Class notes: striking combinations and side control work

So tonight was my first at Promai in 18 months. I had felt nervous all day in anticipation. Would the leg hold out? Would I be able to keep up with everyone? Hopefully at the end of the class the answer to both of these questions was yes. It is now the morning after and everything feels ok in the leg so thumbs up.

MMA fundamentals class.

Warm up: Variety of motions and athletics linked to MMA to get the blood and muscles ready for what was to come. Lee did some funky balance and jumping drills on the focus mitt
- single leg balancing, single leg standing extensions, jumping up and down knees high, jump with quarter, half and full turns. Press uo to forward fold and back again, slow and fast press ups, side planks.

Striking combinations with big gloves
Moving in, striking, moving out from the rear leg, aim for the chin not the hands, hands in the correct position when not striking.
1-1-2

2-1-2

2-1-1-2

1-2 round kick

On the pads

1-1-2

2-round kick-1-2-3

The head in the round kick needs to move. So if I am throwing a right round kick then the head will need to move to the left.

Pinning drill form the knees - start from the knees, takedown and wrestle for position. There was no submissions just trying to keep the partner pinned. They could try to reverse the position and pin you.

Grappling class:

Wrestling against the cage, no grip flow. Not being static and keeping the hips away and concave spine. I felt having when with my back against the cage I could use soft arms to feel and direct my partner's head without too much energy expended. I was just flowing with his movement, something that we have been working on in the other martial arts class I go to (Workman Martial Arts https://www.facebook.com/workmanmartialarts)

Side back control, with a leg on the inside Phil Davis domination from UFC 179 over Glover Texeria

We worked the basic position but we had a leg through his leg and we then hooked it behind the knee for a figure 4 control. We then looked at breaking the arm down, applying shoulder pressure, staying no more then in the centre of his back to avoid being rolled. The key was the shoulder pressure which had to be felt. It was something Georges St Pierre dominated Nick Diaz with. It was a small but vital detail that I had noticed before but will be something to watch out for in the future.

Side control far arm manipulation: getting the head up, inverted triangle, hips over the shoulder, you can face plant, go for the elbow extension, downward shoulder rotation. Tight with the inverted triangle is key.

Free form sparring with Craig and Lee. With Craig i went for a head and arm but he cheekily turned it into some type of knarly neck crank. I then managed to secure a triangle from my back which he rolled to his back and I finished from top position.

Lee got me three times with a triangle, arm extension and then a downward shoulder rotation (DWL) with me face down.

Was great to be welcomed back.

Week 79: Tabata protocol

No grip stand up clinch fighting.

Tabata round 1 = press ups

2 minute rounds of 4 takedown set ups without breaking contact; single and double hip, single and double leg. At this point I was very tired from the Tabata and only a consistent pace and keeping the breath under control did I manage not only to survive but to keep up a good pace and receive some positive noises from Joe.

Tabate round 2 = body weight squats

2 minute rounds of getting to the knee when as an escape from top control. Again I was working with Joe and we had a very good pace going.

Tabate round 3 = lateral straight leg window wipers

Tabate round 4 = mountain climbers

Rear hand defensive drill. Joe gave me some good tips but I was proper knackered so ineffectively made improvements. But for the historical record they were:

stay out of range and move in on the end of his attack
evasive lateral motion
punch with the elbow in line with the wrist so the elbow is driving behind the punch.

Tabate round 5 = elbow plank to high plank

Hunting for the clinch against a skilled striker. I was working with

Tabate round 6 = sprawls

MMA rounds. I worked with Will and then Darren for double rounds. My knee gave out at the end of the grapple; a simple compression of the lower leg and bang.

A great video of Charlie and Ptas in action

http://youtu.be/vH6Xp6t1tKA

More info about Tabata with a few video examples

http://tabatatraining.org

Week 73: Outward arm action

Clinch grappling warm up with Phil then Milzy. This is one of the best ways to warmed up quickly, especially if you do it with someone who has a major size and strength advantage. It is a great way to build some resilience and tenacity.

Takedown from shoulder control: You are deep in their space, your knee is behind theirs, your torso pressure is on them so there are no gaps when you bump the knee and pull the shoulder down to collapse their structure. This works when you have opposite legs forward.
Knee trip and shoulder take down: I sat out of this one as my knee is still sensitive to the slightest lateral pressure but sometimes it is good to watch and see how other people move and apply themselves. The trip is simply a barring action (the hand on the side of the knee) so that the leg has nowhere to go. The arm in shoulder control straightens from the bicep and the ‘bowls’ as the trip happens acting as a fulcrum. This technique works when you have the same leg forward as the partner.

The two above techniques can then be used in combination when pressuring the opponent and can be chained or switched between each other meaning if he changes legs then either can be attacked.

Boxing rounds with Milzy and my Josh Barnett nose.: Whilst the above was happening I was doing boxing rounds with Milzy and realised my nose is like that of Josh Barnett. If you hit it, it bleeds. It is still sore 3 days on! Either my nose is made is brittle china or Milzy does not know his own strength. On a deeper level and if looking at it from an out of body experience this highlighted my still reluctance to firstly be an attacking fighter as I primarily rely on counter attacking. Secondly is the double jeopardy habit of going backwards when under attack and covering up. Going back and watching the videos of the higher level lads in the class they all do what I know I should do; circling and footwork to evade.

Outward arm manipulation from side control: Worked on securing the arm by wrapping as well as looking for it without losing control of his base and simply fighting to gain control of his arm.

Upward shoulder rotation from side control: From control we can start to look for submissions. The worst case scenario is that you don’t get the sub but his arm is now depleted and thus a less effective tool for him. Best case is a submission. If you have control of his arm then take your time with this, rushing will create gaps and errors. When you have wrist control, use the head high knee against his head and same side elbow



This image shows the correct arm position but he appears to be in top control. Now you drag the back of his hand along the mat towards his hip which will put considerable pressure on the elbow and the shoulder. No need to rip it off as he could escape, keep it tight, controlled and precise.

Elbow extension from side control: As he fights to escape by straightening the arm you can now look at the elbow extension. Make sure his elbow is off the floor as this adds to the pressure and the sub will come on a lot quicker.

Switching between the two above: Similarly to the takedowns at the start of the class, these two submissions depend on the energy he is giving you, plus you can switch between the two. Again if they don’t come off, he has a very tired arm.

Striking whilst controlling in side control: To compound his misery you can attack the arm with elbow strikes to do nothing other than cause pain and frustration to him. You can dig the tip of the elbow into the head of the deltoid muscle which will be tense and thus cause lots of pain. Joe and I endeavoured to take the pain but it felt like a reflex reaction to it. Horrible.

Clinch grappling with no grip and eyes closed with Seb and Charlie: Apart from being rag dolled around at will by both Seb and Charlie it showed me the potential of what can be and how devastating the clinch position is when you are in control. Mostly I was defending and defending and trying to keep to their tempo. Both are excellent at changing levels, consistent pressure and constant movement making you second guess and not take the lead.

3 for 3 then 2 for 2 striking with Ivan: Trading movements and strikes, making sure the strikes were linked mechanically and not in isolation susch as 3 jabes.

Free form grappling with Chris: All others did freeform from standing but don’t trust my knee to hold out against the takedowns so started on the ground with Chris.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIGzEs3Mfuw

As you will see there is lots of great stand up going on plus ground work. High quality work from all.

Week 68: body swaying

Thankfully with a purpose and not in some drug induced metronome fashion. After a warm up from Milzy on a bloody cold night with got down to some clinch drills to increase body temperature in preparation for work to follow.

No grip clinch fighting.
Grip clinch fighting.
Fighting for the single leg. Seb was his usual relentless and effective. I got very tired very quick and managed bugger all. One day Seb, one day...
Fighting for the takedown from the clinch.

Main part of class was looking at using the body sway in striking range as a defensive manoeuvre to trigger an attack from it.
Sway (without moving the feet) out of the way of the head shot and use the returning body motion to attack with. The attacker uses any type of attack to the head.

This drill developed into the sway followed by:
3 hand strikes
Kick off the front leg then 3 strikes. Kick off the front leg as the weight is transferred to the rear leg as the sway happens meaning the leg can be lifted and used to strike with.
Movement now allowed but same idea: defend with body motion and minimal footwork then attack with a combination of up to 5 strikes using any of the 8 limbs.

Aggressive attack posture (always moving forward throwing constant attacks) v standard attack posture (lateral footwork and counter strikes). Did this for several long rounds which really taxed the stamina. Key points are stay relaxed in all motions be they defensive or attacking, control the breathing. First round I worked with Will and second round with Chris where the pressure and pace was more intense. This was the first time that I could move constantly forward and throw attacks. Chris was really good at moving and countering which meant visually my eyes kept squinting so it was good to get used to going forward and into a stream of punches

Ground and pound in bottom control: 2 very tough rounds with both fighters striking, constantly. No holding or submissions allowed.

The main. Class ended with a mad Milzy ab workout which was tremendous.

Post class I grappled with Mishel who is strong, has an excellent base and very aggressive. Then I grappled with Ptas which was nice and to and fro until something in the back of my right knee made a horrible loud pop. Thankfully not too much damage has been done. In addition it was nice to work with and old new face in Phil.

Tonight was a step forward for me to exercise some of the demons from last week. I needed to face some hardship tonight and gladly came out the other side feeling a sense of accomplishment.

Finally some exciting news on the future of promai was talked to us tonight by Lee. More to follow in a few weeks when the all gears are in motion.

PS. Thank you to all the training partners for their patience, guidance and pain

Week 59: the last 10 seconds

Charlie has a fight coming up so the focus has changed slightly as he is more experienced in the fight game. The session tonight was looking at the last 10 seconds of the round with an eye to entertain the crowd and to try do something high risk in terms of success percentage rate. So tonight we look at lower leg submissions.

Ankle extension:

Starting from an open bottom control position, he has one foot one your hip so this is ankle you are going to attack. Wrap the forearm under the calf as you step up to have both feet close to his hips and as you sit your hips go close to your heels. As you lie back squeeze the knees together and allow the forearm to slide down his leg. You should feel the bridge of his foot against your lat or top of the shoulder. Make sure that forearm bone (radius) is nice and tight and the bottom of the calf muscle. Look behind and over yourself to complete the ankle extension.

We then looked at a defence to this and that is as soon as they start to lie back you need to relax the leg, shoot the foot behind him and sit up by pulling on his neck for anchorage. Maintaining the neck control you can pass to the side or either with a crushing knee on belly control.

Calf compression from side control:

Naturally they should have the cross leg defensive position to prevent your attempts to move to top control and then want to slide the knee into your centre to begin escaping from side control. This is the bait. Allow their knee to come inside, as it does insert your forearm around and behind the knee. An overhook rather than an underhook, a tight one. Now for the tough part. Step over and insert your foot between his legs and close to his hips. It is hard because it require swift dexterity. It also means his leg is tightly wrapped. From here use the forearm bone on the outside of his calf for the pain. 2 days later I still have a 50p coin sized bruise on my calf where Neil successfully closed off his submission attempts.
This is a high risk move because it is a pain only submission as not much will break or tear.

Scissor takedown into ankle extension:

From the standing clinch look to perform a hip throw. If he does not defend then complete the throw. However if he defends by straightening his posture attempt the entertaining. From the hip throw your backside should be against his thigh. Drop to the floor and scissor him down, top leg attacking high and front and the lower leg low and behind. Do not let your lower leg hit the floor. From here you can clasp his leg with your knees and perform the ankle extension as outlined earlier on.

Lots of free form rounds starting standing then to the ground if it went there. I worked with Neil, Edgar, Ptas, Ivan and Angel. Angel gave me the dead leg I still have. A rather juicy knee being the bearer of good news.

Ended the session with a few rounds of grappling with Ptas.

Week 54: Circular movement

As Angel is in preparation for his first fight, all of our training is geared to getting him best sorted for his fight. So tonight was about movement on the feet.

Boxing: Milzy got us started with boxing rounds. Felt good to only focus on one range from a defensive point of view. That boxing lark is a piece of cake…

Kicking: We moved into kicking only and straight away the range becomes greater for obvious reasons. I tried to work the concept from last week of using the round kick to put the body in what the opponent should perceive a s a weak position then launch attacks from there.

Movement away using feet no hands: The point is Lee is showing us why moving back in straight lines is rubbish for so many reasons. When you are not allowed to defend with your hands the feet certainly work much, much harder. Apart from the clear advantages of moving to the closed side of the opponent’s stance, the learning tonight starkly reminded me about not having lazy movement in training. I guess I need to assume that I do not have my hands up protecting the range and that my first defensive movement comes from the feet not closing the arms to protect the head and torso. Obviously having rice paper instead of skin on the soles of my feet this presents some issues; every time we do stand up in class I come away with ripped toes and blistered feet. Perhaps I need to stop being a pedicurist’s nightmare and grow a pair?

Head movement = flat feet so go for the level change: At this point Lee made reference to the fact that if an opponent is moving lots, his head is still on his shoulders and if the head is bobbing and weaving continually then the feet will generally be more planted. Something to be aware of and begin attacking with this in mind too.

Low hands v walking down striker: Initially I thought this was a bonkers idea; to circle away from someone walking you down with quite wild punches and your hands are down. My mind flashed back to Prince Naseem in his glory days throwing punches from his knees. Actually having the hands down offers tremendous freedom and opportunity to attack at the end of their attack.

The following link show Michael Page who fights with great confidence in what appears to be a very dangerous to his health way:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m1j7gAE5Ic

On a side note rant, it bothers me greatly that the biggest MMA group in this country is being promoted to a lad audience. UCMMA (formerly Cage Rage) is all a bit too East End for my liking. Has a sleazy feel to it. Stop promoting your fights as if they are in nightclub and develop some class. Anyway, MP, whose Dad I used to train with in the mid-90s has quite incredible movement coupled with self-belief and obvious talent. I believe he has recently signed with Bellator so hope to see him in action stateside soon. It is quite rare to see a fighter use these tactics, is this because he is being creative or silly?

You decide:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0sgfp9KKUo&feature=related

Action starts at 6.50

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4awSmJfuhbU&feature=relmfu

Fun and games here start at 3.00

Long step double leg shoot rounds v sprawl: This was tough as we were asked to use a long deep step to cover the distance for the double leg takedown without dropping the front knee down. First key point is changing the level; keep the spine positive, eyes on the opponent and explode.

Assessing opponents stance and tactic: By the end of the lesson my feet were a bloody, in both senses of the word, mess. I sat out whilst Lee took the troops through this drill. Too many fighters at the lower level come out fighting in a chaotic and blitzing manner. Conversely the seasoned pro will stalk, wait and observe when the fight starts. This is what the learning was on. Assess what he is doing. Yes it is a fight but it is not a street fight or a brawl. It is OK to work a strategy and to use your mind as opposed to your face.

Week 52: Long range striking defence and attack

Tonight saw the end of my first year training at Pro Mai MMA. Gone quick and as this blog show, much has been covered and learnt.

Started off with the Greco-Roman standing clinch drill. Following this we moved into any takedowns from clinch then striking in the clinch. I was a bit naughty in that I was using my head and posture to clinch meaning my arms were free to strike. I noticed that this allowed for more attacks putting my partner on the defence more. I got the idea from Randy's dirty boxing against the fence. Use positive posture to control coupled with a high tempo work rate.

Long range striking: Round kicks to the thigh.

We worked a sequence of drills building on the last to develop sound technique and ultimately creativity:

Checking round kicks;

If they continue to check then attack the rear standing leg;

Use footwork to evade out of range as well as to step into the kick. Both mean you don't get hit where the kick is at it's most effective and powerful;

Attacking with the rear hand when the kick comes in;

Faking the low kick (use the eyes to look down too) as you throw the rear hand to the head. Found this very hard as worked hard over the past year to keep my eyes up!!;

One body action with 2 attacks; the rear punch to the head and the round kick. Need to move the head out to the side for better delivery of technique.

Striking free form sparring rounds.

So here ends my first year at Pro Mai. Looking forward to the future learning with a supreme bunch of training partners under the quality observation and tutelage of fine teachers.

Week 48: The hardest one yet

Clinching and striking:

Looking to obtain the body lock whilst swimming for clinch control and striking both defending and attacking. I had the pain of working with Milzy first who set a relentless pace with very accurate attacks. I tried to focus on keeping the neck strong and the eyes fixed on the centre of his head.

The drill evolved into hunting for the single leg capture too. I looked a few times but practised staying strong, fluid and employing as wide variety of attacks as possible in the clinch.

Gaining the clinch from striking range:

The attacker used striking to prevent the other person looking for the clinch. The standing grappler was not allowed to use striking but still needed to maintain a solid defense yet aggressive as needing to enter to get the clinch and then body lock.

Grappling and striking:
1. Hold down and prevent other from getting up.

2. 3 people on the mat (Me, Milzy and Charlie) assumed the positions (mounted, side control and turtle) and we were fighting to recover from the positions we found ourselves. When recovered a fresh body jumps in and it all started again. Then when all had been on the mat against each 3 of us, we swapped roles. Each of the 3 in the middle fought everyone in all 3 positions. Draining yet excellent training in terms of gas preservation and knowing when to explode out of a position. Smarter use of the body’s resources.

Training ended with freeform grappling. As I was so knackered at the end I was happy to watch the post training stand up sparring involving Charlie, Milzy, Simon, Angel and Lee.

I learned many new things tonight in how to set a pace, how to use my head better in the clinch, to be creative in my striking on the ground. Angel pounded my thighs with some excellent elbows, 24 hours later the legs still ache. Sami sunk in a very nasty Japanese neck tie to the point that I saw stars at the point of tapping, sweet grappling. It was truly exhausting tonight and truly enjoyable.

Leg suppression (triangle choke) escape

Heard Tito talking it about it on the Joe Rogan podcast. Looking forward to trying it

Week 46: leg locks

No Lee tonight so Pete took the class.

Despite the soaring temperatures outside we started with the no grip grappling drill.

Leg lock from the open guard position. Start is if going to pass with shin over their thigh and make sure that the foot is placed deep under their thigh. When you look to pass with the shin it will be much deeper and have an opening of the hips preventing him from escaping easily to another position. Instead of passing hold the high leg and sit back as you come under his leg with yours. You are essentially clasping his leg between yours. Now that you have his leg clasped you can begin to work on the lower part of his leg for the submission. We looked at 2:

Achilles compression: With his toes under your armpit insert your inner forearm bone against his tendon to apply pressure.



Heel hook: this is a much more devastating submission due to the potential long term injury the leg can suffer. With his toes under your armpit roll towards them lifting the far side shoulder off the floor. This will allow you to sink his heel into the elbow crease of your arm. He is now seconds away from a 2 month limp.

Free form grappling

Free form with Seb and came away with a left black eye lid.

Week 43: centre control

3 escapes from side control.

1: elbow to knee to creat space and get to shin in ground control. Wrap other leg around their back and manipulate your hips to recover to full ground control.
2: lower hand drives and squeezes through his armpit gap and get double shoulder control. As you hip up and drive extend the scooped arm and roll him over.
3: pin his head high knee by placing your elbow on the floor and trying to squeeze it to your own hip. Manipulate your body so to elongate and narrow his base. Bridge and roll him over into side control.

Centre control detail:

soles of the feet touching right near his arse, spine long and slightly concave, head higher than his, arms out wide as if free falling and just off the floor. This will put tremendous pressure on his torso. Feet are in tight as this prevents him from really being able to use them to escape the position. Hands out wide to counter any bridging he attempts. Chest relaxed and pressing down on his face. The hands and forearms can be used to re-centre his head under you chest.
Having all this simple detail was something of another revelation tonight. 3 years of BJJ and never was this position and how to maintain it fully explained. It was a position I used to loose as quickly as I found it. With this new learning tonight I know that I will be much more aware of the key points of staying in this position longer with more control and more attacking options. Normally I a, not a fan of hyperbole but this learning tonight has had a significant effect on me. Should one person read this blog and come to training because of it then it must be due to the high quality teaching. Being a teacher myself I have trained in the past with many questionable teachers in martial arts. All were very good at their particular skills but none as capable as Lee at imparting said knowledge. This is why I am never bored, never plateauing or never not learning. 

Next we practised simply riding in and maintaining this position. Person underneath gives plenty of pressure. Remarkable learning curve tonight.

Upward and downward shoulder rotation.

We looked at both these positions from centre control then transitioning into side control to complete the submission.
From centre control if his arms come high to the head then attack with upward shoulder rotation, if he looks to control your posture with under hooks then look for the downward shoulder rotation. The key point of learning for me tonight was the angle of the arm under. I discovered by practise and observation that it needs to be nearer the elbow than the shoulder for tight and effective results.

Small glove freedom sparring on the ground with strikes (eyes closed). First murdered by Milzy who opened with the joyful question "you have not an interview tomorrow?" meaning my face was in for a pounding. It was. 

Big glove continual striking v grappling.

Big glove to keep constant pressure through striking and grappler can position. The drill is designed to give the grappler lots of pressure and opportunities for submissions. I was working with Craig and please so say ow well his ground game is coming along.

Top quality session tonight. The centre control detail has been a tremendous revelation.

Week 41: striking

Bulldogs warm up. Lots of fun despite the high risk of toe nail tearing potential of our mats!!

Side control battle: pass the leg over or bottom player secure a leg

Ground offence and defence

• correct defensive posture and positioning: 2 points of contact – the hip and elbow same side of the body, soles of feet together knees splayed.

• round kick attack: grab the heel and straighten the leg to attack with round kick.

• downward heel kick: an axe kick to those who know this name. The kick that made Andy Hug famous in K-1 in the 90’s.

• knee to the hamstring.

• escape from single grab: turn the foot towards the thumb and the grip will break.

• escape from double grab on one leg: turn the foot to the outside of his forearm to apply pressure to his grip.

Free form striking rounds.

Fast hands on the lead hand: throwing 3 fast punches off one hand then the other with the aim of making each set faster, more relaxed and simply better than the last set.

Fast hand combo: body – body – head and same starting with other hand. Maintain the rhythm until an error and start again.

Phone box sparring: Toe to toe with Craig. This was a mix of covering and opening to get used to strikes coming into the face.

Week 37: syllabus; double leg plus inner forearm choke detail

Started tonight with a some nice fast paced warm up drills. The first being the knee tap. If successful the opponent needs to sprawl as sanction. This progressed into a knee grab as if doing a single leg takedown.

Second warm up drill was working from Clinch to single leg free form movement. As always the head is key, no looking down, spine must be nice and positive.

Main part of the class in terms of learning and technique work was in two parts. Firstly we drilled Double leg detail.
Milsy and Charlie broke it all down very nicely into steps:
1. Squat down
2. Lead knee down
3. Capture the back of the knees as you press the ear against hhis lower rib cage, head on the outside, elbows in tight, eyes up, positive spine then step rear leg around his lead leg.
4. Stand and lift his lead leg and drive around with your head.  Drive with the head keeping the eyes up as this will prevent the head from dropping. Ensure the drive is in a circular motion over his standing leg forcing him off balance and thus to hop to maintain balance. Worked both sides for ages which was great as it gave us time to simply drill well.

The second part of the class revolved around Inner forearm choke detail. Last weekend Nate Diaz finished Jim Miller with a variation of this. Joe Rogan called it a power guillotine.  So the learning was around the inner forearm choke and transitioning into a forearm and bicep suppression.  Lee started from knee level. Opponent was on all fours and the inner forearm detail was outlined.  Key learning points: shoulder pressure, stack other forearm perpendicular over his trapezium, scrunch over to close tighter. If you want to roll to your back for the finish here is the extra key points: leg up on his back on opposite side to arm wrapping neck to prevent him escaping that side.

'Power guillotine' this is where the Promai naming conventions comes into its own coupled with being more observant watching MMA of what is happening. I should watch fights again with out commentary to establish what is going on in terms of body specifics. Lee said that Diaz simply dived deep on the neck which for us became a forearm and bicep suppression, Diaz also lay down perpendicular as to deepen the attack on the neck. Lee had us work this plus the arm in variation which went on very quickly.

After class I talked to Lee about the naming convention and how I find it really helpful. No more do I need to remember all the different labels for moves, now it more a case of being more self aware of the 5 types of submission and which part of my body is on his and how is it affecting him?  At first the Promai naming convention was completely alien and struggled to get my head around it. Now I have a clear understanding intellectually as well as practically. A simple change of language has improved my performance in grappling.

Sparring conditioning. Small glove stand up long and clinch range,fast but light, free form grappling and striking. Big glove long distance sparring. Plus rounds of shadow fighting, sprawls and push ups. I ended the session having a most entertaining grapple with Ptas. Lots of positional change, sweeps, sub attempts. Nice and even. Physical chess.

Week 36: grappling and conditioning

Guard pass: Sitting back and sticking knee in the centre of his hips will open his guard.

Triangle from mount: sitting in a nice a high mount offering attack to the head. He should cover up this giving you the chance to gain wrist control, push it to his chest as you step over put the shin behind his neck. Fall to the side side as you close the triangle.

Knee bar from guard: As he stands to stack your guard, underhook an ankle and move your hips to allow taking him down by manipulating with your legs. As he goes down wrap his leg for the knee extension. Get the hips against his knee to act as the most powerful fulcrum.

Calf suppression from guard: Could be my new most favourite sub. From open guard, keep his mind active with your hands as your lower shin looks to 'rest' on the back of his knee. When the time is right swim under his arms, take your head towards the foot you are going for, this will help to give you more power and leverage in the compression. Put that foot back with your lower shin compressing nicely against his calf. A sweet, sweet submission.

Guillotine baiting inside guard to jumping pass into head and arm triangle. Does what it says on the tin. I was hoping for another 30 minutes to deepen the learning and understanding of these techniques. For some reason they seem still caught in my visual memory so will take the opportunity to get visualising them before bed tonight.

Free form striking round, free form clinch round, free form grappling round.

Heavy bag conditioning striking from mount, guard and clinch. 30 second rounds.

Mirror striking shadow boxing with specifics inserted: body shots, head shots, knees and elbows, sprawls, push ups, double knee whilst maintaining. Very tough towards the end as the floor became very greasy from sweaty feet and the mirrors became redundant from condensation. Great pace a nd variety to this drill.

Mat static hold rounds and talk of mental over physical strength. Lee reminded us that the body is stronger and has more stamina than the mind thinks. He used the analogy of £1000 on the floor to go for 10 more seconds. A pleasing sound was that of mats dropping to the floor before mine did, which it didn't and that most of those are bigger and stronger than me. Interestingly, my limited vision gave a me a view of Crag and Ptas both who remained strong through the mat lift also. It is the time of the smaller man!!!

Video link for the guillotine bait: http://www.mma121.com/videos/mma-submission-tip-guillotine-to-arm-triangle-choke/

Week 29: syllabus work

Footwork round kick drill: shin pads on and round kicking delight to our partners legs. No checking, blocking just evasive footwork combined with eyes up and tidy attack position hands. This started the night off nicely in terms of pain. I must have feet made of paper as even with swanky grappling socks on the balls of both feet became soft and felt as if containing small pockets of fluid. Gladly when I removed my socks at the end of the session there was no fluid neither clear nor red meeting my eyes.
I really enjoy this drill from the limited nature of it. I enjoy practising the opportunity to keep my eyes as as they tend to wander to the areas I am attacking. In addition pain is a great teacher and unless you want your legs smashed to bits you tend to move them quick quickly.

Free form stand up sparring

Lee then talked about strategy in the ring at the start of a fight. We looked at working on both intensity and relaxation opening rounds. We began with no engagement. Just getting our partners hopefully moving backwards from the wide range and frequency of our implied attacks and they to us.  This progressed into starting in a similar fashion but when first contact was made it changed into free form sparring whilst maintaining same relaxation and intensity.

Chest spins with hooks in: keeping pressure just between their shoulder blades as spinning and thus transitioning from top to side to centre back control. Hands kept off the floor until in centre back control. Lee gave a great time to enable swifter and more secure control. By sitting up the hooks slide in easier than with the chest down. It does need to be swift as pressure needs to be applied to the back 

Side back control ankle pick and hook in: this position was then tamed about Lee as a very advantageous position, in many ways more so than centre back control. From here with back pressure applied control the far side arm and pick up his far side ankle, nice and high. Step over whilst keeping hold you momentarily trap your own arm. Strip it out as the hook makes contact.

Side back control arm extension roll: a tricky sweep and submission needing a lot of commitment. Essentially you roll under his chest pulling him on top of you as you pass your leg over his head and he lands in a very deep arm extension. A tricky sub to pull of successfully but one that is most fun to practise.

Free form grappling with Ptas. Excuses time. He did a very good job tonight. Tight control and vicious submissions. Clearly I have spent too much time want to play as opposed to develop and learn. It is time that I worked to more advantageous positions than playing off my back. Whilst I enjoy it I am not developing. In addition I am spending too much time defending. Perhaps this means more time needs to be practising sweeping and reversing positions?

A mix or mixed martial arts?

Has everyone else got it wrong?

Been thinking recently about how most people train in MMA in terms of the disciplines they study under the MMA umbrella. For most it consists of boxing, muay thai, wrestling, jiu-jitsu. There has only been 1 website I have where these individual disciplines are not taught as individual arts or even talked about with any real significance.

What is special about Promai is that the learning is geared towards all around improvement of the individual. I looked at Bisping's training schedule recently and consisted of 2 hour slots of said arts in the first paragraph. This is the way most people train. I believe that Promai is at the cutting edge in terms of training approaches coupled with the unique yet logical naming convention.

Each class is a clear example of why Promai is positively different from other martial arts and MMA schools:

1: Techniques are taught around concepts of movement. Recently we looked at the takedowns against the lead leg then how that could be applied to passing the defending legs of a grounded opponent.

2: Movement is taught in phases of range. Standing, clinch/takedown, ground. There is no wrestling class or boxing class. The curriculum has been developed (and is always evolving) so that as students we do not need to rely on memory of hundreds of techniques and counters from each art. For me I am learning sound positional mechanics. I am not learning how to box or wrestle. I am learning MMA which we know stands for mixed martial arts. Much of what I see on the internet stating to be MMA is in fact a mix of martial arts.

3: Technique naming convention: I am becoming better as a student in all aspects of MMA because I understand what I should be doing with my body. I generally struggle to do it well but that is the joy of the journey. My ground game has improved because I am cognisant of what should be where as opposed to pulling of a Peruvian Necktie, an axe kick or a German suplex.

4: Hard work and effort. There is no place to hide in class. You put in what you get out. To my mind all work extremely hard to improve themselves.

5: No ego. When training in BJJ there were some people who I did not want to roll with as they just had something to prove and would go for fast and dangerous submissions with people below their level. I was injured several times (lower back, knees) in the jits class because of over zealous training partners. Last week I took two meaty shots to the head but understood that both times there was no malice involved, just good hard training. I have trained in less honest systems, ones where it is difficult to prove your abilities as the sparring is not full contact, and so ego can be massaged and inflated. Everyone in the class at Promai is respectful to all others, there are no cliques or students getting special attention or even a lack of attention. Years ago I used to train with my good pal Jonny under Joe Hubbard in the Scientific Fighting Congress. There were others lads in the class who were favorites and unfortunately treated as such. I have seen and continue to read of this bias practise elsewhere in the martial arts. Glad to be out of that loop.

6: High quality instruction. The ways the learning is broken down and developed in second to none. As a teacher by trade myself I have seen many examples of inadequate teaching. Being good at a skill does not equate to being able to pass on how that skill was developed and improved. Thankfully, Lee and his senior students are most capable educators.

To conclude, Promai is a true expression of mixed martial arts. I believe Bruce Lee would be proud and jealous. Efficient and effective combat at all ranges and no political bullshit.

Week 25: striking plus strength and conditioning

started the session by studying combination striking. What follows are what I remember the combinations to be.

7 (lead hand hook punch) - 2 (head height rear hand punch)-round kick to the thigh

1 - 2 round kick to the thigh.

Superman punch - 2 lead round kick. Then changed the combo by altering the kick at the end of a front round kick

1 - 2 - knee then front kick, off both legs. More of a leaping front kick using the first knee to develop power and momentum in the front kick.

5 (straight lead punch to abdomen) - overhand right, clinch, round knee to the thigh followed by rising knee to the face.

Combination building:
Each partner taking it in turns to attack with a combination of shots. The following attacks were called out and they had to be used in your combination.

3 rounds using each: round kick to leg, elbow to body, outward punch.

Strength and conditioning
Leg kicking footwork drill with Milsy. Only allowed to use footwork to evade, no blocking or checking. Keep eyes up, hands disciplined, Got mashed to pieces. Picked up some movement tips from Milsy in terms of faking, twitching the hips, attacking after my attack.

6 attack drill: Again with Milsy. Round kick to each leg kick, round punch to each arm, left and right punch to the abdomen. This is a psychological drill. Lee emphasised no matter what pain we were feeling we must not show it on our face. Don't give anything away. I found this particularly tough with the legs kicks. Either my thighs are sensitive or I am a big tart when receiving leg kicks.

Press up x 8, j partner jumps over you as you press up, when done roll onto back to receive 8 belly punches. Did several rounds of this. About 9 sets.

Leg raises and belly punches as the partner pushes the legs down to hover height over the floor. Legs must be kept straight at all times. 3 set of 10.

Static holds. cross legged, back against the mirrors, elbows against the mirrors with upper arm parallel to the floor. Partner pushes for a count of 10 then pushes down hard for a count of 5. I was with Tom who is massive structurally compared to me so it was more of a workout for me than him. Did 3 sets of this.

Running laps as partner continuously jumps on safety mats. Switch on given call. This was the last conditioning exercise of the night, the jumping was particularly draining but great fun when finished. 3 sets.

Free form striking sparring. Worked with Pete. I focussed on the using the combinations taught at the start of the session. Pete commented on how predictable I was. Fair enough but I did tell him I was using the time to work. Pete then gave me some positive feedback about the progress my striking has made, more relaxed. This is all due to high quality teaching at Promai.

Week 24: ground and pound

After the usual exercise we got warmed up with a nice clinching drill. The aim was to secure double under hooks.

Then the real fun started, ground and pound training. One person in bottom control and both people are striking. Person on the top could not pass. Bottom controller was allowed to use legs in any way and set up submissions but not complete. This first several rounds were with big gloves. Was good hard training? Mishael almost managed to remove my face from my head with a left hand from hell to the right cheek bone.

We also did the same drill but with the small gloves and were more observant of contact.

Following this we looked at striker versus grappler in ground fighting. This really did limit the striker even though they had to continually strike from all angles. It did mean there had to be some creativity with parts of the body used to strike plus targets searched for. For the second time tonight I almost lost my face thanks to a meaty knee from Tom in transition of movement.

Final drill of the night was looking at options when going for the arm extension and they escape by pulling out and stacking. The end point was a the leg and shoulder suppression. The interesting details were how this transition was achieved. As the pull out and turn towards you squeeze the heels together and into his back, maintain wrist control too. This leg control is a powerful form of control. Keep the legs controlling his spine and posture, loosen the hand control a little so one can be pulled out and likely posted on the floor. As soon as posted attack with leg and shoulder suppression. With initial control you can apply an arm extension as squeezing his spine with your legs.

Strength and conditioning:
Neck: on belly with partner on your back. They push the head down for 10 as you lift it, then hands on the forehead and pull up for 10 as you look to put it back on the matt. Next they push against an ear for 10 then on the other side. Did 2 rounds of this.

Tricep burner: 10 cobra push ups with partner on your back and over the top of the head. First 9 went down with a 4 count, last one went down with a 10 count.

1 1/2 laps of hall 5 sprawls, 1 1/2 lap of hall a 10 strike combination. Did about 5 rounds of this.

Push ups

Sit ups with 2-6 punches at the apex.

Good hard and honest session as usual.