Head Coach Jonathan Johnson's RAW 241 Academy is set apart from “clubs” in several ways. To quote Coach Johnson: "Although I see the purpose of clubs and agree with the idea of wrestling clubs I don’t necessarily follow those standards. Instead I am willing and able to educate the students of RAW 241. This idea of education through teaching and learning by drilling is a philosophy I adopted from 2x Olympic Champion John Smith. As an undergrad at The College of New Jersey I was blessed with the fortune to be associated with Coach Smith two summers in a row (’93 and ’94) following my sophomore and junior seasons in college. I was truly honored and felt privileged to learn from a great legend in our sport. I watched Coach Smith assist a student of his on wrap singles…this student of his was an NCAA Champion. Nonetheless, that student still needed some revising. That is what coaches are for. John’s approach, as I am sure he teaches at OSU now (2x NCAA defending team champs) is that drilling supercedes live wrestling".

During live wrestling an athlete may use a total of 3-4 moves successfully (to completion for his 2 points, etc.). Conversely, I am a firm believer that if I drill hard and fast for 6 minutes, I would do a minimum of 10 reps of six different moves. The long term effect of this is that I will do more proper repetitions of my skills than my opponent if he only wrestles live primarily.

In addition, I am not a H.S. team or club team… which means ultimately the athletes I  have train with me and compete elsewhere (e.g. Voorhees (Jr.), Camden Catholic or Eastern H.S). How would Coach Gary Washington of Eastern feel if his prize athlete Scott Giffin was hurt during one of my sessions at RAW while live wrestling? How would State Champion Austin Stein’s father feel if his son were hurt at a session I have??  Needless to say I am not an advocate of live wrestling for young athletes still in the learning process, at least not where the other viable option is education through drilling.

Me? I’m on the experiment side… both as an athlete and as a coach. As an athlete who competed in college with opponents who had up to four times the experience as me (I had 4 years of experience the first time I earned NCAA All-American, and was ranked 4^th nationally ). Most athletes 19 - 24 have been involved with the sport to some extent since 4 - 5 yrs. of age. I began at 15 years of age. How would I bridge the gap between my mechanical level of experience vs. the learned opposition I would face in college?  I was a curious athlete, one who would be willing to watch and learn from others whether they were successful or not – in order to mentally develop an approach. Parts of curiosity lead me to take time out of my daily schedule to practice (experiment) with new skills and techniques. Ironically, many wrestlers remain relatively the same technically and tactically over many years of competition. Personally I preferred to try to find my niche… see what techniques would most suit my physical abilities.  Those physical abilities and attributes were 1) explosiveness 2) strength 3) quickness 4) balance 5) conditioning. The last piece of the puzzle was the most important, and that last piece is technique. In my training, I stressed the implementation of new skills by the start of a new season. I vowed to become better season after season (sophomore 24 wins, junior 34 wins, senior 45 wins while in college). I was successful, not because of increasing numbers in wins per season, but because I was willing to frequently try new methods to add new skills and techniques to my game.