06.07.20 Tonight began my Danish client’s first hour of a six hour course on Dirty Boxing and Kickboxing. Today he trained with his daughter and our work included both Muay Thai line-work and Dirty Boxing training on the focus mitts. He is a Tae Kwon Do teacher who attended my “When Parents Aren’t Around” seminar last year hosted by Hinnerup Karate and was my translator on both days. His students were of a high calibre and did well in the […]
24.05.2018 Tonight’s lesson on transitioning MMA took the focus onto trapping. We spent the majority of the class going through all the ranges. This began with a series of movement exercises – snaking, butterfly guard movement, combat base knee-walking and various footwork. This was followed by transitioning through all these postures on the move. Finally punching combinations were added on top. We then changed to partner work. This began with mirror footwork, drilling two, three and four punch […]
03.05.18 The 5:30 a.m. sessions continue with my client’s sixth hour of a 10 hour course in Basic Self-Protection. This morning’s lesson looked at building a transitional structure for multi-range unarmed self-defence, leading onto anti-grappling tactics. We had introduced kicks into the previous class. This aspect was covered again from a ground-defence position. However, we got to the ground-defence kicking it was important for me to better establish transitional movement. My client first trained going through the four […]
24.04.2018 Training began at 5:30 a.m. with my client’s third hour of his 10 hour course in Basic Self-Protection. We warmed with simple movement exercises designed to prepare him for the straight rear hand strike. This was performed first as a target familiarisation exercise, which is an important part of mental conditioning. I have known many people who can hit targets hard, but have a problem when it comes to actually hitting people in a pressure tests. We then […]
31.03.18 This morning I began my client’s second course on Muay Thai for Martial Arts Cross Training. After warming up with a series of dynamic stretches and calisthenics specific to this new area of training, we discussed his personal objective for this course. He wanted to focus a lot on better developing and learning kicks. We decided that the best way to do this would to have an immediate look at basic kicking combinations, ensuring that they were being […]
04.01.18 The first official lesson of 2018 began my client on an exciting new exploratory adventure in mixed martial arts and martial arts cross-training. Having spent the latter part of 2017 focusing a lot on half-guard and its place in grappling, we decided to bring it back into MMA. However, the resulting lesson ended up exploring a more encompassing yet specific topic. We looked at our old friend, transitioning. This is a common soap box subject with me. It […]
18.11.17 This morning we brought the CCMA basic course on submission grappling/groundwork up to the seven and a half hour point. We focused entirely on submissions from the closed guard. After sport-specific calisthenics for groundwork, we revised the conventional arm-bar and leg triangle choke from guard. An area I am very keen to express in training is the fluid linking of movements with minimal delay. This seems obvious, but often I find what gets lost in learning is […]
25.10.17 Tonight’s lesson continued with MMA clinch-work, revising Muay Thai entries and adaptations, but focused on set-ups using the elbow and collar tie. We also did some ground work. Training began with western boxing and Muay Thai shadow boxing, moving onto wrestling entries. This was followed by partner work, which included neck-wrestling, lock-off positioning for knee strikes, shoulder trapping and arm-triangle trapping. We then moved onto over-hook/under-hook pummelling. From here we looked at setting up knee-strikes, elbow-strikes and […]
23.10.17 Tonight was the second in my special course for child self-protection. We began with a warm-up of catching games teaching evasion skills, spotting exit points, moving out of corners and creating distance. This moved us onto the fence, where we did a series of exercises to help teach understand personal space and using boundary lines. When it comes to children, this can be especially difficult. Children are still developing certain mental functions to better understand spatial awareness and […]
21.10.17 The second lesson in a scheduled 10 hour course on submission grappling/ground fighting for martial arts cross training brought us up to the three hour mark. We revised all the pins taught in the previous lesson, refining movement and positioning to promote fluidity. After a series of top position exercises – bear crawls, lizard crawls, crab crawls, seal crawls and frog jumps – we went back through the pin transition drill covered in the previous lesson. This then […]
14.10.17 This morning we began the first lesson in a 10 hour course on submission grappling/ground-fighting for martial arts cross-training. Our initial focus was on building a strong top position by learning the basic pins and how to transition through them in an effective way. We began with a series of mobility exercises on the floor, which increased their intensity until they were fully-fledged grappling specific callisthenic exercises. This was followed with a series of crawling exercises – bears, […]
30.09.17 This morning was the penultimate lesson of my client’s proposed 10 hour course. We looked more at combining ranges of takedown attack as well as takedown defence and escapes. This began with a series of callisthenic and mobility exercises, before we began some partner grip-work. This consists of “bulling” – necktie exercises – which progressed onto one-for-one grip attacks and escapes. We then moved this up into grip-fighting sparring. Next we […]
01.08.17 Tonight my client’s double lesson focused on peek-a-boo boxing tactics and techniques. We began with some footwork using agility markers. We warmed up on basic obstacle jogging and then progressed into footwork patterns, looking at angling and then incorporated bobbing and weaving. This was then brought onto an obstacle pole. This exercise involves the fighter moving under a pole and encourages good bobbing and weaving. I had him retain his peek-a-boo guard and we gradually added on various […]
19.07.17 Tonight we continued off the previous lesson’s DFLT approach and looked at the ground. The warm-up began with dynamic stretching, mobility exercises and calisthenics before moving onto partner DFLT coaching. The ground was split into pins and guard-work; in both instances the fighter experiences fighting from the top and position and then from underneath. He completes three one minute rounds from each position before sparring for three minutes. That means one minute attack only, one minute defence […]
10.05.17 Tonight we looked at the clinch range in MMA. We primarily focused on the wrestling application with advice on solo exercises for my client to incorporate into his regular workouts, and then briefly moved in Muay Thai clinch before finishing with two rounds of specific clinch-based sparring. The lesson warmed up with over-hook/under-hook pummelling, bulling, lowline takedown slides and single leg link-ups. We then looked at solo drills using the heavy bag and solo takedown drills. We then moved […]
11.03.17 Today’s double lesson was with a new client. He has a background in rugby and traditional martial arts. He has decided to begin his training with me on the 10 lesson basic self-protection course. As covered in the lesson and in previous diary entries on the same subject we began with a discussion on defining self-protection. Self-protection can be divided up into soft skills that we call “personal security” and hard skills we call “self-defence”. Soft skills cover attitude, […]
