It took all of 30 seconds on YouTube to find the following video (45 second mark):

While this particular video was posted last year, I still see wrestlers doing this every week.

The offensive wrestler in the video sets his knee and foot, places his head on his opponent’s back, reaches around his opponent’s belly and attempts to place his hand over his opponent’s navel, places the near hand on his opponent’s elbow, becomes stationary, and waits for the whistle.  Instead of waiting for the whistle, he should have been receiving his first caution.

The starting sequence found in 5-20-5 NOTE can be summed up as follows: knees, navel, head, elbow, pause, whistle.

1. set the knee(s) and feet;
2. place the palm of one hand on the opponent’s navel;
3. place the head on or above the mid-line of the opponent’s back;
4. place the palm of the other hand on or over the back of the opponent’s near elbow;
5. both wrestlers shall become stationary; and
6. the referee shall pause momentarily before starting wrestling.

I know that we all make decisions every match about what to caution and what to correct on restarts.  After all, we could be there all night. In the aforementioned video without looking too closely, there could have been at least three cautions on the first restart. While I’m not advocating nitpicking, I don’t think it’s too much to ask that we all know the rule.

Unfortunately, that’s not been my experience.