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Depth Over Breadth: A Double Leg Takedown Demonstration

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In this information age we live in, there’s more information than we know what to do with. Putting it all together in a way that’s practical and logical? Even harder. It’s tempting to skip the difficult work of going deeper and instead falling under the trap of constantly trying to learn something new. Ideally, you want both but more of the former.
 
Top performers understand this. They’ll take a handful of skills and maximize their potential with it.
 
To quote Tim Ferriss from Tools of Titans, “The superheroes you have in your mind (idols, icons, titans, billionaires, etc.) are nearly all walking flaws who’ve maximized 1 or 2 strengths. Humans are imperfect creatures. You don’t ‘succeed’ because you have no weaknesses; you succeed because you find your unique strengths and focus on developing habits around them…. Everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about. The heroes in this book are no different. Everyone struggles. Take solace in that.”
 
Still not sure what this means? Take a look at how you might break down the double leg takedown performed by Jordan Burroughs. I’d be very surprised if you saw this level of detail at your local gym, mostly because I’ve spent hundreds of hours watching wrestling and studying it (yes, I’m insane. You know how people play video games like Fortnite for fun? I watch wrestling for fun. Shhhhhhhhhh don’t tell). 

 

A Quick Explanation Of Mastery

 
A word of warning- start out too complicated and you’ll quit before things even get interesting, so take a look at the big picture first. This can be the broad idea, or a skill in regular speed. “Whoa! Cool! Let’s practice that a couple hundred times!” (this may seem funny to you but I’m not actually joking here)
 
Here’s the second word of warning: continue while staying simple and you’ll never master the intricacies. Foot placement. Direction of pressure and force. Position relative to the opponent’s. Set up, shot, and finish. 
 
Finally, here’s where things get fun. Once those details are integrated into your subconscious, things are looking good. You may occasionally have to check back into the details again, but for the most part, you’ve got something special. This stage of unconscious excellence puts you at a high level of mastery that very few people achieve.
 
In short, see the big picture to get the main idea, dive deep into the details, and then turn those details into subconscious thought. Rinse and repeat as necessary.

 

The Double Leg Takedown

Here’s the simple explanation of the double leg takedown: Grab both your opponent’s legs and drive through your opponent while staying in solid athletic position. Great! Now we’ve got the main ideas.
 
A quick point on solid athletic position before moving onto the finer details: Head is up and looking straight (people tend to look down), back straight, and hips underneath and cocked to either drive through or lift up. This can be applied to most other physical skills. Once you understand the mechanics of athletic position, you can apply it to any other skill because you’ll understand how to generate the maximum amount of force through your entire body.
 
Now, here’s where the details matter. I’m just gonna pull this from my post on Reddit:
 

He’s certainly athletic, but there are a bunch of small details he’s doing right. I’ll break it down into set up, shot, and finish.

Set up:

-Notice how Burroughs closes the distance before he shoots. By the time he takes the first penetration step, his forehead is practically inches away from Geduev. If you shoot from too far away, you risk getting sprawled on and extended.

-Burroughs’ level is slightly lower than Geduev when he shoots. This is key if you don’t want to get your attack headblocked by your opponent.

-Notice Burroughs’ left hand and Geduev’s reaction with his right hand. Geduev’s arm extends so when Burroughs lowers his level, that arm won’t be able to block Burroughs from shooting. As for Geduev’s other arm, Burroughs is so close to Geduev’s lead leg that it doesn’t matter.

Shot:

-When Burroughs teaches his double leg, in his particular variation (known in the wrestling community as the “blast double”), he shoots with his head into his opponent’s chest. Sometime it ends up square on the chest right in the sternum (this is really painful the morning after if you’re on the receiving end so be mindful about this when you’re drilling), but usually it’s on the pec that’s closest to him. In this case, Burroughs’ head makes contact with Geduev’s left pec.

-As far as movement, Burroughs explains it as a plane taking off into the sky. There’s a subtle but important difference between penetrating and just driving forward as opposed to driving forward and up. Notice his excellent position too- his leg, hips, back, and neck are aligned accordingly so he’s using as much leverage as possible to drive “up and in”.

Finish:

-To Geduev’s credit (he’s, after all, an Olympic silver medalist), he realizes the threat of the attack and sprawls his hips back. Burroughs still has his head in Geduev’s chest, one arm on Geduev’s left leg, and the far (Burroughs’ left arm) on Geduev’s waist on the far side. The position doesn’t give Burroughs enough leverage to finish the takedown, so he has to adjust, which is why he does the “knee walk” in.

*A quick note on the knee walk though. It’s surprisingly safe for your knees and here’s why- the impact is absorbed by Burroughs’ feet. Notice how on the knee drive, Burroughs’ feet are pointed out and pushing too. That’s where most of the force is accumulated. Most people essentially try to shatter their knee caps by putting all the force into their knees when trying this (or even a regular shot in general). Start the force from the feet and your knees will thank you.

-The follow-up with the knee puts Burroughs in good position to leverage that “air plane taking off” up and out principle and that’s the main idea of bringing his knees in. Wrestling coaches often say “head up, back straight, hips in” (they really mean “hips underneath”) for this reason.

-While driving Geduev towards the out of bounds line, Burroughs resets his grip on the far waist by reaching for the far leg. This time, he gets it.

-Burroughs switches his grip on the double leg by locking his hands right around Geduev’s far knee. “Up and in” principle still relevant. Burroughs’ head is still driving into Geduev’s left pec/side region.

-“TWOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!”

Burroughs is awesome.

It’d probably help to see the video in slow motion, so check it out at 0.25X speed on Youtube. Here’s the full match, so skip to around the 6:50 mark. Geduev hits a pretty sweet double leg of his own in this match too.

Phew! Okay. Internalize those concepts so that you can return back to a perceived simplicity. In plain English, it’s integrated into your subconscious mind and you no longer have to actively think of the steps. Keep in mind that I wrote paragraphs of explanation but that wrestling sequence happened over the course of at a maximum of 15 seconds. The subconscious mind works faster than the conscious mind. If you have to actively think about how to execute on a technique at a world class level, then you’re not ready.

 

How To Apply

 
Start simple! You’ll have flaws but it’s a good enough start. Getting it 50-75% right and tweaking it for the rest of the 25-50% is significantly less time consuming than trying to break it down and perfect it 1% at a time.
 
Now that you have the basic skill down, break it down further and tweak the finer details. An uncommon but effective trick is to start backwards. Chess grandmaster Josh Waitzkin’s first instructor taught the chess endgame first (pawn and king vs. pawn) before introducing the other pieces. By starting backwards, you develop a deep understanding of “What’s the point of this? Where am I trying to go next?” In the context of wrestling, break it down into set up, shot, and finish. To apply the concept, teach the finish first. Once the finish makes sense, the wrestler seems to automatically maintain good position throughout the rest of the attack because he or she understands what the “end goal” or ideal position for the “next step” is supposed to look like.
 
Next is the shot. This takes some time to get right and is really where understanding athleticism comes in. Depending on what you’re trying to learn, the mechanics can get pretty complicated. To develop this, you can also supplement the shot with strength training and mobility work too. For the sake of this post, however, I’ll leave it as a purely technical study.
 
Finally, the shot and finish makes sense. Now, refine your set ups! The better you get as a competitor, the more people with watch you and start to adjust. They’ll come up with game plans to stay away from the positions that you’re dominant in. In general, learning a new set up to a shot is much easier than mastering the mechanics of another shot entirely.
 
The end result? Most world class wrestlers will have a few attacks mastered with a variety of set ups. Then, they develop set ups for their set ups. This layering can get pretty deep, and rightfully so. Mastery is a matter of depth of technique, not a breadth of shallow understanding.
 
How will you apply this to something you’re learning today?
 
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