Tag Archives | cotswolds

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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Trapping with Sticks & Tricks with Kicks (diary entry)

May 17, 2021 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
chamber kick

12.05.21 My first client continued work with single and double stick fighting. We went through some more angles of attack, looking at extra stabs and then at one stick versus two stick sequences. The latter involved side checks to the head and I emphasised rebounding off intercepting strikes. Next we moved onto trapping with the sticks, making use of the butt end of the stick. My second client continued on the focus mitts with rhythm and flow combinations 11 and […]

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Combination 3 Partner Work (diary entry)

March 3, 2021 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
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01.03.21 Monday evening began with hour five of my client’s course on stand-up pad-work. As previously mentioned these are both lockdown partners, one of which is on the road to recovery from a knee injury. The previous course took them through the 14 Muay Thai combination for rhythm and flow. Now we are taking each combination and applying them to the focus mitts. Having a lockdown partner allows for me to coach pad work whilst not holding pads and it […]

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Combination 1 on the focus mitts (diary entry)

February 16, 2021 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
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15.02.21 This is the third hour of my client’s second 10 hour course on stand-up striking. After a 10 minute round of warming up, my client with her lockdown partner decided to completely focus on the first combination from our 14 rhythm and flow sequences. The benefit of having a lockdown partner allowed me to teach the combination in three stages: Stage 1: Shadow boxing the entire combination Stage 2: Virtual focus-mitt training – using the combination in direct response […]

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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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Fluidity & Footwork (diary entry)

October 26, 2020 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
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24.10.20 My client reached hour seven of his course on Boxing techniques for martial arts cross training. We followed a similar routine to Tuesday and Wednesday’s clients, looking to increase fluidity through punches, develop footwork and look for small details to improve in basic technique. After our callisthenic and dynamic stretching warm-up we went through the basic punching isolation exercise. This consisted of throwing a constant flow of single straights, single uppercuts and single hooks before separating these into two-combinations […]

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Philly Shell Movement Patterns (diary entry)

October 5, 2020 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
philly shell freddy

06.10.20 Tonight’s Skype session had my client reach the fourth hour of his course on Western Boxing. We are continuing work with the Philly Shell guard. The lesson began with the step-jab and then the pendulum step footwork drills. This then progressed onto using the back-step for angling off, a movement that is particularly effective in Philly Shell attacks. We then combined them – move in and out with a combination, drawing the opponent forward from where we angled off […]

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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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Vagabond Warriors Boxing Workshop Report (diary entry)

July 30, 2019 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
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28.07.19   The first of our Vagabond Warriors Workshops focused on Western Boxing for Martial Arts Cross Training. We spent the majority of the lesson training footwork, various guards and the jab. These are all key components for setting up everything else in modern boxing.   We began with an overview of cross-training. I discussed the problems with “welding” martial arts styles and techniques. That is forcing together two fighting aspects that do not complement each other. This creates a […]

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Agility Training for Clinch and Stand-up Fighting (diary entry)

July 18, 2019 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
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17.07.19   The nephew and uncle team focused on agility and grip-breaking in the clinch as well as ring-craft in stand-up fighting. The introduction of the agility ladders and cones has had an influence on this lesson too. I brought in both agility and coordination exercises to form a good amount of the first half of each of these two lessons.   The junior clinch lesson began with the agility ladder. We covered various basic footwork exercises, including the wrestling […]

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12 Rounds (diary entry)

May 24, 2019 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
low-kick

22.05.19   Tonight’s junior and senior lesson saw considerable overlap. Both nephew and uncle cover 12 rounds between them on Muay Thai and Western Boxing.   I began the junior lesson with a round of Western Boxing on the focus mitts. This was followed by a round of Muay Thai on the Thai focus mitts. Then we did a round of clinch before we began sparring. This consisted of two rounds of Wester Boxing and two rounds of Muay Thai […]

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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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Symmetrical Ground Defence at Kingham Hill School (diary entry)

March 19, 2019 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
Striking from the knee pin1

13.03.19   My Kingham Hill Self-Defence class focused on symmetrical ground fighting. We looked at fighting from the back in two different positions and general conditioning for this type of situation.   The class was warmed up with our standard tactical running, covering, switching directions and sprawling. Then we did an additional segment, which also brought in relevant ground movements. This segment included bear crawls – backwards, forwards and sideways – and snaking/shrimping – backwards and forwards.   We then […]

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Cross Training Angles (diary entry)

January 15, 2019 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
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12.01.19   My first lesson of the day brought this client up to four and a half hour mark on what has becoming a course dedicated entirely to Martial Arts Cross Training without focusing on one particular discipline. We used 12 basic stick angles from Eskrima and then went through elbow and punching applications. Not every angle was accounted for, but we focused on representation of the slashing, horizontal, smash-down, chop, backward and side elbows as well as overhands and […]

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