Strike to Grip, Grip to Strike (diary entry)

04.04.2022

Hour seven of my couple clients' course on the clinch was conducted via Zoom on Monday. We went back over the material previous covered in more detail, working to build more effective tactics and behaviours. After the warm-up we looked at rolling/weaving, switch-hitting and shifting footwork. This approach is very akin to the Rocky Marciano style of swarming, The weaving and foot shift enables a fighter to close distance on a striker very quickly whilst maintaining a good defence. When it comes to footwork, the movement is the reverse to what the majority of stand-up fighting instructs. The rear foot pushes the front the foot like a Newton's Cradle. By moving in this way, the fighter is propelled at the opponent off the centre the line and aggressively under their strikes. I then had my two clients drill this against some active combinations. It began with just regular jabs and then was layered in with rear straights and hooks. Next brought in Archie Moore's cross-arm guard. Here I emphasised the importance of not staying in this guard but to adapt, using a mixture of high and cross-arm guards whilst moving past the incoming strikes. In addition to the straights and hooks, we now layered in uppercuts and knee strikes as the swarmer closed in and tested the cross-arms. 

Moving onto Randy Couture's dirty boxing, I went back to solo technique work and we drilled lead hook/rear uppercut off shift and roll on both sides. Next they partnered up and trained the single collar tie to break posture. This was followed by under-hooks. From here we combined the two and then blended them with the hook/uppercut combination of the shift/roll movement. https://clubbchimera.com/services/