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

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.



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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



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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.



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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

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 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

Class notes August 2014: pummel masterclass

Fighting out of the pummel: this was the focus from which all of our learning came out of tonight using our 5 primary grappling based attacks

1: arm drag

2: double lap

3: DWL

4: head and arm choke

5: long arm head control

DWL: details: get his hand away from you and him, whilst being in control, to stop the hand clasping. Create the space for the arm and then you step in to meet his wrist and not pulling it in to your chest. This will keep his arm away from him. 

Clasp over the elbow or on the tricep with your armpit not on the forearm. You will not have the leverage if you are too low on his arm.

To do the empty chicken wing shoulder control make sure when you transition from the DWL to the ECWSC that you close the gap between your side and his. I did this with the Saracen leader and he commented on how much more effective it was when this gap was closed.

Head and arm snatch into choke: Martin reminded us of the need to close the gaps and ensure everything was in the right place. Primarily the deltoid need to reach right through and under his jaw line. I was working with the Saracen Leader and several things happened in slow motion. I put the technique on and within half a second I let go. Saracen stumbles, I thought he was taking the piss by doing a comedy stumble. As he stumbled he banged his head then proceeded straight body and hit the back of his head on the floor a few times. He appeared to be fitting. I know you must leave people alone and put them in the recovery position afterwards. Luckily this lasted for a few seconds before he jumped up feeling a little queasy. I felt really bad that this happened but SL was super cool about it all. It also made me realise that if everything is in the correct place that this choke is fast and can put someone to sleep after you have let go. 

In real MMA action:



In a grappling match:



Long arm head control. Elbow up and elbow down. Martin spent some time going through this and perhaps I am over thinking it or simply crap at it at the moment. Found it really hard to get on. Along with the double lap more time on this is needed.



And how it should be done properly:



Rotational power, pulling the other hand or leg or waist back to give power to the striking tool.

Class notes July 2014: arm drags

The standing grappling part of the class was a refresher and then some from the learning of last week.

Arm drag from fixed positions:

Right hand on same side shoulder: arm drag

Right hand on opposite side shoulder: head and arm choke

Right hand on same side hip: DWL

Right hand on opposite side hip: Double lap

As well as working the variants with the left arm, mixing it up, incorporating fast twitch speed and reaction. Ensure the motions are tight and small. With speed comes erratic movement patterns so we tried to train to our perfect ideal of tight and small.

4 variants of the arm drag from the inside and outside wrist control (with punch down the centre)

Arm drag to back shoulder and hip control:

When done to you this feels most unpleasant, firstly because you are spinning around with your head below heart height, secondly, they are not applying much force and so are riding your attempts to escape. Below are the 4 variants of the arm drag entry to get to their back and hip.

Kimura

Class notes April 2014: standing catch wrestling

DWL defence against a big guy:
It is unlikely that sinking down and doing the palm to palm hip capture will work against Big Ron and others of a similar build we looked at the grip break. When they have the DWL the arm is isolated and disconnected from the body and thus much easier to manipulate. To even this out and take it back you need to integrate the whole body. Clasp the palms and get your hip behind your grip, you will need to step into him to get behind your hands. Now the hand and arms are in a more powerful and structurally string position. You are no longer fighting arm against arm. To break it, punch the hips through and turn. I started to lift but got corrected. Keeping the hands sort of central to you as you punch the hips will make it very hard for him to maintain his dominant position.

Defending the standing head and arm:
Briefly looked at this - fist to neck or speak on the telephone. This will jam your elbow into his neck or shoulder giving you space to breath. A cheeky attack from here is as you turn towards him you can hit your own elbow which will hit him in the head. CI like this as clearly it will not KO him but it will give him something to think about. I have found when your stuff is being messed with it is hard to ignore that, instead most people want to deal with that and then return to a dominant position.

Blossoming flower of oblivion:
This choke can be likened to a very deep bicep guilotene. It might just be the worst cranking choke out there. From the clinch grapple his head goes down and here is the chance for the choke. Punch the arm around the neck deeply. So that you are trying to get the bicep under his chin. We investigated having the forearm across the jaw bone and under the chin, both horrendously effective. For me the absolute key and unashamedly worth repeating is the initial motion to punch the arm around the neck to get deep on him. If I punch my right arm around the neck, my left hand braces against his left shoulder. The very fact that you have gone deep with the choking arm might by itself be enough. There is no space in there for the head so any motion has big effects. To get the right hand on to the left wrist you do not need to crab walk the hand to the wrist. Your right closed fist will blossom open and simply park at the wrist. If he has not tapped yet he soon will. The full completion of the movement is either: get the elbows close as your put all your weight on the back of the neck driving him to the ground to close off on the floor. the second, and more violent option is to suplex him...

Punching entry for head crank:
This is the neck crank Martin showed in the old class many years ago and has stuck with me and one I often think about. To set it up throw a left jab then left hook causing him to cover up, keep your left hand on his cover as you throw the right. Blocking with his left you elbow around his forearm to enter head lock range. If the punching was too complicated a set up, Martin did give us the opportunity to work from wrist control and forearm contact. To get the elbow in range for the headlock, use his forearm as the fulcrum and go around it, it looked like the elbow strike from the powerlines drill a few weeks ago. Arm that is closed to him slides under the chin and the hand goes to the top of his head, rear hand meets at the top of the head with a deep grip. The forearm will be grinding into the temple. To finish the crank lever the hands away and close the elbow together. This will cause the neck and jaw line to move along lines they were not designed to. And if any of the three standing neck crank/chokes we have done (grovit, thumb guillotene, blossoming flower of oblivion) does not work because he stands up out of them then they can stand into the neck crank just outlined.

Grovit