Clubb Chimera Martial Arts : CCMA

Juniors

The warm-up was led today, but one of the youngest in our group. This can be pretty daunting, but he stepped forward when I asked for a volunteer and did a good job in getting everyone moving, finishing with a chasing game. I then discussed the topic for today’s lesson. At the risk of sounding like some sort of trendy maths teacher I asked the class to think in triangles. The triangle is the strongest structure known to man and provides a useful guide to understanding how attack and defend efficiently.

First we looked at takedowns. Takedowns are all about take another person’s balance. Balance is best taken when the balance point is understood. By looking at how a person stands you can draw two imaginary diagonal lines, one from each foot, until they meet at a point. This point is where they have no balance and therefore the place where they need to be pushed or pulled in order to disrupt their stance and to get a takedown. These lines can be drawn either from the front or from the back. I have seen this very simple way of looking at taking someone’s balance pop up in grappling art I have studied. Of course, the shape that is made from the lines and the feet is a triangle. This exercise was first done with compliant partners who nevertheless retained their stance if their balance wasn’t compromised. After this we built up to full-on resistant stand-up wrestling to test this approach.

Next we looked at the cover. The structure of the cover is a triangle, making it incredibly resilient to impact. However, as mentioned in numerous diary entries before it must be transitional, it must be mobile and it should not be applied when moving backwards or standing still. It’s a counteroffensive method for regaining the initiative at the in-fight stage of a conflict. I coached in two ways today. Firstly one student simply fed the other, prompting him to cover and close in. Next this was done with the code white test, found in our basic warm-up in the senior class.

We then did some MMA free-sparring. Next week we will look at how the triangle is used on the ground.

Seniors

Today’s lesson evolved into a session focusing on positional training. Our focus is always on drilling principles, behaviours and habits as opposed to being technique-led. I like developing activities that bring out positive behaviours, which I can then cultivate through cross-training experience or teaching very basic high percentage positioning that can be further developed into effective techniques. Today we focused on the latter, making the lesson a lot more technical than usual and yet still basic in nature.

After a short warm-up we went through the positions and movements used in the high percentage technique warm-up. First there is the fence, which is used to deliver a pre-emptive straight strike or a hook rear strike. This is a basic tactic we teach before matters deteriorate into a fight. It needs to be trained like any other drill to promote correct behaviour. A missing part of the pre-emptive strike jigsaw puzzle I have noticed is actually practicing making contact with an unprotected target. So, as an exercise I have one student walking towards the person using the fence. The fence person offsets their aggressor if required and makes immediate contact with the aggressor’s face. Obviously this is practiced under controlled conditions, but it is important for the fence person to make contact with the target. Another important point with this drill and all the others that we did in this session was constant repetition. I cannot emphasize this enough. Repetition is the mother of skill and in order to establish neurological pathways with the correct responses the drill has to be done regularly. This drill can then be overlapped, full-force, on focus mitts and then under resistance with an aggressor wearing full-face head cage, perhaps even with a neck brace to prevent brain shake.

Next we drilled responding and transitioning from the knees. This included basic back rolling and then forwards onto the knees to standing as well as rolling backwards onto the knees and into a double leg takedown.

The seated position focused on the butterfly guard. We move in the butterfly guard and we can engage with the position if needed. The butterfly guard is a mid-range guard used mainly for fending off, transitioning and sweeping. From a proactive perspective we looked at the transitioning and the sweep. Transitioning consisted of a simple arm drag, where the student using the guard takes the back of his opponent. The sweep uses leverage to turn the opponent over into a pinned position.

Then we moved onto the closed guard, which forms the final position in our transitional striking warm-up. When drilling straight strikes, I teach a simple push away into a standing position. From a self defence perspective this is pretty crucial and should be top of the priorities. You don’t want to spend an unnecessary amount of time on the ground. From an MMA perspective, if you are primarily a striker, then this is also an import anti-grappling tactic. When drilling the hook striking transitional part of the exercises, I teach a simple sweep from the closed guard. The position then lends itself to a kimura (a type of key lock) submission hold from the guard, which is useful if you cannot move your attacker. Having said this, I keep the lock out of the warm-up drill as it is getting more towards control and restraint and attribute training.

The class was finished with specific training. This was MMA style sparring from the butterfly guard and the closed guard.