MMA and me; day 74

Gi jiu jitsu class was very interesting yesterday, for one reason in particular, but I'll get to that in a bit. We started off with our stretching, and then worked on some escape drills. First was called the "Curly" sweep. From your back, with your opponent in side control, you bring your heels all the way up to your butt, and bridge up while pushing their head down and away from you. From there, drop your butt back down to create enough space to slip your arm up by their head, and place your hand over your ear, with the back of your triceps covering their head. From here, bridge up again, turn away from their body, and start running away with your head pressed to the mat, until you get behind them and take their back. Next was from a similar position, but instead of slipping your arm up by their head, you slip it under their waist and around their back. From this position, use a combination of your arm pulling, your hips turning, and your legs running, to get out from under them, and on top in a chest to back position. Next, take either hand, and swim the back of that hand across to the opposite side of their neck, and use that to pull yourself around, and when you get behind them, use the other hand to lock in a cross face. Lastly, you pull them back towards you, sink in your hooks, and you've just taken their back. The final thing we worked was a loop choke using the gi, and it was a doozy. From the scarf, or high judo position, open the front of the gi jacket up, and grab a big hunk, so the front right corner is sticking out about 10-12 inches. From there, sneak your hand under their head, loosen your grip slightly, and bring your elbow from under their neck to over their throat. The next part was a bit tricky, bring your opposite side knee up to their stomach, and slip your other arm under your gi and bring that side hand to the bicep of the arm on their throat. From here, you want to flair out the arm grabbing your bicep, and then just shrug your arms forward. Your opponent will tap out immediately, and even if they do, it might be too late. I know, because our coach was demonstrating on me, and I went unconscious for about ten seconds, which was a very weird sensation. All in all, a very fun class though!

Boxing was essentially one big combo. To keep it less confusing, I'll break it down the way we did in class. We started with a one punch, multi defensive combo. With your right hand parry a jab, then roll your front shoulder around to catch a straight, bring your rear hand up and twist back to the front to catch a hook, throw a straight of your own, and then roll under a hook. Next, from the roll, you throw a straight-hook-straight. After this little combo, you pull, which is simply leaning back and straightening your front leg, to avoid a jab. So you pull, and then throw another straight. To finalize the combo, you drop your rear hand to catch a hook to the body, then throw a rear uppercut, straight punch, hook, straight. All together, it looks like this: parry 1-catch 2-catch 3-2-roll-2-3-2-pull-2-catch body 3-6-2-3-2. It felt a little weird with each individual combo, but by the time you start to flow it all together, it feels very natural. Ask me to show you some time, and I'm happy to oblige!

Grappling was all about shadow grappling, and establishing position. We practiced various ground positions on our own, and then got to the pummeling drills. The fun thing about these, is that while pummeling, coach would randomly shout GO, and you would have to fight for a double under hook. We did a couple rounds of that, and then moved on to pummeling while against the cage. If your back is against the cage or wall, you want to pummel under your opponents arms, and turn them into the cage. If they have double under hooks on you, simply bring an arm across their face, and cross face to create space, fight for that under hook, and get off the cage. Using your head is key as well, but the crown, not the side, not front, but the top, and keep pressure! Lastly, we worked on take downs from here. You have one arm under hooked, the other hand is pinning their other arm to the cage with a c-block, and your head has their head pinned to the cage. From here, drop down to their legs, and as soon as your hands reach the back of their knees, suck them in with your arms, and pull back with their legs, dropping their butt straight to the mat. Grappled for a bit afterward, and am quite sore today, but it's a good sore!