Davis' Moore wows coaches
at Tahoe technique clinic

By Jason Bryant
jbryant@intermatwrestle.com

After one of the most dominant performances in an NCAA Championship final, UC Davis graduate Derek Moore has been in high demand.

The 2007 Outstanding Wrestler and 141-pound national champion was one of the featured clinicians at the annual NWCA Convention held last week at the Horizon Casino Resort in Lake Tahoe.

Moore went over top and bottom work, counters and a variety of pinning combinations from all positions, but it was his presentation that left many coaches – many who had to coach against Moore – impressed.

“One of the best presentations I’ve ever seen,” said longtime Boston University coach Carl Adams.

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Derek Moore's full post-clinic interview.

Coming into the convention, Moore had been busy doing clinics, but before his finals victory over Ryan Lang of Northwestern at the Palace at Auburn Hills, the clinics were non-existent.

“Before this summer, not a one,” said Moore when asked how many times he’d been a featured clinician. “After the national championship … in the 20’s somewhere.”

Anxiety wasn’t an issue … at least not initially.

“I thought it was going to be all technique and I can just plan it out,” said Moore. “Then they told me I had to talk a little bit about some things that helped me mentally and I started reflecting on a lot of things that was going through my head during the year. What worked for me, what didn’t work for me.”

Then came a slightly shocking development. Coaches and fans knew who was going to be presenting at the clinic, but a busy summer had kept Moore’s information about the entire event fairly limited.

“I didn’t even know who the other coaches were until I saw Jim Zalesky and John Smith,” said Moore. “I was like ‘Oh wow, I’m up here with these guys’.”

One spectator was calculating in his observation of Moore’s stuff – former two-time NCAA champion Wade Schalles.

As Moore went over defense with legs in, top work with one leg in, two legs in, rides, tilts and pinning combinations originating from the bottom position, Wondrous Wade sat with his chair away from the main seating area, hunched over, taking it all in, almost begging not to be bothered while Moore presented.

“If you sit down and work at the basics of the positioning down, it’s the same basics on your feet,” said Schalles. “High crotch is hips in, head up, you know, turn the corner.”

“Down here, it’s hips in, head up, turn the corner,” he continued. “It’s the same stuff just in a different position that the coaches aren’t familiar with, so they classify something they haven’t seen as funk. It’s not funk, it’s very basic wrestling.”

Moore explains that “the funk” is somewhat of a misnomer for some wrestlers. He sees what he does as technical.

“That’s the way the wrestler sees it, but not how the coaches see it,” said Moore. “They see it as two guys flopping around and whoever ends up on top …”

“It’s way technical. It’s known where the guy is going to go and being able to anticipate it and being able to put yourself in better position to end up on top or bottom,” he said.

But it wasn’t just the situational technique that gave Moore’s clinic high marks.

“He has a passion for wrestling,” said Schalles. “He enjoys what he’s doing. He’s very knowledgeable.”

And of course, Schalles has a reason to have enjoyed it so much.

“I love the style. That’s been the style that I’ve emulated and preached for 40 years of wrestling. The rolling around, it looks kinda different from what coaches are used to on their feet. But when you break it down like he did, as I used to at times, you’ll find it very basic … the wrestling.”

“One of the main things that’s worked for me is having gone to camps and having worked at camps and been to camps and seeing what clinicians and their teaching techniques were clear and had their technique down,” explained Moore.

“Not just going over one move, but going over one move in different settings and situations. Being able to breakdown the technique has been what’s worked for me. That’s the way I’ve been coached and what’s worked for me,” he said.

Moore doesn’t hide the fact his style deviates from what the norm has been, but with an increase in head-to-toe scrambles, junk, funk and seemingly trademark moves by the nation’s elite wrestlers, the style and positions have the potential to reap big points.

And it doesn’t change the way Moore teaches his stuff. And it doesn’t change his approach in presenting the material, whether it be in a clinic with 12-year-olds or, like in Tahoe, one with Division I wrestling coaches and former NCAA champions.

“The fact that it is different, I try not to think of it differently,” said Moore. “I teach it the same way as if I was talking to high school kids as if I was talking to coaches. Anyone learning a move for the first time isn’t going to pick it up unless you explain it to them the way that’s slow, and concise and methodical.”

“I try to picture a crowd of learning wrestlers in front of me,” he said. “(These college coaches) are not, but the sport’s always changing and there’s always new things to come. A lot of the moves I show, I didn’t make up, but I’d never seen them before, so I felt I made them up, but there’s new things coming, so it still is, I feel, learning.”

Schalles, still impressed, agreed on the philosophy.

“What I watched … 30 years ago was Wade,” he said. “His presentation was my presentation. Exact same philosophy, thought process, movement, counter. It’s the same mentality. Nothing has changed except the names and three decades of time … and a hairline as well.”

Moore was moved by the praise from Schalles and Adams.

“That was awesome,” said Moore. “I wasn’t expecting that at all. There’s so many coaches that have done this clinic, I was just looking down the list the other day … three time national champs, four time national champs. To hear that from someone like Carl is very nice.”

Then there were some questions from coaches Moore knew well, too well.

“(Cal Poly’s John) Azevedo asked ‘Which one of those turns did you not use against us’, That was pretty funny,” said Moore.

Reluctantly, Moore acknowledged: “These are Pac 10 coaches that are going to be using this stuff against the Davis guys.”

With an NCAA title, a first for UC Davis, Moore won’t stop competing. He’ll probably be back on the mats before you know it. He’s already inquired about joining the Army’s World Class Athlete Program (WCAP) when he enlists.

“That is a dream. I want to wrestle for them,” said Moore. “I’ve already talked to coach (Dominic) Black and Coach (Shon) Lewis and I was talking to a former wrestler on the team earlier and hope to join that early spring after basic and leadership course training.”

But which style?

“The Army is like 90 percent Greco and I was more successful in Greco,” said Moore. “But it’s wherever the coaches want to put me.”

InterMat Lead Writer
Jason Bryant