Class notes: creative takedowns, chaining escapes and submission attacks from your back.

2 takedowns to counter the single leg:
As inspired by the recent Invicta 10 card, we looked at a couple of takedown when the opponent is initiating a single leg takedown.

scissor leg takedown:



Sit and roll:



Chaining escapes from side control:
hip up: block an arm/elbow, thrust your hips up as you push him up and away. Essentially create a gap between you and him.

knee replacement: get those hips moving and slide a knee in for a half butterfly bottom control (guard).

pummel under for lat grab: create the space to come under his arm with your head to reach around and grab the lat to get to side back control.

spin out: the following might sound complicated but is much easier in practise... You need to watch the third escape on this video:

http://www.howcast.com/videos/501860-How-to-Do-3-Side-Control-Escapes-MMA-Fighting

Chaining submissions from bottom control (guard)

downward shoulder rotation (double wrist lock) to
leg and shoulder suppression (triangle) to
elbow extension (arm bar)

Head and torso positioning is key to being successful in these submissions. My partner Craig reported that things were much tighter, especially the elbow extension when I was perpendicular to him.

Free form grappling: Tried to 'let go' tonight and not go for my favourite attacks - leg and shoulder suppression (triangle), bicep and shoulder suppression (head and arm choke). Instead I was trying to be more creative. I found the shin choke (gogoplata) after failing to secure the elbow extension. Something in me clicked as I remembered a video Lee had posted about that very technique.



Mine was slightly different in that I slid the shin across the neck as moving to centre control (mount) and then cradled the back of my partner's head to create a compression style finish. I also managed to get an elbow extension from what felt like no where. I also played with attacking the legs to create a scramble. True to form, myself included, when the legs are attacked I try to recover them straight away. So by going for the legs makes your partner move and maybe open new possibilities of movement and attack.

Eyes closed grappling: develop feel. Most people had similar weights to their partner, mine was a 20kg deficit not in my favour. But it enabled me to think about my body, what i could and could not move, where I could or could not create gaps.

All against all grappling: fun chaos

I will end with a quote I saw on the internet recently.

People often quit because they are making slow progress. They fail to recognise that this is still progress.

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

Switching The Rear Naked Choke To Forearm Choke

http://www.mma121.com | Switching from a locked in Rear Naked Choke to a palm to palm grip when your opponent strips the hand as part of their defence is fairly common. What's not always appreciated is that during the process you can switch from a blood choke on the sides of the neck to an Inner Forearm Choke on the throat and airway

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