The Triangle and MMA Knife Disarm? (diary entry)

a soldier demonstrating the triangle choke. The bottom fighter's legs constrict the top fighter's neck and arm. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

26.11.12.

General Lesson

After a student-led combat conditioning warm-up we continued with out ground fighting training. This focused entirely the leg triangle position. Last week we covered the oma-plata - a type of shoulder lock or sweep from guard. I noticed a key problem was that several students were getting stuck half-way. They lacked posture.

This led me back to a common problem I encounter in coaching. We instinctively seem to look at the shape of the technique and not the principles behind it. When someone sees a triangle choke or an oma plata they get obsessed with creating the triangle shape with their legs. I remember when I first saw a triangle I didn't immediatley register that it was a choke or strangle hold. These were key things I taught about about the oma plata tonight:

1. Attack the shoulder. That needs to be secured in order for the move to work.

2. Ensure a firm core. So much of this technique comes from the hip flexors and abdominal muscles.

We performed several triangle crunches to look at the shape being performed and held the move in a shoulder stand.

We then did some specific sparring with guard-passing.

Private Lesson

The new student expressed an interest in both self-protection and MMA. He was specifically interested in edged weapon disarms. We began training with a brief introduction to self-defence. Here we covered the fence in order to teach pre-emption, followed by the importance of constant forward pressure and finally removing obstructions. We then went back to the fence to drill respeonses to an edged weapon attack.

If an exit is open, the first thing I teach is to run and run with a tactical awareness.This means keeping an eye on the person with the blade and also of any other potential hazards. Next we discussed and covered using incidental weapons. Finally, having eliminated access to an exit or an incidental weapon we looked at unarmed defences. We looked at controlling the shoulder and the wrist of the weapon arm. This moved into shoulder barges and then a two-on-one arm-hold. We then drilled switching sides and put some pressure on the activity. This allowed us to move onto some unarmed grappling, where we turned the entry into a two-on-one into an arm-drag. And then, having taken the back, we covered the rear naked choke.

The session was finished with an introduction to some functional fitness exercises to drill take-down defence with a medicine ball.

30 x Full-Squat/Bridge

30 x Full Body Defence

Related articles

• MMA: The 10 Most Dangerous Guards in Mixed Martial Arts (bleacherreport.com)