06.04.20 Monday night saw my client reach the fourth hour of her MMA course. Due to the Covid-19 restrictions, lesson two onwards has been conducted via video link. Tonight we covered more ground-fighting techniques. The lesson began with isolated technique work performed as a warm-up exercise. Slipping and rolling was used to get the neck and shoulders moving. Elbow strikes were also done to loosen off the shoulders. Hooks were used for hip rotations. Switching levels more actively brought in the leg muscles after which we gradually increased the range of kicks. We went through both kicking and takedown entries chained with punches. My concern here was to make the punches faster and more fluid. Not having resistance to hit against such as pads or a heavy bag means we have to be mindful of injuring our joints, but this does not mean we have to compromise our speed. Our objective now became to speed up our hands, setting up for the other techniques. This included both double-leg takedowns and sprawls with basic punching combinations before moving onto more specific technical instruction. We revised break-falls and also covered shoulder rolls before going to the ground. From here I focused on the sit-out from the turtle position and I talked my client through its application. Then we shadowed the anaconda choke and gator roll. The entire sequence might be reviewed as a series of counters. The double-leg takedown is countered by the sprawl and the sprawl is countered with the turtle and the sit-out. This is countered with the anaconda choke/gator roll. We finished the lesson with a five minute round of shadow sparring incorporating today’s techniques. We used visualisation, direct combination instruction and callisthenic repetition work.
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