Class notes: Daniel Cormier wrestling notes

DC's takedowns

Changing the levels by taking him one way to get a reaction to make him more vulnerable.

Clinch - snap the head down to inner forearm choke - you want him to escape so stand up into it - he tries to pop the head out - instantly change levels by going for the double leg

Clinch - over/underhook - pull his high arm into you - he will want to escape by standing and pulling away - drop down for the inner leg trip and should drive.

Inner leg trip, your closest leg steps in between his and behind his front front. Your knee is next to the foot, your lower leg is behind his foot. It is the proposal position except you are perpendicular and not facing them. Drop the hands to the hamstrings and drive him over.



Jeff Glover hanging triangle (leg suppression) set up and submission:



Passing the open guard with his feet at your hips:



Head to the mat and go under one knee. With the other hand control his foot. Roll sideways over the controlled foot into invert side control

Freeform under 85kg group.
Tangled with Ptas for the first time in a couple of years, it was tight and close as always. Then rolled with 2 new young lads George and James. Gave me a chance to talk them through movement on the floor, practise elevator sweeps which is something I am trying to be more proactive about - getting from my back to side or top half guard.

Here is a quick video of the elevator sweep

Old school footage from 1912

Some things are very similar even 100 years on

class notes: submissions from centre control

Free form warm up

Side control escapes drilling x 4 individual and then chaining them in sets of 3
1: knee escape
2: hip up and roll
3: swim under the lat and swim out
4: inverted under the belly spin and escape

Submissions from centre control (mount)

Leg suppression (triangle)

Not quite the way Lee showed but the final finish is the same





With fist suppression (pulse side of the neck) from triangle

Fist choke (fist to centre of throat) from triangle

Here is a video of Lee finishing from his back but a main theme from tonight was translation of mount attacks to bottom control position



Shin choke (gogoplata)

Elbow extension (arm bar)

Here is video Lee created showing the shin choke to elbow extension



Submission from side control: downward shoulder rotation with leg trap on the head

Attacks from centre control (mount) translate to bottom control (guard)

Free form grappling

Eyes closed grappling for position and submission

class notes: GSP's takedowns and side control submissions

GSP's takdowns chaining

Lee has done extensive research and found the following pattern or theme to his takedowns.

Double leg
Single leg drag
Knee pick and drive
Shoulder drive

We looked at chaining them as a series but also as possible individual takedowns. I guess we need to be solid with each one. If each one works then use it but if not it can set up the next one. The subtle thing about this series is just that, each one leads to the next.




Submissions from inverted side control - using the legs.

inverted side control whilst holding your own leg

switching positions from side to inverted

Elbow extension by hooking with the top leg

Shoulder rotation

Elbow extension as he escapes the shoulder rotation by crossing the legs

Attacking the elbow extension straight away from inverted by hooking your ankle over the wrist

free form with Craig and Patrick (beared)
This was my first roll with Patrick and was, with all the lads at Promai, most enjoyable and a great learning experience. For me tonight I learned not to panic as Patrick went for knee bar after knee bar. He also gave me great feedback on with my inner forearm choke from bottom control did not succeed. Verbal feedback is a key part of the learning process for me and will help me to limit the mistakes of today the next time I am on the matts.

class notes: bottom control (guard) masterclass

Takedown drill warm up: double leg to side bag clinch to single leg.

Key learning points are the hips; keep them pinned to him if you want the takedown, keep them away if you don't want it and want to avoid him getting it. Throughout each phase of movement in this drill they should feel head pressure.
On the outside of the ribs on the double leg.
On their shoulder blades on the side back clinch.
On their front ribs on the single leg.

This image below illustrates the depth and commitment of the double leg.

In essence you are moving around him whilst in contact. For example, shoot in on the right leg, move around his back and capture the leg leg for the single.

Bottom control 1:

Submit or pass. Person on their back has to look for creative and a variety of submissions or submission attempts. Top person has to avoid the submission and pass the legs to side control. When passed, start again. The one thing I noticed was when going for the shoulder rotation (omoplata) they might defend by sitting up and pulling away. From here you can slide the near side leg under his chin to set up the shin choke (gogplata). The angle is far from perfect so you need grap your foot by reaching around his head. You might not even get the finish but having the shin across their neck will generate movement from them so you can explore other positions.

My partner got some nice elbow extension on me. The type when the pressure is applied to the tricep and my hand is on his shoulder.

Submit or reverse: Similar to above except the person on top is not trying to pass. They are preventing the submission and keeping their base to avoid being swept.

Inversion from open spider guard

inversion dexterity from the bottom: side control to north south - 'roll' out

These are complicated motions to describe in words, hopefully these images will give some clearer ideas of what we were doing.

dexterity against the wall



This is an example of the dexterity drill we dill.



This video, start at 1.48 gives an idea of the motion. We were not using the inversion as an entry but from contact range already.



Again, this video is not what we were doing but is a creative way to get the triangle from an inverted position.



This video looks very similar in terms of movement that we were looking at. Start it at 2.22

Ronda Rousey's arm bar set up

http://www.mma121.com | In this video you will learn how to do one of the Elbow Extension (Arm Bar) set ups that Ronda Rousey used on Miesha Tate in their bantam weight title battle at Strikeforce. This was the first of two arm bars that Ronda Rousey went for in the fight, she almost won it with this one but Miesha Tate managed to escape despite her arm being badly hyper extended. This Arm Bar set up started when Miesha Tate was doing up kicks towards Ronda Rousey before Ronda span past the legs and took a knee on belly position and cleverly held on to the leg while going for the submission. It's a great set up that can be used in MMA or BJJ but it does leave some defensive opportunities because of the knee on stomach start position.



www.promai.com/mma

Akiyama's trip throws

http://www.mma121.com | Learn how to do Yoshihiro Akiyama's amazing trip takedowns that he used on Jake Shields at UFC 144. Akyama may have lost to Jake shields at UFC 144 but he still managed some impressive looking dynamic Judo style takedowns on the way. The technique looks incredibly fast when you watch it in real time but the real key is in the preparation. In order to perform an outside trip on the front leg at such a pace Akiyama prepares himself while Shields is closing the distance instead of waiting for the clinch to be solidified before starting the takedown. Akiyama does this by recognising the times when Shields is closing for a clinch and before Shields has the clinch formed he starts to turn sideways and looks for the underhook on Shileds rear arm. Because of this preparation when shields moves in Akiyama is already half way through the technique, he's stepped most of the way across the front leg and his lead hand is waiting to pummel under. If he gets that position it's a very tough takedown to stop but if it goes wrong Akiyama can end up with his back to his opponent like he did with Jakes Shields in Round 3 of their fight. A great example of Judo in MMA



www.promai.com/mma

Ground control practise on a basketball

http://www.mma121.com | In this video PRO MAI MMA Chief Instructor Lee Aylett demonstrates an unusual drill that's designed to improve your ground / grappling control where you try and remain balanced on a basketball. Control when you're in top positions like centre control (mount), side control or invert side control (scarf hold) on the ground in both MMA and BJJ depends largely on your ability to keep pressure on your opponent. In turn this means that you have to be continuously aware of your centre of gravity and adjust it as necessary.

In this drill you balance your upper body on a basketball and nothing other than your feet are allowed to be in contact with the ground. You then have to transition into different positions and strike while retaining your balance and position on the ball. In order to avoid slipping off the basketball you have to continually adjust your centre of gravity just as you would in a real grappling exchange.

This MMA training drill is fantastic for improving the responsiveness of your movement and control and it can be done on your own when you don't have a training partner around.



www.promai.com/mma

Arm bar to triangle choke

http://www.mma121.com | In this video you will learn how to switch your attack to a Leg Suppression / Traingle Choke when your opponent defends the Elbow Extension / Arm Bar. It's very common for an opponent to defend the Arm Bar by pulling their arm back through the hips before the submission is locked in. When this happens there is an opportunity to retain control and chain the submission into a Triangle Choke. This requires the person applying the submission to think ahead, react fast and control well with the legs.

This submission combination is great for chaining together in MMA competition or BJJ matches



www.promai.com/mma

Arm bar with your legs

http://www.mma121.com | In this video you will learn how to apply an Elbow Extension (Arm Bar) From Invert Side Control (Scarf Hold). This is an advanced submission attack that also gives you great opportunities to strike once the leg trap is achieved. The finish is quite difficult because it requires an acute understanding of the angles needed to finish the arm bar submission and you need to feel these angles through your legs. But it's a low risk attack that can be incredibly effective if you get it right.

An advanced submission that's great for MMA competition and BJJ matches.



www.promai.com/mma

Kimura strength training

http://www.mma121.com | In this video PRO MAI MMA Chief Instructor Lee Aylett demonstrates a core strength training exercise for the shoulders that's great for MMA. By using a partner for your MMA strength work you can achieve intelligent resistance and this enables you to work at 100% maximum resistance all the way through a muscles range of motion. In this exercise we are simulating a Downward Shoulder Rotation (Kimura) - not only is this a fantastic workout on the shoulders but it also heps to strengthen your resistance to the submission itself both mentally and physically so it's particularly relevant if you participate in MMA, BJJ or any other combat sport that allows submissions



www.promai.com/mma

Speed wrestling and clinching drill

http://www.mma121.com | Here's a great MMA training drill where you have to speed wrestle your partner as you are forced to constantly change position every couple of seconds. In this drill you start in a clinch and drill any clinch positions in a free form manner including striking if you wish but throughout the drill you are not allowed to hold any clinch position for more than 2 seconds. This means that you are forced to constantly innovate various transitions between the clinch positions and wrestle at speed.

This drill is designed to improve your MMA clinch / Wrestling technique and quicken your thinking time and reactions but it's also a great MMA workout in its own right



www.promai.com/mma

Takedowns

http://www.mma121.com | In this PRO MAI MMA series learning video Chief Instructor Lee Aylett goes through a series of takedown set ups for MMA from the clinch that are fundamental to success. This series learning piece is designed to help you learn how to smoothly move between some of the core leg and hip capture techniques so that you can chain takedowns together without thinking - including double hip, single hip, double leg and single leg take down set ups.

This is also a good conditioning drill as this series should be performed at pace and over a time period of several 1-5 minutes. Great for improving your MMA Wrestling components



www.promai.com/mma

Class notes: elbow and ankle extension, inner forearm and bicep suppression

Elbow extension (arm bar)
Overhook an arm.
Stand on the foot so the foot is under the shoulder and near the head.
Swing other leg over the head.
Sit hips close to his shoulder and pull the arm up.
Keep his elbow tight to your chest.
Squeeze knees together.
Lie back with his arm wrapped, push the knees and heels down.
Now lift the hips.

The following videos just because the quality of her rolling and set ups are outstanding.



Inner forearm and bicep suppression - the bulldog and ninja choke

More details to follow. Lee made a video going through thme.

Ankle extension (straight ankle lock)

Lee talked about several steps of the ladder to get a secure ankle extension:
Wrap the lower leg so the top of the foot is against your lat.
No gaps between you and his foot and the wrapping of the foot.
Place the wrapping hand high on your chest to close the gaps.
Use the bones of the forearm on the Achilles area.
Squeeze the knees together.
Fall to either side.
look 'up'/away by arching.
Common errors are when people lie straight back - this leads to a much greater percentage that the submission will fail.

Dean Lister's approach:


Lister talks about tightness.

Stephan Kesting's 3 common errors:


The fist 2 applied to our learning: no gaps and squeeze the knees together.

How to...


Key tips from this clip are the tightness and going to your side.

Post class I was talking to Lee. One of the tips was about open legs. In UFC 1 Ken Shamrock beat Pat Smith with an ankle submission.

As you can see his knees are miles apart. I do remember him having to adjust to a modification as it never worked first time, probably as Lee said, the knees weren't tight. He then appears to turn it into some type of ankle rotation.

The fight begins at 33.07. Decide for yourself and see how far the technical quality of the sport has evolved over the 20+ years.

http://vimeo.com/45287348

The whole main card is on this video

Class notes: UFC Fight Night Austin - Edgar's takedowns

Frankie take down

Round 2 against Cub Swanson:
My words would be ineffective if preceding Lee's words so here is the video he made.



Side back control from standing, side body cinch, apply pressure with the shoulder to the back to drive him down to the floor, he will push back up, keep the grip and slide around to his front, keep the head against his body, slide down to the double hip lift.

Marcello Garcia inner forearm choke from the back, hand on the shoulder and squeeze your elbow to your shoulder. The concept was tilting the head forward to close the gap and pressure to the back of the head. Lee showed a reverse gogoplata, and omoplata (shoulder rotation with the legs), spider web from the back to inner forearm choke.

In the following video you can see Garcia applying some very tight forearm chokes.

At 1.21, 1.44, 2.20, 2.39 and so on... He uses the concept Lee was talking about, closing the chin to neck gap and pressure on the back of the head.



In this video you can see Garcia doing the one armed inner forearm choke, first at 0.17. It is quick and horrible. It feels like the throat is being crushed.



Freeform sparring

Some footage from the class

Class notes: UFC 180 finishes

Relaxed grapple warm up.
I rolled with Milzy which was a great way to get warmed up and move.

Submission grapple flow.
Again I was with Milzy, this time we were looking for submissions. Thankfully he was being very kind. He is fast, powerful and very slick on the floor so is always great to roll with as you learn so much about space, pressure, position, weight distribution, isolation of limbs and general ground craft.

The main part of class was learning and refining the 3 subnmission finishes from UFC 180

The Mexican kid with the inner forearm choke. Benitez v Brown.

This was something I remember Lee showing this concept a time ago; going palm to palm on the inner forearm choke then making a L to lever your elbow over his shoulder. this makes the choke incredibly tight very quickly. For me it was important to get the armpit over his head as this made quite a lot of difference in terms of tightness and ultimate completion of the technique. If you get a chance to watch the video of the fight, Brown is out cold before he hits the ground (Benitez pulled guard).

Ricardo Lamas inner forearm and shoulder choke

This choke we started from the partner being on all fours so we could drill the correct positioning. So, slide an arm under his armpit and across his neck. Take a palm to palm grip at the other armpit. Clear his defending arm and get your hips across so you push his arm across his neck/centre. You then need to get on the same plane as him in that your heads point along the same direction. My mistake was that at first I was going off to the side and thus losing any quality in my work. By being squareer to him you are much tighter on him. The outside leg goes over his back to stop him escaping that side, the other leg is tight to his chest. To finish the choke, I think you pull up on your forearm then pull back towards your shoulder. It looks like a guilotene but the arm is in.

Kelvin Gastleman inner forearm choke from the back

The new bit of learning for me was about using the forearm to apply the choke, the hands were the fulcrum and you pull the elbow back to your shoulder to close it off. Tight, painful and generally horrible. I liked it also as you do not need to only go for the bicep and forearm suppression with the chin at the elbow fold. This gives you other options. In playing around it helped if the head was folded forward over the arm as this gave the choke great initial tightness.

Freeform grappling with Craig, Rob and Neil. Rob landed a beautifully illegal punch to my right eye ball!!

5 tips to living a good life:
Meditation,
Movement/mobility,
Exercise,
Sleep,
Nutrition

Class notes November 2014: escapes and reversals from your back

Solo drill escape warm up: these are some of the motions used in the partner work.

Shrimp: lie on back, feet under hips, hips away and pike position to touch toes as lying on your side.

Bridge: lie on back, feet under hips, lift hips and move to crown of the head, arms overhead so back of hands touch the floor and back again.

Hip up roll: lie on back, feet under hips, lift hips and turn onto the outside of a shoulder, same side face on the mat, reach opposite arm and leg over and end up perpendicular to your original position with knees tucked in. This image illustrates in part the concept of the motion.

4 escapes from centre control (mount:
Drilling the 4 escapes with our partner then chaining them in sets of 3. The first 2 fail and the third one works. This was about constant movement and manipulation of him, not allowing him to settle and thinking of a series of moves not balls out for one. We could do the 3 in any order eg, 1, 2, 3 or 1, 1, 1 and so on.

1: hip escape to leg trap in half guard.
2: hip escape for complete escape.
3: trap and wrap an arm and same side ankle, bridge and roll.
4: hip up and shooting out from underneath under his hips.

Escape / reversal from bottom control (guard:
Wrapping the arms with underhooks, getting to a side and coming under an arm and grabbing the far side lat. Pull hard o the lat to see what pressure he gives.



To reverse and roll him you need to do three things. Keep the leg trap trap, you are essentially humping the outside of his leg, reach through his legs and under his knee and capture around on his hip, straighten the legs (keeping the leg trap) and move your hips around his leg so you now appear to be humping the inside of his legs.You need to go back under him to roll him. When doing this at first I struggled as my hips were wrong, the head was not going under and the leg trap went off and on. But after some extra coaching from Lee it started to come along for both me and my partner.



Tag team grappling: As it says!



Free form rounds: Sparring for position and submission.



Heavy vs light: Heavy fighter stays on his back, lighter fighter can go for submissions and positions. I got Seb then Milzy. If this means anything to you, you know the difficulties both these guys present. Python strength and fluidity. Both a nightmare and a pleasure to work with.



Slaughtered by Seb: An extra roll with Seb to practise, practise, and practise some more. Always hard. always lose. always love itna .

Class notes October 2014: side back control

Pinning drill form the knees - start from the knees, takedown and wrestle for position. There was no submissions just trying to keep the partner pinned. They could try to reverse the position and pin you.

Grappling class:

Wrestling against the cage, no grip flow. Not being static and keeping the hips away and concave spine. I felt having when with my back against the cage I could use soft arms to feel and direct my partner's head without too much energy expended. I was just flowing with his movement, something that we have been working on in the other martial arts class I go to (Workman Martial Arts https://www.facebook.com/workmanmartialarts)

Side back control, with a leg on the inside Phil Davis domination from UFC 179 over Glover Texeria

We worked the basic position but we had a leg through his leg and we then hooked it behind the knee for a figure 4 control. We then looked at breaking the arm down, applying shoulder pressure, staying no more then in the centre of his back to avoid being rolled. The key was the shoulder pressure which had to be felt. It was something Georges St Pierre dominated Nick Diaz with. It was a small but vital detail that I had noticed before but will be something to watch out for in the future.

Side control far arm manipulation: getting the head up, inverted triangle, hips over the shoulder, you can face plant, go for the elbow extension, downward shoulder rotation. Tight with the inverted triangle is key.

Here is a video detailing some similar learning points we went through:



Free form sparring with Craig and Lee. With Craig i went for a head and arm but he cheekily turned it into some type of knarly neck crank. I then managed to secure a triangle from my back which he rolled to his back and I finished from top position.

Lee got me three times with a triangle, arm extension and then a downward shoulder rotation (DWL) with me face down.

Was great to be welcomed back.

Catch wrestling principles

Here are some of the principles in catch wrestling. Learning these is as important as learning the techniques themselves...

Basic Principles

- always keep your elbows in

- control your opponents hips

- control your opponents head

- control your opponets breathing

- keep your center of gravity lower than his is possible

- minimize space when in a superior position

- create space when in a inferior position

- always think ahead, have a plan for every scenario

- have an emergency plan for failed 'hook' attempts

- make life miserable for the bottom guy (poke, scratch, elbow, knee, punch etc.)

- make the bottom guy carry all your weight

- think before you act

- attack and control your opponent at angles, not straight on

- know your own body

and finally,
- know that your fight is won in the gym and not in the ring (which means train hard!

Catch wrestling notes from Trist

Trist has been doing some extra research and here are his tremendous insights as of late:



This whole video is really interesting to watch although a lot of its not relevant to what we are training. At 7.00mins in Billy starts talking about arm positioning for double wrist locks and arm bars, this then progresses to a few face crank positions, a standing double wrist lock takedown (bring on the mats!) and then at 8:30 he demonstrates the elbow/lever position (this is what I was focusing on transitioning to after establishing the lock and seem to work really well with both Ron and yourself)



Strangely the early part of this vid shows something not a million miles from what Ayyaz was talking about last night but Billy is immediately establishing his own wrist control, also an interesting break from two hands on one arm. The arm drag variations are around 2:00mins, the first is the variation we train and the other two seem more wrestling specific but still interesting from a grappling standpoint.



1:05mins in Billy shows an interesting idea for grapple sparring as a nice way to go for double wrist lock



This is on the ground but check out Billy at 2:05 onwards reminds me of Martin demonstrating good position.

Trist, thanks for all your insights, these videos are fantastic and help to keep us all learning