Hip Bump Sweeps, Knee Bumps & Shoulder Bumps in the Guard (diary entry)

22.01.20   Wednesday night covered a Junior Submission Grappling course the use of the kimura and basic sweep from the closed guard as well as more Dirty Boxing in MMA, including controlling entry into the clinch and ground-fighting applications.   The junior lesson began with a series of warm-ups for developing ground-fighting fitness. I also introduced specific callisthenics for fighting from the guard. These included kimura crunches, arm-bar and triangle hip raises.   Moving into the closed guard, my junior was taught the basic kimura hip bump sweep. We covered some important fundamental points about this sweep. Firstly, we discussed why the person holding guard must be in a ready position rather than lying flat. He will be responding to an opponent who is posturing up, such an opponent wants to control the hips so they can pass guard. The last thing you want to do is allow this by staying so far out of range. By lying in a shelled position the fighter is ready to sit up and attack the arm with an over-hook in a similar way that he might go for the Kimura lock. This is timed as the opponent sits back to posture making use of this momentum. The next thing is to hold a closed guard firmly in place with the ankles locked. Yes, the fighter will immediately unlock the ankles as he moves to sit up, but it is important to establish control before this happens to prevent the opponent from establishing a strong posture.   We then looked at what happens if the opponent seeks to flatten the fighter in the guard by going to the safety position. Here we sought to attain the Kimura. Sometimes this is best located by disrupting the opponent’s base, making him put his hand down on the ground. From here it is important to secure the Kimura lock whilst the opponent is down and then angling off to complete the submission.   Moving onto the senior section, my client began with some outside boxing strategies on the focus mitts. We looked at hitting the v-step where possible and using the pawing jab where necessary. From here we looked at turning the jab into a post and timing it with moving his hips back in a low grappling stance. This is a response to the fighter coming in with the shoot. From here we switched in an overhand or a cobra punch or even superman punch to completely break up the levels of attack. It was also important to tag in a classic mid-range hook upon landing before moving out of range. This latter technique was also alternated with a close-range hook/shovel hook/smash punch.   We then revised the Dirty Boxing process I have been covering with three of my clients for the past few months. The shoulder bump and knee bump were given especial attention here. We added a low round kick to the inside of the opponent’s rear leg, a lead hook to the head and a knee-pick takedown to the knee-bump combination. Then we went back over the shoulder bumps and I took it to the ground, using body-shots to the ribs in combination with knee bumps to the face whilst inside an opponent’s guard. We also revised some the collar tie set up from slap-down parries/trapping and the ear-rip into an under-hook cross-face. From here we transitioned into a Muay Thai dominant clinch position for knee strikes.   The lesson finished with one five minute round of MMA sparring.   The above screen grab picture comes from this excellent coaching video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCos35cv5T8