17.09.19
Tuesday night’s first lesson brought my client up to the seventh hour of his Submission Grappling/Ground-Fighting course. We completed our basic escape series with escapes from north-south, knee-pin, reverse scarf-hold and the mounted positions.
North-south is a particularly horrid position to escape from, but we looked at turning it into a proactive defence (not sure if that is an oxymoron of sorts!) Here we looked at bridging and snaking to attack the opponent’s leg. I made the point that if the person pinning you is spending most of their time trying to avoid getting their legs caught then the mental battle has already been switched, as this should be a very strong pin, and it will only be matter of time before the defender hooks a leg.
I chose capturing the ankle as our defence against the knee-on-stomach position and from here to trapping across to the supporting leg and pinning the opponent. Again, bridging and snaking were fundamental.
Reverse scarf-hold was dealt with purely from snaking out and attacking the back or arm. Here, the understanding of when the pinning part was over and fighting from guard had begun was very evident.
The mounted position is another extremely effective pin and its defence shares some similarities with side-control. The defender can either bridge and sweep or snake and pull guard. This is dependent on where the opponent’s attention is focused. If they have a tight seated position then the sweep is best whereas if they are more into flattening you out then snaking is preferred. We looked at wrapping the arm when going for the bridge and the use of the elbow to help create room when snaking.
The lesson finished with 2 x 5 minute rounds of specific sparring, attacking from and defending against pins.