Thursday, February 12, 2015

Hips, Dips & Grips - defensive focus & group exercise

Familiar faces last night (Wednesday).

We started off training triangles in a partner exercise. I long for the day I can pull one off smoothly in sparing.

Moved onto strengthening drills (group exercises) push-ups, and a couple of forms of planking.

From there we did passes from when you're standing and your opponent is on their back with their feet on your hips. Grab one foot, pull it across you, pinch their leg between the top part of your thigh and your side, grab their knee so they can't get out. Turn that same leg which is pinching inward so it passes them, and place it on their belly - knee on belly - kind of a captain Morgan pose here, so you can drop to that other knee. It's important not to slouch nor lean on their leg because you're giving them too much control. Watch out for their bridge. From here, base with your hands above their head, windshield-wiper your leg and move to the other side.

Then we worked on breaking grips, as a defense in tense situations (fighting).

One handed grip, straight arm = grab the meat of their hand with both of your hands, step back, leg behind theirs. Straighten the knee which is behind theirs as to lock it while at the same time pulling from your shoulder (like starting a lawn mower), bring them to the ground, pinch their arm with your knee.

two handed grip, their elbows open = step back, elbow up & through, t-position, toss (or whatever you want to do from t-position)

two handed grip, their elbows tight = step back, arm across their grip, reinforce your arm, start turning your body and place your leg across theirs (so, for instance, your left leg goes across to be on the outside of their left leg, while your right arm is across on their right arm. With this motion you break their grip and end up with you at about 1/4 giving them your back, so you follow up with an elbow to the face.

Then we sparred for about 30 minutes! I did pretty OK! I kept getting myself into the same failing position, but even at the time I recognized that was pretty good, because that means I have a gameplan which is failing and I can focus on what is failing. I kept ending up in side control and having to expend a lot of energy to get side control myself.

Oh and after class our gym leader showed me some punch defense that I wrote about having alternative methodologies brought to my attention last post. Basically he corrected my posture so it made more sense (instead of my hands so high like "woah nelly!", they're lower, like "I don't want this!")

He said that the way my buddy showed me was great when you're already in a fight expecting punches but the way they show is when it hasn't escalated that far and you're trying to defuse. Make a target, be a target. Defuse a situation, no target.

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