Week 71: Shoulder control from the ground

Single leg, single hip, double hip and double leg takedown chain grappling. Keep the pressure on be that movement in any direction, just make sure that the head stays in contact with the torso then the chest pressure on his legs. Gaps equal opportunities to escape so give him none. As this was the first session of the class it is surprisingly tough on the legs as the quads are always turned on. When the quads are working so is the heart.

Shoulder control takedown from knees: Secondary grip on tricep and pinch down with your elbow, step your knee in front of his knee to create a barrier and pull him over that as you follow into a high angle side control.

Shoulder control in side control: Use the shoulder to pin his shoulder or face to the mat, use the head to keep the gaps tiny so there is no room for him to work an arm in for underhooks.

Escaping side control by getting to the knees using lat control: Firstly you need to create space as if his side control tight there will be none. Push the head or angle your body away to create a gap between his shoulder pressing down and yours. When the gap appears work the arm in and through for the underhook and most importantly is to turn to your knees as quickly as you can. From here wrap the arm around and grab a hold of his lat muscle. This will enable you to pull on it for 2 effects.
Number 1, if he braces against the pull then you have a solid structure to work against to get the legs out from under him. Number 2 is that he pushes back into to you so you simply roll him back over you. Your forearm will be against his hip so you are pretty much effortlessly using his structure to sweep him. Very little power is needed, just his applying his momentum against him. Morihei Ueshiba would be very proud of his concepts being applied in the real world.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98yRuBkUBGQ

Put this link in for no other reason than historical purposes

Bottom control escape with shoulder control: I think (cant quite remember) it being similar to the side control escape...

Bottom control super grip shoulder control: Over the trips so the shoulder is forced down and the elbow pins the head to prevent movement. Lee referred to the rubber guard and the relation to this movement in that you can isolate and pin the shoulder here and look for transitions and submissions too. This is something I am going to explore as I do enjoy the work of Mr Bravo but my hips struggle to fully express his ideas. Having the same concept but using different tools is a great eye opener for me.

Submission hunting grappling: I worked with Ivan and the drill was to get a submission in 2 minutes. One person looking for the subs and the other simply defending. Lovely drill

Week 70: shoulder control

This session was the first split session in that part 1 is syllabus work and part 2 is drills and sparring.

The syllabus section was focussed on shoulder control from the clinch and on the ground.

We started by simply practising the correct positional mechanics for shoulder control: eyes to the centre of his head driving with the forehead, shoulder clamped tight with same arm elbow tight and down, take a secondary grip with the other arm and strong base so your legs and knee position are disrupting his.

Shoulder control with pummel escape and elbow strike: As he attempts to pummel out if provides you with an excellent opportunity, if timed well to elbow strike at close range. Elbows for one reason or another are something I am to keen on practising with, probably because of their simply destructive nature but perhaps I need to start thinking about when they can be used as a striking tool.

Shoulder control with leg trip and takedown: This works as you move him around and his stance goes long and skinny. As you sweep the leg from under his hip, pull down on the shoulder, as if you are pulling the shoulder down to his hip. Having no base or balance means he should go to the floor with you following him closely into side control.

Shoulder control with single leg capture: Change the level and literally slide your face down his torso as the eyes need to stay up to promote a positive and strong posture. Reach through and around both of his legs as your chest should now be pressing into his hip and thigh, both palms facing down as you grip hand to wrist with your elbow crease behind his knee. Lift high.

Shoulder control with bicep cricket bowl escape: Thrust your bicep into his tricep which will cause his shoulder bones to lift then bowl the arm straight. It feels like you are using your skeleton and not muscle to perform the action whilst disrupting his skeleton. Similar to the leg trip takedown talked about before, you are affecting his structure which is a much harder thing to defend as muscles don’t do anything to stop the motion is done correctly.

Side control outward arm manipulation: For me this was simply horrendous. My shoulders were ready to tap out even before the tiring of the arm happened. When in side control and working on the outward arm it is important to control it. By wrapping your arm under it so that the point of your elbow is on the ground this elevates his arm so that only the hand is on the floor. As previously stated, in itself this was not a good place for me. Lee had us simply making the arm tired, swapping our arms over to feel the wrapping on different sides. The sooner this was over the better for me. I guess the point is other people have similar shoulder tension so time to hunt for this position more in side control!

Rear heel lifted against striking and attacking on the counter:

Stance change against the leg kick and counter with strikes:

Knee attack against the double leg shoot: Can’t get my feet to move properly as I was so aware that me knee was going for a skull. It was only Craig so no worries but I can’t deform him too much…

Free form grappling with Craig

Side control striking to standing escape with Craig, Joe, Simon and Seb

Week Bill an Ted's favourite number: front body clinch

Boxing rounds. Rocked up 10 mins late and my karmic gift was a messed up nose care of a feisty Simon. This was a good pain and panic lesson for me and timely as on the way to training I was talking to Craig about fears and the worries of stand up, that of being hit in the nose. Took a heavy one tonight and over the last few days wearing glasses has disguised the mess but slowed the healing process down. I am not saying I enjoyed the experience but it was not as bad as feared. My problem is of course work and the appearance of facial markings at some point is not going to go down too well

Boxing and looking for the knee tap from squatting (as in changing levels)
Takedown from knees which evolved into takedown and pin from knees.

Lee talked about never wanting to wilfully give up your back and when it hits the floor there is a second when you can bounce back up to the knees and then standing. See UFC 156 and this was used by firstly Benevidez and then Fitch. Obviously this always goes on but only now are my eyes open to it and seeing how an effective defence it can be rather than the temptation to pull guard (bottom control). Whilst Fitch ultimately lost the fight he sustained very little damage have his back taken for the majority of the fight. Primarily as he is a master at defending from that position but also the attacks are limited. Yes he was taken down and controlled easily, in the relative sense that you have Maia on the back, but he was not on his back for long and looked to pop up to his knees quickly.

Front body clinch: elbows pressure into the sides as if squeezing the lats. Having this done turned you more into a rag doll as your posture is controlled with greater ease. So how do you get out of the double underhooked front body clinch? One way is to get the pummel in when double undercooked by stepping back and turning the shoulder into the opponent. This should create a gap for the arm to swim through, then swap sides to repeat to establish your own under hooks. The key point here was the turning or driving of the shoulder into the opponent as this disrupts their base and grip to a greater extent.

Front body clinch fighting. Simply fighting for position. It still amazes me that watching the UFC how few fighters use the head as a controlling limb in clinch and grappling. Being a smaller man I find it an invaluable asset when in close as it has the added bonus of aligning the spine in the correct way too.

Front body clinch lift from double hip capture. God damn horrid. Rag them around and when the hips get close change the level and drop down for the double hip capture and lift, looking up to the ceiling.

As above with knee sweep to avoid the inner forearm choke or some kind of monkey style guard play.

As above into double leg, head on same side as leg forward for square symmetry

Small glove free form double leg shooting practise x 2 rounds