I was standing in the warm-up area at a recent folkstyle tournament doing the things that I usually do while waiting for one of my kids to wrestle.  I was talking to other coaches.       We covered the usual things.  How many kids did you bring?  Who do you think will get to the medal matches?       Eventually the conversation came around to the end of the folkstyle season and the beginning of Freestyle and Greco.    "We don't wrestle Freestyle."     "Really?"     "Yeah, why should I spend time in a style that we don't wrestle in high school?"    He left to coach one of his wrestlers but left me wondering how many of us look past the strength of one style and the positive influence it can have on another. Even if we never compete in other styles, there are great benefits from understanding components of each and implementing portions of them all.     For most of the kids that we coach, their crowning achievement in wrestling is high school success, being a state champion or placer, earning a varsity letter or participating in a varsity sport. For parents whose children are having their first experiences in the sport, a high school wrestling career establishes the broadest definition of success.     I speak daily to parents of young athletes who like wrestling and want a good experience in the sport. They look to high school wrestling in folkstyle for that. Elite wrestlers, the minority of those who benefit from the sport, will find their way to the top and create college and Olympic opportunities. For the vast majority, the nearest exposure they have to the benefit and value of wrestling will be in high school.       High school wrestling is folkstyle.  Olympic wrestling is not. Since most of us are involved in folkstyle, and are working with kids who are looking to have great high school experiences, let's consider the value that the Olympic styles contribute to successful folkstyle wrestling.    I will mention only three; mat time, the first take down wins, and big man skills.    Mat Time    As I watch wrestlers develop, the one consistent factor that distinguishes the common from the exceptional is mat time. The more time you are on the mat, competing, making mistakes, learning from your errors and claiming victories, the more you grow in the sport.  Regardless of where you start, you will improve as you work and gain experience on the mat.     Even if high school wrestling is your focus, it is not uncommon to wrestle more matches in the "off-season" through freestyle and Greco than during the high school season. Such is the value of freestyle and Greco competition.    One of my high school athletes caught the vision about wrestling between his sophomore and junior year. He finished the high school season, got involved in a good club, wrestled freestyle and Greco for the next three months and traveled to several regional tournaments in all three styles. Because of this additional wrestling time, he came back his junior year with more mat time than any of his competition. In terms of experience he was a senior. In terms of his experience he had more mat time than any of the seniors on the team and he still had  two more years of high school eligibility. Since a great junior season was his goal, he gave himself a remarkable head start by coming into the season with so much more experience and it paid off for him.    I watched a team, Wasatch High School, take third in our high school state tournament and come back the next year with a decisive first place finish.  A huge part of that success was the team's commitment to off season mat time.  Most of the state placers and all of the state champions on the team set a goal to wrestle 100 competitive matches from the end of the state tournament to the beginning of the next season.  They did that by going to camps and wrestling in tournaments of all three styles.      The First Take Down Wins    I recorded the success of our varsity team one year and found that 90% of the time the wrestler scoring the first take down won the match. This is very typical.  The first take down is an indication of who is in control, more aggressive and better on their feet.    How important is wrestling on your feet?      The takedown is the position that starts every match.       Success is greater against quality opponents on your feet than anywhere else on the mat.  The potential for scoring five points is greater from your feet. On the bottom position is second. Riding is third. You can score more points faster from your feet than from anywhere else.    Every folkstyle match ending in a tie score after regulation time goes directly into a sudden victory situation.  And the mantra of that moment that is shouted from each competitor's corner is always "first takedown wins."    Freestyle wrestling, by its very nature, creates more action on the feet. Learning skills like stance, position, control of the tie up, effective defense against an opponent's attack and finishes to your own attacks as defined by freestyle training will always translate into more success in folk style wrestling. That is why the best young wrestlers in America go to the Cadet/Junior Nationals in Fargo to pound on each other in July so they can pound on all the kids that didn't go to Fargo from November to March. And more times than not, when you do get to the medal rounds of the state high school championships you see matches between summer competitors.     Successful folkstyle wrestlers are great on their feet and freestyle wrestling focuses on that position.    Big Man Skills    Every high school wrestler is helped by Greco skills, especially big men.      I was at tournament in Tulsa, Okla. and watched a coach show his wrestler how to change levels and shoot a double leg. Everything about the skill was correct but there were two problems with the scenario; the kid was 12 years old and weighed more than 130 pounds.  This is a heavy weight wrestler!      This is a kid who will not have great success changing levels and shooting like lighter weight kids can.  It is too difficult to scramble out of a bad position and fight the disadvantage of a lot of weight on top of you.This is a kid that should first learn stance and upper body techniques so that the disadvantage of weight is not a negative factor. Taking poor shots and putting himself on the mat with his opponent on top makes it very easy for this wrestler to become frustrated and soon stop wrestling.      By using Greco upper body skills and techniques during the battle on their feet, heavier weight wrestlers learn how to control the stance and reduce the number of bad positions they get into, thus increasing their chances for success.  But pummeling is not just a "big guy" skill.  Every wrestler needs to know how battle for control of the tie. But yet, we do a very poor job of communicating this skill.    If you doubt me walk around the mats at your next tournament and listen to how many coaches are screaming.    "Inside control, inside control."     You adjust control during the tie by pummeling and that's a Greco skill.  If a big kid can add level changes and solid Greco body attacks he becomes very tough to defeat.    Every kid needs to first learn how to maintain a solid position on his or her feet, then to control the tie, then to add everything else.    I have been officiating high school wrestling for more than 20 years and I can't tell you the number of times I've muttered under my breath for heavy weights to do something more than hang ear to ear and push north and south. A few nice Greco moves would open up a lot of big man matches. The excellent skills of pummeling and battling for position create advantage for wrestlers and more action in the bout. Better action by heavyweights makes the sport more exciting to watch and entertaining for the fans.      When we fail to direct our young folkstyle wrestlers to the right skills for their age, size and athleticism we limit their chances for success.  Only the exceptional kids will stay with a sport through season after season of losses before finding success.  Asking them to do the wrong thing for their ab