Sparring Clinic and Chokes for Self-Defence (diary entry)

20.01.14

General Lesson

Today’s lesson completely focused on sparring. We broke down different areas of ranges to explore the general tactics of attack and defence. This began with boxing with one fighter restricted to jabbing and the other permitted to use his full boxing repertoire. We then moved onto kickboxing with one fighter restricted to using his teep kick (front leg front kick). It is always interesting to see how fighters adapt when they are given boundaries. Single techniques change their angles and levels, and fighters switch their stances more readily. The person without the restriction also gets a chance to work his attack and defence against a specific technique.

We moved onto clinch with takedowns versus defence. Then we did some guard-passing for the groundwork. The lesson finished on free sparring.

Next week’s lesson will be a special hour and a half workshop on Clubb Chimera Martial Arts approach to children’s self-defence (hard skills) training, including weapons awareness.

Private Lesson

After a warm-up that incorporated a lot ground movement for self-defence and relevant muscle activation we arrived at attacking the neck from the back position. My clients went through the applications of chokes to attack the windpipe and strangulation techniques. We then covered their defence. Guillotines from standing and with reverse arm-triangle and ground variations were also trained.

Chokes and strangles are common methods of unarmed attack. It is also perhaps the only series of unarmed techniques that can directly result in death. Strangulation both done with the bare hands and with some form of ligature are the preferred methods of the serial killer. My approach to most self-defence hard skills is to teach very generic tactics that can be easily adapted and applied. Basic anti-grappling methods applied here, but it is important to understand grappling manoeuvring and positioning.  

We then revised knee strikes from the previous session, looking at power development and from the clinch position.