Take down and pin to back from knees. Very good fun and gets the heart rate up very quickly. I was looking to use the arm drag and elbow control to secure position and dominance and that worked for a few rounds then I went with Lee. Straight away his posture was bigger and more dominant which put me on the back foot immediately. He also employed a variety of paces and fast messy fakes to draw motion and reaction.
The main part of the class was experimenting with creativity and failure. In my proper job I am a teacher and this is something I strive for my students to experience primarily in learning. I try to use this as a way to deliver content and curriculum. I want to build the confidence to fail and learn, to build resilience and creativity, to ask more questions than you can answer. Then true high quality learning can take place. But fear of failure and criticism of self by others is a great obstacle to people in my profession reaching their potential. I see too many people, adults, who seem to know it all already, who have an answer, who want to talk but do not want to listen. This parallels my experience in martial arts. Fear of loosing students, face or control lead to stagnation and denial. How many pictures have you seen in martial arts mags of 7th dan masters who can't see their toes for their fat belly? Who have not tested their great wisdom against an uncooperative opponent in sparring? What message is this portraying other than bullshit? I guess it is because people want to belong to a team, a group or a community and then spend the rest of their existence supporting said institution. No matter how culty and ridiculous their methods and message are.
Thankfully the creators, I should say innovators, at PROMAI are forward looking and constantly evolving. Perhaps this is the true essence of the idea, not the style, that was labelled as Jeet Kune Do. Absorb what is useful and reject what is not. Shame it became a style but the idea still rings true 50 years on: explore, investigate, create, test, refine. And definitely not follow blindly, stagnate or kowtow down to the martial deity.
And so the ideas we explored tonight were on pieces of paper that were randomly shuffled and turned over. Some were completely alien as technique partners and others felt more comfortable and known. That was the whole point; go slow and explore and experience lots of failure. At least then you will have a greater understanding of why something does and does not apply to certain conditions.
Side kick and side control
Bottom control outward strike
Body clinch downward shoulder rotation
Long range inner forearm choke
Neck and wrist control elbow extension
My biggest failing last night was my lack of desire to demonstrate my failure to my class mates. Too busy being concerned about being unknowingly judged on a public platform. Which what I get kids in my class to do all the time and praise for their effort. Will endeavour to attach less importance to this in the future.
Big glove MMA rounds
Small glove sparring ground with Craig. Video is up on YouTube and Facebook dated 22/11/12.
Getting slightly better at striking for submission openings. Not in terms of success but in terms of strike volume. Striking was heavier than last week and beginning to attack other large muscle areas of the body such as the lats, thighs and traps.
Feel very old for a day or two after every session and only wish I had begun his MMA journey earlier in my life, not because I would be better than I am now but more comfortable with the experience of it all. But it s the journey and the process that is of prime significance not the destination .
One final note, in post class chatting to Ptas and Arial we discovered how much weight Arial has lost since training at the start of the year. Something remarkable like 40kgs. A tremendous example of what hard work and sweat can do. A tough lesson for many of the lazy bastards who talk about wanting transformation but only if they can sit on their arse watching shite on their big tele. By the way my weakness is my sweet tooth kicking in post 8pm every day. That is a tough demon to control.
Strength and honour.
Friday, 23 November 2012
Thursday, 15 November 2012
Week 61: GSP's front leg
Warm up: standing grappling looking for the single leg capture. Nice chance to get the neck and head warmed up by using them as another control limb. Had several rounds and fun with Sami who exchanged more faster paced and level changing work.
With the GSP v Conduit fight this weekend the theme was more off curriculum and a focus on the high quality foundational skills of GSP.
Elbow extension: GSP's first loss was this against Matt Hughes. GSP was looking for a downward shoulder rotation from half guard, Hughes put pressure on the torso, slid his leg out and spun around the head into elbow extension. This was our first drill tonight. This is one of the things I absolutely love about MMA. Everything has a counter and nothing is 100% certain to work. If only other martial arts could embrace this philosophy and honesty then there would be a ton less bullshit in the world.
I used to train with one instructor who when asked, "What happens when the fight goes to the ground?" He simply and arrogantly replied with "I have not taught you right". Clearly implying that his anti grapple-wrestle-rugby tackle methods were bullet proof. Shame he never put them to the test. In addition I used to train in Croydon on Wednesday mornings in the mid 90s (life at uni affords such time freedoms) and the space we used was owned by a huge karate teacher. Over the years his girth began to match his height. I had a casual martial arts chat with him and asked about ground fighting and also confidently said that none of his fights have ever gone there. Now either this guy is a Jedi or never been under pressure. I used to be a massive boxing fan in the 90s and in all boxing matches there is some rudimentary type of stand up grappling to punch from a better position whilst tying up your opponents hands. I guess my mini rant is the baffling nature of traditional martial artists who do not want to look out of their comfort zones yet seem to know better without practical experience.
We then looked using the jab to get in and out with sound footwork. Keep the rear arm tight and the front arm long, relaxed and moving. Feet move first followed by a fast jab then back out again either backwards or angling. As the drill round progressed the added bonus of throwing 2 punches after their jab was used to make sure they were moving their feet and thus torso back to safety. I found this simplest of actions quite hard as my legs were a little slow in retreating. However I did find that angling better suited my body/brain rather than straight back. Practise, practise, practise... This drill was also a good opportunity to be a punch bag and get hit by seeing the punch and trying not to react away or close the eyes.
Double leg takedown using jab footwork. And looked at the 3 types depending on what energy the opponent gives us.
1: the turning and lifting wheel type.
2: the straight drive type by pulling his leg between your legs as we drive with the shoulder. (This is where we spent our time practising).
3: the sweeping type.
Our target as fighters is to be aware of the angle and pressure and disrupt the base of our opponent using these attacks. Indeed there is a myriad of other attacks at this range but I think the point tonight was about what can happen in terms of fundamentals from the front leg.
A quick drill Lee had us then do was a chaining of numbers 1 and 2 in blocks of four. It helped to practise keeping the head in the right position and have them continually off balance. I was working with Ptas who gave excellent feedback; my left hand kept creeping up to the hip from the knee.
Finally we looked at the spinning side kick from the initial jab footwork. Plant and turn the heel to face the opponent and side kick! Turn to far to short then you will miss.
Ended with a really big ground free form with Craig.
Driving home Craig and I had our usual post match press conference. I came to the realisation about my fears on the feet as opposed to the ground. I am scared of stand up as I can't predict what will happen to me when hit; falling down, too much of my body to protect. I prefer fighting on the ground, with heavy contact, to the stand up as I have no where to fall and the targets are usually less. Yet when I watch the video above and see Milzy and Sami or even anyone in the class they all seem nice and relaxed, move fluidly in attack and defence. This is my target; to transfer the confidence on the ground to stand up phase fighting. And this is why I love learning because it is hard, it is a process and a journey. I hope I never get to the destination because what will I do then?
With the GSP v Conduit fight this weekend the theme was more off curriculum and a focus on the high quality foundational skills of GSP.
Elbow extension: GSP's first loss was this against Matt Hughes. GSP was looking for a downward shoulder rotation from half guard, Hughes put pressure on the torso, slid his leg out and spun around the head into elbow extension. This was our first drill tonight. This is one of the things I absolutely love about MMA. Everything has a counter and nothing is 100% certain to work. If only other martial arts could embrace this philosophy and honesty then there would be a ton less bullshit in the world.
I used to train with one instructor who when asked, "What happens when the fight goes to the ground?" He simply and arrogantly replied with "I have not taught you right". Clearly implying that his anti grapple-wrestle-rugby tackle methods were bullet proof. Shame he never put them to the test. In addition I used to train in Croydon on Wednesday mornings in the mid 90s (life at uni affords such time freedoms) and the space we used was owned by a huge karate teacher. Over the years his girth began to match his height. I had a casual martial arts chat with him and asked about ground fighting and also confidently said that none of his fights have ever gone there. Now either this guy is a Jedi or never been under pressure. I used to be a massive boxing fan in the 90s and in all boxing matches there is some rudimentary type of stand up grappling to punch from a better position whilst tying up your opponents hands. I guess my mini rant is the baffling nature of traditional martial artists who do not want to look out of their comfort zones yet seem to know better without practical experience.
We then looked using the jab to get in and out with sound footwork. Keep the rear arm tight and the front arm long, relaxed and moving. Feet move first followed by a fast jab then back out again either backwards or angling. As the drill round progressed the added bonus of throwing 2 punches after their jab was used to make sure they were moving their feet and thus torso back to safety. I found this simplest of actions quite hard as my legs were a little slow in retreating. However I did find that angling better suited my body/brain rather than straight back. Practise, practise, practise... This drill was also a good opportunity to be a punch bag and get hit by seeing the punch and trying not to react away or close the eyes.
Double leg takedown using jab footwork. And looked at the 3 types depending on what energy the opponent gives us.
1: the turning and lifting wheel type.
2: the straight drive type by pulling his leg between your legs as we drive with the shoulder. (This is where we spent our time practising).
3: the sweeping type.
Our target as fighters is to be aware of the angle and pressure and disrupt the base of our opponent using these attacks. Indeed there is a myriad of other attacks at this range but I think the point tonight was about what can happen in terms of fundamentals from the front leg.
A quick drill Lee had us then do was a chaining of numbers 1 and 2 in blocks of four. It helped to practise keeping the head in the right position and have them continually off balance. I was working with Ptas who gave excellent feedback; my left hand kept creeping up to the hip from the knee.
Finally we looked at the spinning side kick from the initial jab footwork. Plant and turn the heel to face the opponent and side kick! Turn to far to short then you will miss.
Ended with a really big ground free form with Craig.
Driving home Craig and I had our usual post match press conference. I came to the realisation about my fears on the feet as opposed to the ground. I am scared of stand up as I can't predict what will happen to me when hit; falling down, too much of my body to protect. I prefer fighting on the ground, with heavy contact, to the stand up as I have no where to fall and the targets are usually less. Yet when I watch the video above and see Milzy and Sami or even anyone in the class they all seem nice and relaxed, move fluidly in attack and defence. This is my target; to transfer the confidence on the ground to stand up phase fighting. And this is why I love learning because it is hard, it is a process and a journey. I hope I never get to the destination because what will I do then?
Week 60: MMA rounds
Bear hug clinch warm up
Ground defensive defending
MMA rounds with stare down into free form rounds with key words and breathing
MMA rounds with prescribed tactics at medium pace, agreesive or technical, standing or ground
MMA rounds grappling
Grappling with Ptas
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