Grading Preparation (diary entry)

Grappled (Photo credit: I Am Janosik)

14.07.14 In preparation for our grading next week, the club focused on a wide area of training today. There is little point in teaching anything new at this stage – everything is about confirming information and skills. We began with a warm-up of basic stand-up and ground shadow boxing movements. Then we went through core syllabus work. We covered fence concepts with single and multiple aggressors, both in a role-play (target familiarization) format and against focus mitts. This moved onto incidental combinations. Then we covered combat grappling. The class circles one fighter and various individuals clinch the fighter. The fighter responds with anti-grappling or grappling responses. We focused on takedowns. The self-defence section was finished with multiple and single asymmetrical ground fighting whereby a fighter starts on their backs and fights to get to their feet. Moving on MMA, we began with Kickboxingsparring followed by grappling and finally MMA sparring. The lesson was finished with an in depth discussion on the CCMA tenets of Respect, Awareness, Courage, Discipline and Open Mind.