Just jump

I remember, before I even started training, I wanted to do the diving headbutt. The gymnastic moves look the coolest, and that's why they're so popular and prominent in modern wrestling. I always imagined it took a true acrobat's balance to springboard; the tope suicida looked ridiculously dangerous; the frog splash was in abundance; the diving headbutt was the way to go, for me. I'm sure I accumulated hours of air time, in my younger years, jumping from the couch onto a pile of stacked pillows, in the living room. Periodically, a parent would peak in a wonder what their son was doing to make such a racket. Inevitably, I would be shouted at, and my antics curbed until the next weekend, where watching the latest episode of Raw would send me right back to the armrest. I'd stand, arms outstretched, ready to swandive, with no promise of a gold medal - an underachieving daredevil.

No one ever taught me how to do a diving headbutt. I always assumed I could do it (the arrogance of youth). So, when the time came for a crash mat to be present in the training ring, I climbed the ropes, with little hesitation, dived off, and landed squarely on, what was essentially, a big blue pillow. We moved the target around the ring, and I easily aimed the jump each time. The furthest I could hit was the middle of the twenty-foot, training ring - which I thought wasn't bad for little, unacrobatic me.

Eventually, of course, we had to take the mat away. The opponent was the target, not the softest part of the ring. The test was if I could still commit to that landing. Armed with nothing but hubris and the knowledge that you had to bring you arms in, to protect your sternum, as you hit, I climbed the ropes and jumped. WHAM! That wasn't so bad - prefered the mat being there, I'm not going to lie, but it wasn't as bad as I was expecting. All it had required was a good jump.

Sometime later - now armed with the diving headbutt, as well as hubris - I asked another person at training how to springboard. The entirety of the instruction I recieved was to push with my arms and jump with my legs. ("That's it?! That's all there is to it?") I honestly don't know what else I was expecting - maybe some secret handshake you did with the ropes, in order to get them to agree to holding you up in the air. But that was, actually, all the instruction I needed. There is an invisible sense of balance and timing involved in the movement, but it's subjective, and only refines through repetition. Just jump.

When my courage had built up enough, I asked about the tope suicida ("the suicide dive" is not an encouraging name, after all). "Get some momentum and jump." Again, that was it. That was all there was, and is, to it.

The phrase "just jump" is still somewhat of a joke, amongst a few of us who trained together: if the subtleties of a specific move escape you, just jump, it'll work itself out. It's actually not that bad a piece of advice, if I'm honest. Sometimes you need that attitude to succeed, even in inconsequential situations.