Coaching Wrestling Successfully (Coaching Successfully Series) by Dan Gable
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Book Reviews of Coaching Wrestling Successfully (Coaching Successfully Series)
Book Review: More philosophical than practical.
Summary: 4 Stars
Dan Gable is the man, there can be no doubt. But I was a little disappointed with this book. I was expecting more of an instruction manual, but this is more about the philosophies of coaching. It's not a bad book and I don't regret getting it, but it wasn't what I was expecting. It is about coaching from a mostly theoretical standpoint. I think I was expecting a book more like the book "Winning Wrestling Moves" and this led to my slight disappointment.Book Review: Good overview, too anecdotal!
Summary: 3 Stars
Dan Gable's new book on successful wrestling provides the reader with a lot of interesting history on wrestlers Gable has influenced. And no wrestling reader will be surprised at Gable's focus on attitude and motivation -- since everyone in the wrestling world is familiar with Gable's own focus and success in wrestling. In my opinion, this is the strength of the book: it's capacity to alter a wrestler's attitude. Gable relies too heavily on anecdotes to establish his ideas. There are just simply too many instances where those who familiar with Gable's program might miss the connection between some motivating action Gable has taken and the result. Something I was looking for was more specific moves. One might expect this from one who is arguably the world's greatest wrestling coach. There are demonstrations of certain moves, and these are actually geared towards higher level wrestlers. One has to assume a certain degree of sophistication in wrestling to make sense of much of what Gable is saying. There are many instances where, if you are not on Gable's level, you won't have any idea what he's referring too. Overall, I was dissapointed in some basic areas of the book -- mainly it's broad sweep of actual wrestling moves. And although I didn't purchase the book for it's stories, I was happy and impressed to read them. This is indeed a valuable find just in having first class stories about some of the world's best wrestlers from the world's most famous coach ! For a more detailed, comprehensive explanation of what wrestling should involve, and specific moves to accomplish this, I think Carl Adam's 'World Class Wrestling Manual' is a more valuable resource. Brad GillespieBook Review: Not an effective resource for new coaches.
Summary: 2 Stars
Although I have coached other sports for years, and in fact have published two books on coaching football, this year is my first as a wrestling coach.
I ordered Coach Gable's book hoping to find a comprehensive collegiate wrestling manual. Unfortunately, what I got is a 'jack of all trades, master of none' book that discusses Greco-Roman, Folkstyle, and Freestyle techniques without emphasis on any of them. Technique descriptions are incredibly vague, (usually limited to three pictures and a few sentences of descriptive matter) and some complex moves are difficult (nigh impossible) to decipher.
Additionally, as an amateur athletic historian I am fascinated by Coach Gable's lengthy sidebars and stories about the athletes of which he is justifiably proud. However, as a new wrestling coach trying to improve his team I find these sidebars simply get in the way and make it impossible to locate the information I need. Additionally, the lack of an index of any kind makes the book close to useless for rapid research-- you cannot, for example, thumb quickly to the back of the book and look for "Double Leg Takedown" in the index.
The organization leaves a great deal to be desired. Wrestling is commonly divided into takedowns (from neutral position), breakdowns (from top position), escapes (from bottom), reversals (from bottom) and pinning combinations (from top). If I were to write a book on this subject it would be divided in such a way. However, Coach Gable instead chose to limit his technique descriptions to "skills and drills" with no real distinction between what is a SKILL (such as a specific takedown) and what is a DRILL (such as a high-hip drill for executing takedowns). This lack of organization makes it further antagonizing to try to locate information quickly. These drills ARE divided into "Drills for when you are on top" and "Drills for when you are on bottom" but all styles of wrestling are lumped together and it is extremely difficult to locate style-specific information.
Furthermore, the techniques described are all highly technical variants of each throw, hold, or pinning combination. Instead of the simple double leg takedown in four steps (shoot, grasp, lift, and spin), the vastly more complex (and difficult to execute) ankle trip is described.
Because of the lack of organization and the overwhelming and irrelevant anecdotal presentation, I find I cannot recommend this book as an effective resource for new wrestling coaches.
~D.
Derek A. "Coach" Wade
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