Week 42: inverted side control

No grip grappling warm up: great fun grappling this way as I found ways to use my legs and the back of my wrists to enable control without the use of the inner parts of the hands.

Main technical part of the class:

Inverted side control:

Key points: leg side leg sweeps under own hips, weight on his chest, tight bicep grip and elbow clamp, no gap between you and his armpit so he can't escape, hips off the floor and weight driving into his chest.

Knee extension: he goes to hook a leg in escaping from the inverted side control so dive for the foot and pull it into to the side of your neck. Feet on his arse, knees clamped together, one hand control his foot as the other wraps the lower leg to your chest. Extend and arch backwards with tight tight control for the sub.

Forearm with shoulder suppression: Let him escape by trying to push the face. As his arm straightens push past it and throw the head to the floor as you get your hips to the floor quickly too. Palm to palm grip and drive down with the shoulder hopefully closing the sub off.

I need much more time with both of these as I found them quite difficult to pull off swiftly and cleanly.

Reversal sweep: Keep him moving and disrupt his base, feel for the gap and roll him over (timing not strength).

Free form grappling with Neil and Milzy. Milzy was hell on earth and spent the eternity escaping and trying to prevent his numerous submissions. Thankfully he was kind and commented on my defensive grappling and improvements in addition to saying nice things about me as a teacher!!! Seriously hard work grappling him. Control and positional awareness is excellent as is his variety of attacks. In addition when he caught me in upward and downward shoulder rotation he knew how much pressure to apply to let me attempt to escape before finishing. Appreciated the consideration of his training partner's welfare.

Strength and conditioning: Range of press ups, v ups, more press ups ending with good old fashioned static mat holds.

Bizarre injury of the session is some pleasant purpling of my right big toe nail.

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/