23.01.19
Tonight I continued my work with the nephew and uncle team, which comprises a half an hour junior lesson and an hour senior lesson. The junior lesson brought in aspects of footwork and how they relate to the Muay Thai clinch. The senior lesson transitioned between stick-work, punching and elbow strikes, including groundwork.
The junior lesson built up a series of punch-kick combinations. These were then connected with shin-checks, Dracula guard and teeps. Homework for this section was to work on adding kicks to all punching combinations, so they become seamless in execution. The kicks were also replaced with spear knee strikes. We then deconstructed and examined how to catch mid-section round kicks. I focused on moving into the kick rather moving back, the importance of the cross-check and when to grab the kicking leg.
Next we looked at the clinch. The main emphasis for this section was on footwork. The v-step, used from either stance was most important. This movement is used to break an opponent’s balance and is then joined with a back spear knee. We looked at timing and how to coordinate these movements.
The senior lesson began with angles 1 and 2 with double sticks. These were then trained transitioning through postures. Next we looked at them from an empty-hand perspective applying them to hammer-fists, forearm strikes and elbow strikes (slashing elbow and elbow chop). We introduced trapping to the flow. We then trained v-stepping with angles 1 and 9 using the double stick. We moved into some semi-compliant drilling and experimenting, using angled strikes only against jab/cross within an MMA stand-up context. Lesson finished with elbow strikes being used inside the guard and to achieve a full leg triangle from guard.