Eli5 folkstyle wrestling vs freestyle

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Why do schools use folkstyle and whats the difference

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Anonymous 0 Comments

They have different rules scoring systems that encourage different things.

Freestyle wrestling, which is one of the two styles used in the Olympics (alongside Greco Roman wrestling) has a ruleset and scoring system that encourages high-paced, offensively active wrestling and big throws.

Folkstyle wrestling is what is used in American college, high school, and other scholastic oriented institutions. It is optimized to focus on controlling your opponent.

One big example is that freestyle allows high-amplitude throws, and the high scoring menagerie awards 5 points for throwing your opponent in a way that they’re completely off the mat and land in a what that they are in danger of a fall (both shoulders touching the mat at the same time for 1 second), while if a folkstyle wrestler picks their opponent entirely off the mat, they’re responsible for returning them safely to the ground. A folkstyle wrestler can be disqualified for “slamming” and opponent, that is bringing them to the ground in a dangerous and aggressive manner resulting in injury. Folkstyle pins also require the shoulders to be touching the mat for 2 seconds, which may not seem like much, but is twice the amount of control freestyle requires.

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