Takedown Countering (diary entry)

18.01.17   Takedown defence training continued tonight, but this time the focus was totally on grappling counters and we looked primarily at the single leg takedown.   Warm Up   We began with mobility exercises – quadruped shoulder rolls, progressive scap press-ups and dynamic cat stretches.  This moved onto callisthenics - Indian press-ups and Indian squats. Then we covered more specific muscle engagement – hip thrusts, single leg hip thrusts, shoulder bridging, combat base squats and sprawling.   Grip Fighting   Warming up into wrestling training we began with the collar and elbow lock-up. From here drilled bulling exercises, where I encouraged my client to be more proactive and to take the lead with the head control and dominating the grip. A simple necktie hold, if applied with the right body mechanics, can be an extremely efficient tool that enables the user any number of attacks. We then went to the mid-section and pummelled under-hooks. Finally we drilled the basic single leg entry.   Defending the Single Leg   We covered three defences against the single leg. First up we blocked the single leg and re-pummelled the same technique against our opponent. This was a technique covered at the end of last week’s lesson. Next we covered an old-school catch wrestling submission, as described in Ken Shamrock’s book Inside the Lion’s Den.Known as the crucifix this technique resembles a full nelson but performed in reverse.  Lastly, we trained a tomoe nage style sacrifice counter to the single leg. Here is the kimura grip version of the technique we used:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERjQlhc7_VE   Functional Training   The lesson finished with a tabata of two exercises that targeted takedown defence body mechanics. My client performed 4 x 20 second rounds of the Turkish Get-up and 3 x 20 second rounds of Sprawl/Deadlifts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LL3FveJukbY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5v0UmnxmLY