25.05.19
Saturday morning saw the start of my two junior client’s third private course with me. Today we begin clinch/takedown training. This is a general collection of techniques taken from stand-up wrestling based sports without the use of the jacket (or no-gi).
We focused almost entirely on break-falls and rolls, which are essential to ensure the safety and also to build the foundational fitness required for an activity that will involve a lot of landing and getting up! We covered front, side and back break-falls along with forward, side and back rolls along with the variations on the shoulder roll. Each technique was taught in progressive stages and conditioning exercises were also given for both attendees to practise between now and the next lesson.
The lesson finished with an introduction to the collar and elbow tie-up. Here we looked at bulling, changing stance and grips, and gaining the dominant position in the clinch. I then brought in the outer reap throw to be covered in more depth next lesson.