[dshoemaker]

To answer an aspect of your question that other commenters haven't addressed, the snatch works hip and shoulder mobility in a way that deadlifting and squats do not. The barbell is driven by the explosive hip hinge (unhinge?) directly up, so it is a departure from deadlift even if it looks like it would train the same muscles. Training your snatch lift in a non-competitive sense really exposes imbalances the lifter has. Your hesitance is really reasonable though, it's a non-trivial lift so coming into lifting completely new and trying to throw a snatch up isn't a very good idea.

[borski]

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Thank you for the explanation!