In the practice room named after him, Dan Gable addressed a crowd of local wrestling fans of all ages and was one of a group of University of Iowa coaches and athletes to demonstrate some basics of freestyle wrestling Saturday morning at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City.

The 2012 USA Wrestling U.S. Olympic Wrestling Team Trials for men’s and women’s freestyle and Greco-Roman will be held at Carver-Hawkeye Arena on April 21-22. Ticket sales for the event has reached an all-time high.

Members of the UI wrestling program and the area community have made a strong effort to help educate fans of the intricacies of freestyle and the differences from folkstyle, which is wrestled in high school and college competition. Among those who put on the demonstration, were Gable, UI Director of Wrestling Operations Luke Eustice and Hawkeye wrestlers Matt Gurule and Mike Kelly.

Gurule and Gable talk about back exposure in freestyle and show a couple turns

Gable discuss the color-ball draw, discussing what happens to determine a winner when wrestlers end a scoreless period.

Kelly demonstrates a throw for the fans in attendance as an example of a three-point throw (Looked like a 5-pointer to me).

Gable covers some finer points on scoring and how it might be hard to recognize for fans not familiar with freestyle.

Watch for our video early next week on the intricacies of freestyle, featuring Hawkeye assistant wrestling coach Kurt Backes and Iowa wrestling’s strength and conditioning coach Danny Song.