On the Threshold of Anti-Grappling (diary)

cover checking

25.03.17

 

This morning’s double lesson comprised of hours five and six of this client’s first basic course on self-protection. We revised previous material before covering the clearance of obstacles/fighting around obstacles, regaining the initiative and short-range natural weapons.

 

The lesson began with a serious specific muscle activation exercises, focusing on straight and round strikes. We also used the opportunity to move through the individual postures covered in the previous class – half-kneeling, seated and from the back to standing.

 

knee-smaller

Questions that arose from the previous lesson included how to generate more force into the straight knee strike. This technique is used in conjunction with incidental combinations and can be devastating in its efficiency when striking a lowered head. A key area I teach in developing this particular knee strike is to get underneath the technique. The power is generated through gathering force in an upward momentum from both legs and then accelerating as the strike leg leaves the ground. Full penetration of the strike is achieved through a tilt in the pelvis and extending on the ball of the supporting foot. There are various exercises that can be used to overload and exaggerate this movement in order to help develop more power. Two examples include coming up from a sprawling, crouching or kneeling position off the ground to perform the knee strike or alternatively stepping onto a slightly raised platform with the supporting foot and driving the knee upwards.

 

After going through straight and hook punches along with referencing targets with the lead free hand, we moved onto clearing obstacles. It stands to reason that a target is not just going to stand there and accept being struck. After pre-empting a potential attacker the defender has to keep the momentum of his counter-assault going. Not only does this require incidental combinations that result from the target instinctively and/or tactically moving away from the strikes but also a method for dealing with covering or blocking. The target is likely throw up his arms to protect his head or jam successive strikes. We worked on using the leading hand to clear this defensive tactic and push it back to the target. I trained resisting to grip and to keep the obstacles pressed towards the target to further reduce the likelihood of the in-fight from deteriorating into stand-up grappling. As an alternative we looked striking around obstacles.

cover close

 

Next we moved onto the cover. This proactive recovery posture was discussed in some depth and I wrote a detailed essay on it here some time back:  This essay was later developed into a chapter in my ebook “Mordred’s Victory and Other Martial Mutterings”. We trained this position using a code white test from the front, from the ground (covering basic disengagement from a symmetrical ground-fighting situation), in response to an offline attack and in response to an attack from behind.

 

This brought us onto elbow strikes. In self-defence, I teach these as short range techniques only selected for short range targets. We looked at the horizontal and backward elbow strike. These techniques and the overarching theme of today’s training brought us to the threshold of the anti-grappling strategy. Here the defender has several last ditch tactics to create space using strikes before either fighter has an opportunity to grapple properly. Next time we go directly into anti-grappling as a means for breaking initial holds and to revert back to the preferred striking situation for the defender.

 

Photography by Charlotte Von Bulow Quirk for “Mordred’s Victory and Other Martial Mutterings”