your opponent so much. On the other hand, a Figure-4 Leglock is a nice move to do, but if you're applying too much pressure on the legs, it can do a lot of damage. So you need to work on those holds step by step before performing them without some experience on doing them. Remember that you don't need to apply too much pressure, sometimes a Boston Crab looks really painful, while the opponent's back seems arched, while it's the leg-bending shape that's giving the illusion. It all depends on how well you know the move, and how well your opponent sells it (Acting as if it really does hurt so badly). Also remember, pro wrestlers are very well trained, and they indeed CAN take some serious pain, in case something goes wrong or to sell a difficult move, something that 99% of the backyard wrestlers' bodies aren't, and I repeat, AREN'T capable of.

Also, most wrestlers, though they do not show it in the ring, are very flexible.

And now for the high risk moves. Try not to do them if you're not perfectly sure you are trained and experienced enough to do them. Train on a stuffed animal, a big teddy bear, I don't care. Just don't perform them on people before you know how to do them. Wrestlers train a lot before they perform a somersault legdrop. They train hard to know exactly how to land, where to land and how to hit without hurting the opponent. It's just like pool (Billiard). You need to train a lot before you can get the idea of where to hit the balls with the cue ball in order to work with the angles.

Keep sending in your questions (tafkatadd@hotmail.com), people, I enjoy helping you all out with your feds. Until next time, please try to keep it the safest you can. Long live the HWF.


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