MMA and me; day 69

Another grueling three hours of class yesterday, It started with an hour of just grappling. I went for about 30-45 minutes, taking short breaks in between, getting a couple of submissions here and there, and managing to avoid getting tapped too many times myself. It was nice to just roll and focus on somethings I know I need to work on.

Boxing was mostly about head movement, because the best defense for a punch, is to not be where the punch is headed. First we worked a simple 1-slip-2. The biggest thing about the slip is to not make too big of a movement when you slip. If the punch grazes your head, you are just fine. Next, we added a punch and made the combo a 1-2-slip-2. It's really important to keep your weight back and sit down on the 2. I'm still leaning forward when I throw it, and need to get better about forcing my back foot down, because that is where all the power is at. Lastly, we added an uppercut and another slip, to make the combo 1-2-slip-2-slip-6. A big part of making the slip effective, is keeping your lead hand up. I am good about keeping my rear hand high and on my cheek, but I keep dropping my lead hand, which is going to get me in trouble. Keep the lead hand high, and you can do a lot to avoid taking damage. We ended with a sit up circle, which is pretty much what it sounds like. Everyone sits in a circle, and starting with the first person, everyone does ten sit ups together, then on to the next, until you've done ten sit ups for everybody sitting in the circle. We had at least 15 people in boxing class. With three minutes left in class, we knocked out three minutes of planks, and then it was time to grapple.

By this point, it had started to snow heavily, and only two other people stuck around for jiu jitsu. After stretching out, we worked on more guard passing. First was posturing up and locking out your elbows as you plant your palms inside the opponents hips, from there, put a knee behind their butt, lunge the other leg straight back, and turn towards the lunging leg. If this doesn't break their guard, simply push down one of their legs, and that should pop their legs apart. From there, with either knee, slide it across their groin, and either slip into side control, or roll into a low judo position with their arm pinned under your hip. Next we worked on a guard pass from standing up. The first one was called the matador pass. You are standing with your opponent on their back, and have the underside of both ankles in your hands. Stepping to one side and faking like you are going to swing the legs to that side, quickly shove the legs to the opposite side you stepped to, cover their topside knee with your hand on that side, and slide to side control, underhooking their head, and C-blocking their legs. From here, you have lots of options, but my favorite was sitting their head up with the underhook, and then taking their back. The next standing pass, was for an opponent who's legs are too far apart to grab. Instead of trying to close their legs, drive your knee across their groin, and slide into side control. It has to be quick, and you can't hesitate. We lastly worked on all of these techniques, with one man down, and the others trying to pass his guard. As soon as the guard was passed, the next opponent would attempt it. Each of us had three minutes as the down man, and that was tiring. We finished off with grappling, and while I did pretty good, coach got me in his super guard, and squeezed the crap out of my ribcage, it did not feel good. All in all, a great day of class!