Tag Archives | Brazilian jiu-jitsu

Testing the Ranges with One-Sided Sparring (diary entry)

January 30, 2023 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
omoplata specific sparring

27.01.2023 Hour 10 of my client’s first Mixed Martial Arts course with me focused on looking at both conditioning exercises and putting his skills under some pressure. One of my mandates for taking these sessions was to not use sparring due certain medical reasons. This is something of obstacle when it comes to teaching a combat sport. However, we have found ways to work around this challenge. We have regularly used reaction games, both touch and no-contact, and I keep […]

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1950s Professional Combat Sports (diary entry)

January 18, 2023 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
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18.01.2023 “Learn from the Fight” one of its rare deviations from Boxing in this lesson. The reason why Boxing has remained the dominant professional combat sport we have been covering is because we have been following a chronological timeline dictated by available footage. My clients lessons are to look directly at important fights via the film footage and boxing was, by far, the most popular professional combat sport worldwide from the late 19th century and for well over half the […]

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The Guard Drill (diary entry)

June 21, 2022 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
armbar from guard2 (close up)

20.06.2022 Hour seven of my couple clients’ submission grappling course brought them to using the guard. As with the top positions, I covered a flow drill. They transitioned from closed guard to open guard to spider guard to butterfly guard to half-guard back to the open guard and closed guard. Throughout the drill they did variations from different positions and we looked at the all-important safe transitioning. Services 

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MMA & Rubber Guard Revision (diary entry)

June 9, 2022 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
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08.06.2022 My last lessons on Wednesday were my junior MMA and senior Submission Grappling. In the former we went through boxing, kickboxing and a new strategy on the ground. In the latter we looked at linking up the basics of Eddie Bravo’s Rubber Guard in a flow pattern. The first lesson began with our normal warm-up specific and muscle activation exercises. We then went straight into boxing. After some assessment on my client’s defence against straight rights and some basic […]

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Deconstructing Basics (diary entry)

March 5, 2021 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
19TH CENTURY BOXING SPARRING

02.03.21 Work continues in my teacher consultancy regarding the progress of sparring/pressure-testing for grades, especially but not exclusively to child students. As my progressive and proactive client suggested, we began at the beginning and looked at where and how sparring should be introduced. Key things to consider would be that gradings would not be a test for everything. A club does not have to have sparring in the first grading and yet students by this stage can be accustomed to […]

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Dogs, Snakes and Pancakes (diary entry)

November 13, 2020 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
diary ground fighting 1

09.11.20 Tuesday night’s teacher consultation continued with ground-fighting revision. We used escaping side control as a starting point, covering reversals, arm-triangles and sweeping from the dog fight position. The reversal – a technique referred to by my client as a “pancake” roll – came from head-lock version of side control. Here we set up for escaping to guard and timed our reversal off our opponent countering the guard escape by putting more weight forward. The fighter immediately switches from snaking […]

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Passing guard and sweep revision (diary entry)

August 18, 2020 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
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  17.08.20 The third hour of my client’s Submission Grappling/Ground-Fighting course went back over the basic sweeps as well as the Kimura arm-lock from guard and passing guard. We began with our normal solo warm-up routine of ground-fighting callisthenics, including some new movements directly related to guard passing. Next the two lockdown partners performed some guard-passing drills before moving onto some resistance work. This took the form of a guard passing game where one had to get past the other’s […]

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From Butterfly to Back Mount (diary entry)

December 6, 2019 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
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05.12.19   My junior clients covered their penultimate lesson in Submission Grappling/Ground-Fighting on Thursday evening. I introduced the butterfly guard, half-guard and back mount as well as the butterfly sweep, knee shield and rear naked choke. We also had some fun with a few advanced techniques.   We warmed up with the usual specific callisthenics for ground-fighting such as various crawls, snaking and escape movement drills. Then I introduced the butterfly guard. Here we paid attention to keeping sat up […]

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First Chokes & Chasing the Kimura (diary entry)

November 4, 2019 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
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30.10.19   Earlier on Wednesday my schools clients were on their half-term break so I was able to squeeze in my private junior clients for a lunchtime lesson of Submission Grappling/Ground-Fighting. This brought them up to the fifth hour of their course. Today we looked at three chokes from scarf-hold and north-south, and we also chased the Kimura lock around the body.   We began with movement callisthenics – crawls and snaking. Then we went back through the pinning flow-drills, […]

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Scissor Sweep and Arm-Bar (diary entry)

November 4, 2019 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
armbar from guard5 (close up)

30.10.19   My late evening class brought my Submission Grappling client up to the ninth hour of his course. We focused entirely on the guard which included a flow-drill, the scissor sweep and the classic arm-bar.   The lesson started with ground callisthenics, including a large portion dedicated to conditioning for the guard.  Then we began the guard flow-drill. This consisted of moving from closed guard to a long range guard (very simplified spider guard) to butterfly guard to half […]

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Submission Grappling from the Top (diary entry)

August 1, 2019 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
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30.07.19 Tuesday night saw the first hour of my client’s first course in Submission Grappling for Martial Arts Cross Training. This lesson began with the top position and was mainly concerned with learning the major pinning positions and transitioning through them. We warmed up with bear crawls, lizard crawls, seal crawls and caterpillar crawls before snaking/shrimping forwards, backwards and from the side. Then we moved onto the first technique. Side control is a good solid position to begin from. It […]

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Heavy Bag Training & Reverse Scarf-Hold Escape (diary entry)

May 10, 2019 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
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08.05.19   Wednesday night’s lessons consisted of Junior Muay Thai and Senior Submission Grappling. The former provided an overview of combination set ups and counters to the back kick. The senior Submission Grappling continued work on escaping the knee-pin and also looked at escaping reverse scarf-hold.   We began with basic distancing and mirror footwork. This led onto combination setups. Here I focused on using the teep as an effective jabbing tool, creating and maintaining distance. Then it was used […]

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Submission versus Takedown (diary entry)

November 23, 2018 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
In-fighting attack7

23.11.2018   My second lesson of the day continued my veteran client’s current theme on stand-up to ground grappling. We have been looking at takedowns, finishing in submissions. Linking directly to last week’s class, we looked at submission counters to takedowns.   The lesson warmed up with partner work. Stand-up grappling warm-up included collar/elbow tie up bulling, over-hook/under-hook pummelling, takedown entries, arm-drag drilling and arm-drag/takedown counter drilling, whereas ground grappling warm-up included pin transitioning, guard transitioning, submission and sweep drilling. […]

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Head & Foot Fight Coordination (diary entry)

November 16, 2018 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
footwork drills

14.11.18   Tonight’s second lessons consisted of my regular junior class followed by my senior class. These are private lessons for an uncle and nephew team. My junior class focused on western boxing concepts, tightening up footwork and upper body movement. My senior class continued work on grappling – stand-up/takedown wrestling and submission/groundwork.   The junior class included mirror footwork and head movement exercises performed in isolation before being combined. This was the difficult part and requires a good amount […]

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Trapping & Transitioning (diary entry)

June 14, 2018 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
In-fighting attack6

14.06.18   Tonight, my client continued looking at dirty boxing and its relationship with MMA in its entirety. We warmed up with some mirror footwork and take-down entries. Then we trained transitioning between the clinch and stand-up ranges and back again. This brought us back onto the dirty boxing tactics of Duran, Frazier, Hearns, Foreman, Corbett and Johnson, which we revised along with Muay Thai set-ups for kicks. From here we began looking at using dirty boxing tactics to set-up […]

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Complete Combat Movement (diary entry)

May 4, 2018 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
Guard for street

02.05.18 Work continued tonight on combat transitioning. We warmed up with movements from the back, seated, kneeling and footwork. After going through a few fundamental details, we added in punching combinations and kicking. Next we looked at the hook-guard and how it worked within the first transition. We revised the half-guard/butterfly guard flow drill, which was then used as method to train the hook-guard/butterfly guard flow drill. Here we went back over attacking with a knee-bar. Everything was then brought […]

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