19.02.14
This is my third private session with this particular client, focusing on foundation self-protection training. Today’s session reviewed pre-emptive striking, incidental combinations and recovery. We also transitioned through postures. This is covered earlier on in the sessions in connection to impact development and striking from compromised positions. However, today’s focus was regaining footing as quickly as possible.
In a self-defence context it is important for a fighter to develop an early behaviour of getting to an advantageous position as quickly as possible, particularly if the position they are currently fighting from isn’t a standing one. Although basic points about avoiding putting their hand on the ground at all times and keeping a strong defence are emphasized, I do not layer in a lot of detail regarding fighting from these different postures at this stage. We paid particular attention to asymmetrical ground fighting with the client getting his head away from his standing attacker’s feet and regaining his footing.
We then moved onto anti-grappling. Training behaviours take precedence over specific techniques, so we therefore focused on striking whilst being grappled first. This is to over-ride the human default behaviour to grapple a grappler. Details of the reasoning behind this can be found in my “Combat Grappling: When Things go Wrong” article. This then took us onto anti-grappling tactics, addressing eye-gouges, head-butts and very close-quarter striking. We will continue with this in the next session.
Various diary entries on Combat Grappling:
