Wrestling and BJJ at the same time?

Pyrock

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I posted this in the BJJ section as well...

My son (8 years old) trains and competes in wrestling and BJJ. Sometimes he competes in BJJ on one weekend then competes in wrestling the following weekend. One of his friends (13 years old) used to do the same thing but then started confusing the two sports and would do some wrestling moves during BJJ and vice versa so his father now divides his sports into "seasons" such that he only competes in wrestling during wrestling season and no BJJ. When there's a BJJ tourney coming, they dont train in wrestling.

Does anyone think I should do the same thing with my son? Is concentrating on one sport at a time the way to go? Here's my take but I'm open to suggestions...

Fortunately, my son doesn't have this problem. He DOES combine some moves but in a positive way. He doesn't pull guard during wrestling and doesn't give up his back during BJJ. In BJJ he sometimes opts to half-nelson the person over and other times he takes there back. He even does one quick elbow escape in wrestling which leaves his opponent scratching his head while my son escapes. He also does a quick half-nelson directly into side control during BJJ nad etc...

Incidently, he does equally well in both sports. He has numerous tournament titles in both wrestling and BJJ. Here's his 2009 highlight video:


Any thoughts?
 
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Andrew Green

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I think the benefits of having twice the mat time will outweigh the chance of him making a tactical error such as those.
 

Omar B

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Your friend's child is going to have his growth in both arts hampered by all that off time for one or another. But I guess if the kid is the type to mix things up it works.
 

Omar B

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Your friend's child is going to have his growth in both arts hampered by all that off time for one or another. But I guess if the kid is the type to mix things up it works.
 
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Pyrock

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Your friend's child is going to have his growth in both arts hampered by all that off time for one or another. But I guess if the kid is the type to mix things up it works.

That was my thought exactly. I guess I'm just lucky that my son can automatically sort things out...although he did almost pull guard last night at wrestling! At least he doesn't do it during competition.
 

Hand Sword

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Far from being a "grappler" and being one who has experienced both arts. I would say that do one or the other. Though similar, each has a different mind set and methodology to the same techniques. Doing both will cross signals as mentioned. Get one down then experience the other's point of views.
 

seasoned

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Savor one, taste the other. While self defense requires a well rounded base of techniques, kicks, punches, ground, throws and locks, it should not require 3 to 4 separate arts, and the time to train in all, to accomplish this. Any true martial art will contain all elements within it to accomplish this.
 

Gruenewald

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I did judo and wrestling throughout all of high school; what I usually ended up doing was focusing solely on wrestling during the on-season then doing judo as much as possible for the rest of the year. I'd occasionally do some judo during the on-season as well, though (mostly for extra-conditioning).
 

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