01.04.09 Diary Entry

Apr 2nd, 2009 by Jamie Clubb

Rear palm - photo by Sonia Audhali

Juniors

The juniors and the seniors did what our American cousins might call CCMA 101. After a warm-up led by two senior students, they went straight into the S1 versus S2 predator/prey game. After this they practiced the S1 versus S2 principle in a confined area and for a one minute round. Finally they began S1 versus S2 after been pinned to the wall. Each of these exercises helps bring out instinctive responses. The next stage is to develop these confirmed responses in a manner that trains realistic but positive behaviours. By using the focus mitts the juniors drilled the pre-emptive strike and the movement drills. As always, the person holding the focus mitts thinks like a coach. They find their training partner’s weaknesses such as dropping their hands or defending a kick or being off-balance or not being fast enough with a strike. They give them feedback by showing them where they are weak. Then they feed them the same set-up until they catch on. Later, they recall this weakness and confirm whether or not their partner has learnt from his mistake.

Seniors

Like the juniors, the seniors also went the CCMA basics. They first did our standard drill of fence-work, pre-emptive and transitional straight and round strikes, cover drills from all angles, chokes/strangles and the transitional kicking drill. After this they did the multiple S1 versu S2 activity, the one-on-one version of S1 versus S2, and S1 versus S2 from the clinch. These confirmed S1 techniques were then drilled on the boxing gloves, as opposed to the focus mitts, and as movement transitional drills.

This is all material I look forward to bringing to MAF-UK on 4^th and 5^th April. The seniors are in Studio One at 11:15 for their free CCMA workshop on 4^th April. The juniors will be in the Secondary Suite at 11:15 for their free CCMA workshop on 5^th April.