Putting MMA through DFLT (diary entry)

12.07.17   Tonight was my client’s first day back after his holiday. We decided to do an overall look at MMA. Warm-up consisted of light upper and lower body mobility exercises, focusing on shoulders and hips, gradually increasing intensity. Then we worked through a routine of quadruped shoulder circles, dynamic cat stretches, Indian press-ups (increasing in intensity from a dynamic stretch to a callisthenic exercise), plank squats, dynamic Asian squats and Indian squats.   Our technique warm-up began with a series of free-flowing coaching/partner exercises, covering all three ranges of MMA. We began with mirror footwork, using Western Boxing and Muay Thai techniques. This was more of a body conditioning drill for Muay Thai. We then did some neck wrestling, moving onto Thai clinch and then wrestling clinch with entries for basic takedowns. This section finished with guard-passing exercises, transitioning through pins and submission entries from guard.   The bulk of our work was DFLT (Dynamic Feedback Loop Training). This is a layering approach to combat training. It involves isolating attack and defence free-form training, usually on focus mitts, and then combining them for an intense round of coaching before integrating them into some sort of pressure test i.e. sparring. We used a similar structure for both western boxing and Muay Thai. Both began with a minute of flash-pad work, where the emphasis was on striking targets when they appeared (no verbal prompting). This was followed by a minute of defensive only work. The final round on the focus mitts brings both these areas together, with the fighter striking targets when he sees them whilst at the same time maintaining a good defence. This is then all put under pressure with sparring. Then we isolated MMA clinch training, where my client struck the pads and then improvised a takedown entry or defended a takedown and struck the pads or covered against a striking attack whilst moving in for a takedown entry.   My client, who has been training with me for over three years now, decided he wanted to focus a lot more on specific fight conditioning. We plan to do more overview work on pressure training in future lessons.   Here is an example of half-speed DFLT used for MMA https://youtu.be/RsTsfs6CSHo?list=PLEABD9B22A385E460 Some specific DFLT focusing on fighting from underneath   https://youtu.be/L_2YY-ZW2JA?list=PLEABD9B22A385E460