Diary / Training Notes

Guard shoulder locks punish posture. If the person on top can sit tall, square their hips, and pull their arm free, the attack dies. If the guard player can break posture, turn the angle, and trap the shoulder line, the same attack becomes a sweep, a pin, or a finish. This sixth lesson in our Submission Grappling course at Clubb Chimera in the Chipping Norton area focused on that problem.

This lesson report covers the second hour of a private course at Clubb Chimera in the Chipping Norton area. The client has a background connected to the Cotswold School of Karate, which gives us a useful base. Karate footwork, distancing, timing and line work all cross over well. The problem is that gloved striking changes the rhythm. The guard, the round shape of punches and the pressure of a shorter fighter all create different demands.

A child does not need a long list of moves. They need simple actions they can use under pressure. Lesson five of a child self-protection course brings together movement, striking, recovery, awareness, and trust. The session revises key physical skills from earlier lessons, then adds a new defensive posture called the cover. It also develops a vital soft skill, knowing who belongs in a child’s circle of trust and what healthy boundaries look like.

This session worked from boxing defence into Dutch-style striking patterns, then into deceptive entries such as the superman punch and its opposite number, the bizarro punch. Every drill had the same job. Hit, defend, disguise the next strike, and leave with balance.

If a fighter only looks good when the drill behaves itself, the drill is doing too much of the work. This 1.5 hour private class with my veteran client was built around constraints. Not fancy ones. Not “coach has been reading weird books again” ones. Clear, nasty little rules that remove the comfortable answer. No retreat. No favourite weapon. No starting when you feel like it. No hiding behind rhythm. No easy reads. That’s where useful learning lives.

My client entered the fifth hour of his second Submission Grappling course, where our current theme is the guard. Last week we looked at arm-bars from closed guard. Tonight we moved to the triangle choke. The lesson stayed inside closed guard and used three constraints-led games to make the key lessons obvious through resistance. The aim was not to memorise a perfect move. The aim was to discover what makes the triangle work.

This was another private session with a couple working together on the ground game. The focus stayed on guard passing, but the lesson also gave us a clearer picture of how each person is developing under pressure. Free-sparring, or rolling, exposed the truth quickly. Both had improved. Both also needed different next steps. That is the value of private training for a couple. Two people can share the same lesson, but not need the same correction.

...the aim was simple. Build combat fitness without wasting energy. Use footwork to sharpen movement, decision-making, balance, and breathing under pressure. This was not a general conditioning session. It was a focused private lesson near Chipping Norton, built around sparring rounds with specific movement rules.

A kata lesson improves when it can survive contact. Despite not actually teaching karate, let alone kata, this lesson demonstrates how another martial arts teacher can improve the teaching of their particular martial art by using cross-training principles correctly. This sparring session with a teacher from Cotswold Karate School tested that idea through grip fighting, clinch exits, knees, elbows, and Naihanchi principles. The work centred on one question. How can close-ra

Care home staff do not need a combat sports class in work clothes. They need personal safety skills that fit their daily environment, their duty of care, and the real limits of what they can do at work. They must protect themselves without escalating a vulnerable resident, visitor, or colleague. That changes the training from the first minute. The format was also different. This was an Online Teaching Consultation, not a standard class....

Sparring should solve problems, not rehearse bad habits at higher speed. This session with my veteran client used a constraints-led approach. The lesson ran across 12 rounds. Each pair of rounds had a specific rule. Each rule forced a different answer:close-range control, distance management, disguised entries, ring position, clinch entry, and limited-weapon tactics.

Children need more than stranger danger. Most risk does not arrive wearing a label. A good self-protection lesson teaches children to notice behaviour, protect space, use their voice, move early, and recover if they fall. This lesson covered awareness, boundary setting, simple movement, and pressure-tested ideas from respected self-protection teachers and writers, including Gavin De Becker and Geoff Thompson. The aim is not to frighten children. The aim is to give them

The fifth lesson is where footwork starts to feel less like a drill and more like boxing. This session centred on the shift step, a simple but powerful way to change stance, cover ground, and keep punches flowing. For a fitness client, it adds rhythm, movement, and focus. For a boxing student, it builds the habit of moving with purpose. No sparring. No pressure to fight. Just good boxing mechanics, hard work, and steady progress.

Advanced training should sharpen decisions, not just add more techniques. The sixth lesson in this block kept that principle at the centre. We worked through 12 rounds of constraints-led games, each one built around a common fight problem. The rules were tight. The feedback was immediate. Students had to solve the problem under pressure, then swap roles and learn the other side.

Hour four moved the class from holding close guard to attacking with purpose. The main target was the arm bar from close guard, but the lesson was not built around copying a fixed sequence. It was built around three games that forced students to find the arm, climb the body, change the angle, and finish with control.

Good guard passing starts before anyone grabs a collar, presses a knee, or drops shoulder pressure. It starts with range. In this private class with two long-time couple clients near Chipping Norton, we worked through three guard-passing games. Each game isolated a different distance between the top and bottom player. That made the lesson clear, safe, and easy to repeat. The aim was not to collect techniques. The aim was to understand what each range demands.

The seventh class should not feel like a first class with harder punches. It should show better choices, cleaner balance, and sharper reactions. This session did that. The senior client had already built the basics: stance, guard, straight punches, simple footwork, and safe kicking mechanics. Class seven moved the work closer to sparring without turning it into a brawl. The theme was clear: make the kick count, answer back after being hit, and control the space under pr

Today’s lesson continued my teacher client from Cotswold Karate School’s progress with using Muay Thai martial arts cross-training methods to enhance his own martial art of Wado-Ryu Karate. My martial arts cross-training service, especially to traditionalists, is not to teach them their base or primary art. My job is to provide them experiences and methods to use other systems. This is Clubb Chimera Martial Arts approach I call Vagabond Warriors.

Muay Thai Personal Training Combinations fail when they are memorised too neatly. Real opponents do not feed perfect targets. They move, cover, counter, and change the range. This lesson continued my veteran client’s Muay Thai work in our private one-to-one classes. He has trained with me since 2014, so the aim was not to run him through basic combinations. He already knows how to jab, cross, hook, kick, knee, elbow, cover, and move. The aim was to make his combinations ad

Good boxing fitness does more than make someone tired. It gives the body a job to solve under fatigue. Hour four of my client’s second Triple C Boxing Fitness course continued this principle. These courses are built for people who want the fitness benefits of boxing without sparring or partner-contact work. The training still uses real boxing mechanics. It still demands timing, balance, footwork, co-ordination and power. It just removes the fighting element.