All Range MMA and Covering to Knees (diary entry)

06.01.14

General Lesson

As this was the first lesson of the New Year, I decided to make sure all ranges were covered. We began with stand-up combination work. This included boxing combinations on the focus mitts and then Thai boxing combinations. We kept on the rolling motion, used against jabs and then applied it in the clinch. All students began in a neutral over-hook/under-hook position and then used the rolling motion to get to the under-hook side, ducking under the arm to take the back. We then drilled rear waist-lock takedowns. Staying with the back position I introduced taking an arm-bar. Here the person on the back attempts a choke and once this is defended isolates an arm. He then goes for the arm-bar. The lesson was finished with some MMA free-sparring. 

Private Lesson – Self-Defence

We began with a series of ground exercises for warming up and muscle activation. Then we went onto the cover as means for grappling. Ideally the cover should be used for the student to gain a striking initiative, but sometimes this is not an option and trapping an attacker’s arms or seeking the clinch is preferable. These responses can be divided up into three lines of attack. You take what you are given in such circumstances, but I teach the highline as the primary target. Obviously varying heights and positions have to be taken into consideration, but as a generic principle it is good advice to aim for the head area. These tactics led onto the use of the knee strike, perhaps the technique most people associate with self-defence. We covered kneeing from the high-line position and also after sprawling from a low-line grappling attack.