MMA and me; day 80

Boxing and wrestling. Two of the cornerstones of any mixed martial artist, and that's what we worked yesterday. In boxing, we continued to work long combos of punches and evasions. It all started with block a body shot-6-2-3-2-roll-2-3-2. We then added a pull, where you shift your weight back to get out of the range of a jab, and added another 2-3-2. Then we slipped a jab to throw another 6-2-3-2, then slipped a straight to the other side to finish with a body 3-3-2. This wasn't as long as some of the other combinations we worked on the previous week, but there was a lot of head and body movement added in, that made this combo feel a little odd at first, but also very fluid.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays now, we are focusing on wrestling, and last night was all about defending take downs, and initiating them from the clinch. The sprawl is the main defense against a take down shot, and it's pretty simple. As someone shoots in on your legs, you kick your feet back, and press down on their head with your hands, landing on their back with your chest. You want to drop your hips as far back and down as possible, and then get a cross face with one of your arms. A cross face is simply what it sounds like; get your forearm across their nose to push it in the direction you want it to go. In this position you use the cross face to enable yourself to take their back. After that drill, we switched to escaping the muy thai clinch into a body lock. Using what is called a duck under, again, just like it sounds, you push up on the elbows of the clincher, and drop your level to slip under their arms into either a side clinch or back clinch. From these positions you can either hip in and sweep their legs out from under them, or block a heel, and drag them down to the mat. Next we worked slipping to a front body lock, or bear hug, and then squeezing and rolling your knuckles at the same time to buckle their knees and drive them to the mat. Good times. We finished with a drill called Iron Man, which is two guys wrestling for a take down, and the winner stays in until he gets taken down. Pretty simple, and with a fairly small class, it's tough to get really tired. All in all, a fun day!