I haven't watched the Austin & Spencer flo documentary yet, but that was certainly my experience. I grew up idolizing Iowa wrestling and the Gable way. I always wanted to go to Iowa. I was recruited by Cael and neglected to even visit because I was so sure I wanted to be a hawk. I was all about outworking everyone, being tougher than everyone, and the Iowa way. And Brands' system certainly was exactly that.
Having gone through Brands' program, I recognize many positives. In this program, you will become extremely positionally solid. Mental and physical toughness will be achieved through grueling practices and very frequent verbal reiteration from the coach(es). And clean living will be preached consistently. After a year in the room, you only have yourself to blame if you can't get off bottom or if you can't hold up to heavy hand-fighting or pressure.
However, I'm somewhat older and (I think) somewhat wiser now. I still think it is great to learn how to stay in great position, to practice clean living, and to build physical and mental toughness. However, it takes so much more than these attributes to be truly great and to really continue to elevate your game. These attributes can get guys on the podium. If guys were already phenomenal coming in, they can sometimes even get you to the top of the podium. There are even a few guys who really thrive in this environment.
But, I've come to believe this coaching/training system is critically flawed with regard to helping guys reach anything near their potential in the vast majority of cases. One reason is that the Iowa style and Brands' persona and the way he talks to the team (and to the media) combine to foster an environment where most guys feel they have to prove their mental and physical toughness in the practice room and in competition day-in and day-out above all else. The result then, is that the vast majority of guys (if not all) come in to practice each day focused more on out-toughing their partner than on mastering the sport by improving in positions/skills where they need to improve. So, they need to outlast their partner in each live go. They need to drill harder than their partner. They need to push their partner into the wall or off the mat when hand-fighting or live wrestling. They need to be completely exhausted at the end of each live go and at the end of the practice in order to feel like they accomplished anything.
But, if your aim is now to outlast your partner, you're no longer incentivized to wrestle a high-pace or take risks or be creative because you might open yourself up to expending too much energy too quickly when your partner is not making that 'mistake' and now they can take advantage and make you look 'weak' by pushing you around the mat or into the wall or off the mat. Instead, you're incentivized to conserve your energy because the practices are so long and grueling and full of hand-fighting and long live wrestling goes that (it at least seems like) the only way you'll be able to last the whole time without looking 'weak' in the way mentioned previously is by pacing yourself. You're still going to be exhausted at the end of practice either way by nature of the practice structure, but you'll at least have proved your toughness by being able to last the whole time and hopefully demonstrably more so than your partner did. Is this the best mindset to have if you want to efficiently and continuously improve in all positions and facets of wrestling?
Another reason I believe the Brands system is critically flawed is that the frequency and intensity of these types of grueling practices, coupled with this emphasis on proving your toughness, often results in wearing down guys' bodies (increased injury rate), especially after spending multiple years in the program. This is not to say I don't believe in hard work or toughness or pushing yourself to your limits in order to extend your limits. I most certainly do believe in such things. But, I also believe there's so much more to wrestling than these things.
Yet another reason for believing Brands' system to be critically flawed is that, when you constantly preach 'doing it right' and 'clean living' and 'you get what you earn', you set it up in athletes' minds that they pretty much have to be perfect in order to succeed. But perfect is an impossible standard and the athletes know they aren't meeting this standard. So, now they're going into their matches with this nagging feeling that they didn't do it quite right enough and they haven't been living quite clean enough and they haven't been quite earning what they want to get enough. The result is a lack of belief that they have earned the success they are trying to reach.
Additionally, many athletes with a coach or coaches who preach these things expect the coach or coaches to perfectly exemplify these things themselves. And, even though the Brands brothers and the other coaches do a decent job of exemplifying these things most of the time, the athletes are quick to take note when they don't live up to the incredibly high standards they set. For example, if a coach relaxes the standard for clean living with some athletes and not others due to some athletes being deemed too valuable to the team's success to properly hold them accountable for their actions, the rest of the athletes may take notice of that, which can result in feeling like the coach is a bit of a hypocrite the next time that coach starts preaching 'do it right' and 'live clean' and 'you get what you earn'. That's not a great recipe for building trust.
There are other reasons I have come to believe the Brands system is deeply flawed, but this post is already super long so I'll wrap it up with a few closing thoughts. For one thing, I've come to think the grueling practices can and should be had, but that this should be done with utmost moderation. Instead, the majority of practices should be structured to incentivize the type/style/pace of wrestling you want to see your athletes exemplify in competition. Instead of reciting in team speeches and media interviews that you want to see your wrestlers be more active and 'pull the trigger' more, how about actually facilitating this by structuring practices (and team talks and media interviews) in a way that builds in your athletes the confidence to do so rather than essentially structuring the program to achieve the opposite effect. Instead of feeling like you've got to push your team to work harder by structuring your practices and team talks and media interviews in this way, why not trust your athletes to be self-motivated to improve and then facilitate even more self-motivation in your athletes by constantly fostering in them a genuine love for the sport and confidence that they're growing/improving in the sport by focusing on helping them to achieve positional/technical mastery in as many positions as possible?
