Week 75: boxing progress

Speed grappling: constant movement and flow, looking for positions, sweeps, reversals, escapes and submissions but none being applied.

Single leg takedown clasping from shoulder control: level one work so basics being empathised through repetition. I was speaking to my father in law this morning about how skills are learned in terms of time. He has been coaching gymnastics most of his life as is up to date in terms of sports science research. Latests research suggests that you need to perform an action about 300 times before the neural pathways make the action automatic. In my experience that does not mean perfect or non spasmodic.
Lewis Smith, the Olympic silver medalist on pommel, in his training history it has been calculated that he has done 800,000 double circles on the horse. My point is that for me going through the basics repeatedly is key. It is no good having a poor foundation. So to practise clinch into single leg is something I can't do enough. Getting the knee hassle, the proper grip in primary and secondary right, head control then chest pressure when changing level, correct hand placement followed by correct lift technique is crucial. Just as in most physical endeavours, MMA requires complex motions. Unlike most other sports we have to learn then apply techniques under considerable pressure with another not wanting us to. I used to hate takedown training when I was doing BJJ as it was not broken down into component parts. Now I like it as I feel like I am learning and not bumbling through whilst getting smashed to bits.

Knee trip from shoulder control: sat this out as lateral knee pressure would cause me pain. Nice to watch though. They then worked this into knee trip nudge into bowling out.

Boxing with Lee: Lee was attacking with a range of strategies such as aggressive, regular (whatever we call it...), straight arm robot style, waving arms no structure style and all with lots of pressure. I tried to keep circling as learnt last week, range of attacks and not get knackered. Hard mentally and physically, violently nurturing.

Side control sweeping from underneath, working the arm in by turning both ways. The drill for the person caught in side control was looking at the different ways of moving to create space, to work an arm through for an undertook, to then either sweep, escape or take the back. As this was a continual rolling drill, when the undertook was achieved the top position player applied forward chest pressure giving the player underneath the chance to feel when to sweep.

Side control arm manipulation and wear out: using strikes and submission attempts to get the arm tired. 1 minute on each arm then swap over.

Moving and circling: in the standup phase we need to get used to circling away from the power hand, then deciding when to attack. It can be when the aggressor steps square and across and the combinations attacks can be done.

Lead hand only, rear hand only, rear leg only, front leg only. Using single tools or sides of the body in insolation to reduce the telegraphing. Feedback was given by the person on the end of the strikes. The strikes were thrown from movement and not in static stances.

Toe to toe with Craig: working in incremental percentages, not blocking too much as getting used to getting hit is an important part of the training as is throwing attacks when strikes are coming in.

Free form standing with Phil: technical and 20%. It was nice to have an opportunity to work lots of movement, timing and striking creativity.

Tonight was a fabulous session and I only wish that I videoed it. I would like to watch back the tear up that was Joe and Mischel and we only heard it.