Class notes 23/3/15: wrestling drills and triangle escapes

Wrestling drills:

Front body clinch (high under his armpits or at the base of the spine) - change level to side body clinch - move round for the single leg - quarter turn to knee tap. Maintain head or ear pressure throughout.
The clinch grip is not 50/50 through the arms. Pin one elbow to the hip and pull the hand towards you as if closing the gap with the blade of the forearm.

Double leg shoot with knee step - side body clinch - lift - change level for shoulder drive.
When shooting in keep the eyes up.

Shoulder control - defend with taking wrist control on far side arm - nearside arm - overlook - lift your elbow but drop the shoulder as you step the rear leg back and around for a throw - the throw will off balance him - transition to snap down head control - pin your shoulder through the control point between his shoulder blades.

Escape from shoulder with leg suppression (triangle):

Separation - getting the head away from the shoulder which the opponent is trying to close off. Posture up, lift the chin, the eyes, push on his torso and get the knees behind his hips.

The next step of the ladder is to pass a leg on to his chest, this will cause further separation and make the breaking down of your posture extremely difficult. You might end up in a 50/50 fight for legs submissions but better this than getting choked out.

He might now go for the elbow extension as the arm is extended whilst you are on your knees.
Option one as he looks to pass the legs is to simply rip the elbow out past his hips.
Option two is to fold the arm back to your hip and chest spin 270 degrees over his legs into something looking like side control.

Freeform sparring:
I got the leg with shoulder suppression escapes to work against Lee. It was hard and a challenge but they do work I was playing a lot tonight with being creative in attack and defence - trying to roll more, be more inverted in positions, look for leg grips. I might not have been successful but they were the ideas in my mind.

As always, a fabulously fun session with a balance of technical learning and learning with a non compliant partner.

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