The readers ask questions, Engin answers. ()
Question: What are some training exercises&technical moves that I can do to avoid being hooked?
Sometimes we meet some pullers that have very solid hand&wrist combinations and it is very hard to toproll them. So since one can win the match when he pins his opponent’s hand to the pad we must focus on the pressure to the pin pad. It would be a pity to lose to someone just because you could not toproll him. Most of the toprollers have this problem because of being focused only on attacking to their opponents' hands. They only train their offensive strength of their out side move and once they can not get out of their opponents' hands then the result is usually a hook match (if the opponent is a hook puller). I used to be a toproller and once i realised that it is not possible to toproll everyone then i decided to do something between hook&toproll which is side pressure. My side pressure still can be considered as an outside move since i developped my outside skill before i started to use side pressure,and my hook has never been great either.
So what i have been doing is a thin line between out side and inside moves. Starting to apply this move may reduce your general performance if you are not used to this move.
To your natural outside movement you can try to add a few things to not to be hooked.
1-you can drop your front wrist a bit if your opponent is making a forward hook move to catch you(to fill the empty space -as Bill Sinks and Jason Vale style-which your hook styled opponent would like to use to hook you).
2-you can train your side pressure& wrist curling and use it right after your back pressure before the go (to separate your opponent's hand away from his shoulder to avoid his body pressure).
3-you can train your rotator with weights through cable in a static way to have defensive pronator block.
4- Then you mix your solid defensive rotator with your offensive outer side pressure to
not to be hooked
Question: How would you describe the perfect ref?
First of all,i think that there is no human who is perfect. So then it also means that it is not right to expect a referee to be perfect. As a competitor the most important thing that i expect from a referee is a clean intention. Some may argue about this being the most important thing but i believe that a great referee with "unfair" intention can be the most dangerous thing in an armwrestling match.
I believe that it is better for a referee to have some experience about armwrestling as a competitor,but there are also many of the very good referees who have never been armwrestled before. Having some experience as a competitor can help a referee to realise some of the things that armwrestlers do during the competetion, esspecially during taking their grips. But again as i mentioned before that there are also many of the very good referees who never armwrestled before. An experienced,smart and well educated referee,who has intention to provide a fair competetion with applying the rules in a best way (as much as he can) is the "perfect referee".
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