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Tonight the warm-up combined agility drills with regular mat exercises and a little partner-work. Therefore footwork exercises would quickly transition into bear-crawls, frog jumps, snaking/shrimping, rolls, sprawls, sit-throughs, takedown entriees and target striking.
Keeping energy levels up the class moved onto some focus-mitt work. Intensity was the name of the game today with the need to work fast-twitch muscle fibres with specific techniques and combinations. Freestyle work was mixed in with intensive repetitions of fast straight punching from standing, kneeling, guard, switch-kicking, boxing combinations and kickboxing combinations.
We then finished off with a combination that had something for all the respective levels. It began with an armbar from guard, managing someone striking by controlling his arms. You attempt an armbar. If this fails you go to the oma plata. Then you have an option to go for an ankle-lock and finally a sweep.
We graded a student who had to pull out of the last grading due to an injury. Going for his fourth grade (green) he had to do a variety of self-protection and MMA exercises. This included using the fence and pre-emptive striking first in role play and then against focus mitts both in one-on-one scenarios and multiple aggressors. He was then tested on takedowns, asymmetrical ground defence, fighting from under a pin and from the guard position. This was followed by multiple pad-work from various ranges. Next he had to spar a succession of students of similar ability range in boxing, kickboxing, clinch-fighting, ground-fighting and MMA. The last combat pressure-test was the code white test and the last physical test was the will drill. The session finished with a soft skills test covering awareness, attitude and handling fear. The grading was a success and I am happy to say the student more than met the criteria, showing the right range of ability and knowledge, as well as the drive to keep going.
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