Double Bill Night! Part 1 (diary entry)

20.02.12

Junior MMA

Following on from last week we looked at striking in the guard. After a functional fitness warm-up we began with the guard-jumping exercise. As previously explained, this tends to cut-down on time in the clinch range and is favoured by those who want to take the fight from stand-up to submissions or sweeps from the guard. We then followed on with the jumping up in guard exercise. This is used to either break the guard or seriously impair it by stacking the person holding guard against the cage. As one student observed last week the frog-jump warm-up exercise is identical to this jumping motion. Both exercises were repped for muscle memory retention. 

We then reviewed tactics in the guard. This began with the combination covered last week - low hook to the floating ribs, high diagonal hammer-fist to the wrist to clear cover, overhand right to the exposed head and repeat on the other side. This could be followed up by frog-jump into a standing position and downward striking.

Image via Wikipedia

Next we looked at the defence using the guard. An obvious priority for anyone being proactive in the gaurd is to tie up or at least reduce the impact of the striking arms. So the guard must be climbed to restrict the attacker's shoulders. From here there are numerous options. For beginners we looked at setting up for a standard arm-bar or a type of cross-leg arm-bar. The latter I learnt in the Keysi Fightng Method's MMA coaching course back in 2010 and is a far simpler technique than the standard arm-bar from guard. For the more advanced students I looked at the use of the scissor guard, particularly as a means for striking - a much neglected area for the person holding the guard and is normally relegated to just going for submissions.

The class finished with specific sparring - striking in the guard - and then a warm-down of shadow boxing and stretching.

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