If your opponents arm doesn’t drag past you but stays across your body, frame and go for oma plata.
From the cross collar and sleeve grip, place your feet in their hips, push back for them to pressure forward. Lift your opponent in the air at the hips with your feet.
Today I made an appearance at Goshin Jitsu. I hope to make many more. With the beginners we taught basic footwork, forwards, backwards, to the sides, and the rear 90° pivot. The two stepping drills we worked on:
We also introduced kicking, helping each other stretch and turn on the ball of the foot.
With the advanced students, I reviewed the jab range finder I learned at Top Level Gym. This strategy prunes your opponent’s decision tree by throwing the jab, followed by two “range finds” extending the arm and using the palm of the glove to make contact, you step laterally to set-up an outside line. This gives you information, if you cannot reach they are out of range, if you can just reach they can likely be hit by a kick or cross, and if your arm is bent it is likely best to throw a short cross or round knee. If you check their arm and it’s loose you know that it is likely you can push it aside to set up your shot and if they are rigid that they will be more easy to turn.
We did four 2-minute rounds:
Defending the “flying” side kick to the knee (seen more often in MMA as of late):
Plum defense
Catching kicks with more panache. Step with the kick, overlooking at the ankle, take a half-step back with your rear leg and drop their heel to the palm of your glove. Keep the leg off-line with your body.
When your opponent has turtled up and you are attempting to attack with a clock choke but your opponent is defending the choke hand. Push their hand down and away from their body, hook it with the leg nearest their head. Pull it laterally and pinch it between your thighs. Reattach your choke hand on the far lapel and roll over your opponent across the shoulder. As you land on your back, cinch the choke and pull your non-choke hand to your head.
If your opponent rears up consider sitting backward to pull them into the crucifix position.
If they wrap the leg closer to their rear, make a tight roll forward to catch them in a kimura, control their legs as quickly as possible to prevent them from rolling out. WARNING: GO SLOW, THIS COMES ON FAST!
Worked four jab slip counters:
Andre Galvao of ATOS presented a seminar hosted by Impact Zone in Lafayette, IN. Professor Galvao is a top-level competitor yet simultaneously an excellent instructor. Today he presented part of his top game against the open guard and De La Riva guard. One of the key elements of his game is the "leg drag". The leg drag concept is a solution to the problem with clearing the legs and going directly to side mount, your opponent invariably shrimps out and reestablishes guard or half-guard. To remedy this, all the passing we did has a step where your opponents knees are directed away from you and you attempt to control their hips, before going to side mount (or taking the back). In essence you take a step back to get eventually get ahead.
Galvao is similar to other top level competitors in that he does not worry about what his opponent will do, rather he attacks the way he wants pruning the decision tree of responses that he has to deal with. We can all learn that confidence in our game is not arrogance and is necessary to obtain victory.
Open Guard Passing
A late update:
Rather than doing a two step evasion, sometimes it is necessary to do a quick evasion. Imagine a right triangle in front of your opponent, who is standing inside it, the right angle pointing to your midline. We are going to move both feet off line simultaneously. This will place you on a neutral stance, on the 45° diagonal. To your lead side it is a slide, to your rear side you will have to switch stance and end up in the neutral on the opposite diagonal.
The set-up is off the jab, using the bounce to throw the jab and then retreating, so that you have time to step off.
From either side you can:
Today I did a 7:30 am private lesson in muay thai. If you had told me 10 years ago that I would ever train before 10 am I’d have called you a crazy person. But with maturity, comes responsibility without a loss of the desire to be a better martial scientist. Ian worked with me from the clinch, a lá judo tie-up each person with one hand behind the neck and the other on with lateral control of the elbow. We traded hook knees to the ribs and flanks, alternating sides, until one person rolled the elbow grip hand underneath their partner’s arm securing medial control of the biceps. Stay hips close, head on your partner’s shoulder. It behooves the partner with outside control to roll an “overhook” over the elbow and underneath their partner’s axilla. Otherwise push their arm away and deliver a horizontal elbow to the face.
Today I worked some elbows off my opponent’s jab. Each of these used a “draw”, that is a parry and retreat to make your opponent advanced more aggressively to land their jab.
*This title should be taken with a grain of salt. My BJJ coach, Jack McVicker, has made wrestling a part of his game and passed what he considers the highest yield on to his students. I had numerous wrestlers teach when I was chief instructor of Goshin Jitsu.
At the young age of 40, I participated in my first wrestling class. That is, a class that only did wrestling, not as part of another grappling art or mixed-martial arts training. I think I know now why wrestlers start a “little” bit younger than 40.
Penetration Step: Step forward on the heel, roll to your toes, then to your same knee. Bring your trail leg up so that the toes land parallel with your knee line. This allows for greater variability when turning the corner. Hands grasp behind the knees. Face welds to their hip.
Sprawl: Toes back, hips forward, cross face. We practiced off our partner’s penetration step, sprawling on top of them. Rotate the hip opposite their face weld into your opponent, this gives space for you to cross face from their ear to their nose to their opposite ear. Underhook on the opposite side. Remember that if their takedown folds you, it is better to reestablish the cross face then try to hold their hips.
Go Behind: From the front headlock, sprawled on your toes, cupping their chin with one hand while placing your shoulder at their proximal thoracic spine. Cup their opposite elbow, rotate away from this side, pull/lift their elbow, so that their head goes toward the mat and their arm comes away from it. Now, release their chin and place your forearm on the back of their head and the back of your hand on their triceps. Step a little forward with the foot on this side and then pivot step bringing your other leg around so that you are parallel in the same direction as your opponent. Secure grips under each arm pit.
Snap Down: Tie up behind their head and controlling their opposite biceps, push into them and then violently snap their head forward. Secure the front headlock grip on their chin. Then sprawl to pull them to the mat.
Peek Out: More optimal, less intuitive, go in the direction away from the headlock. Place the hand that is on the same side as their headlock between their legs, touching the opposite knee if possible. Bring this leg through so that it is outside and perpendicular to where it started. Your head should trace under his body, with your neck being attached to his lats. Your other arm swims, almost as if you are trying to elbow/backhand your opponent. Reverse direction to spin behind/next to your opponent and be able to take their back.
Half Sit-Out: Less optimal, go in the direction of the front headlock. Post up on the foot on the same side as the headlock, sit on the opposite thigh. With the outside hand secure your opponents elbow, with the inside secure his wrist. Now bring your head toward his centerline, essentially unwrapping the front head lock. Secure the 2-on-1 grip on their arm.
I’ve always considered myself an expert at catching kicks…I mean that I’m really good at getting kicked in the legs, liver, and head. Apparently there is a better way. Always step laterally with the kick to decrease its kinetic energy.
Overwrap catch: As you step laterally away from the kick over wrap the kick and tuck their shin into your trapezius. You can wrap at the knee or the ankle. For these variations we are doing it at the ankle.
Elbow Underwrap: Reach across your body and cup the kick pulling the kick into the ipsilateral elbow. Literally, pulling the kick into your elbow to damage their shin.
Overwrap Series Kick to Rear Leg Side:
Underwear Series Kick to Rear Leg Side
More footwork today. When I started my lessons at Top Level Gym, I learned the slow, soothing rock step from foot to foot. A gentle rhythm of a swaying cobra, soothing unto lethality. Now, we’ve added the more aggressive darting of a mongoose. Using a 60-40/40-60 rock from lead to rear, we are bouncing in and out of range, the front leg returning to the rear but neither staying in the exact same place. Thus constantly moving getting close enough to strike and then exiting. The stance has become quantum, not static within its structure. Imaging skipping rope, with the a lead leg moving the body into and out of range.
We worked throwing two jabs, then faking the jab by shortening the lead step in, followed by a lead kick (forcing the rear leg to move with the rest of you so that you have a stable, base kicking leg).
We then switched up the two jab fake by dropping the level for a body cross, pivot stepping out at 45 degree angle throwing a hook, finished with a rear kick.
So after an unholy warm-up of sets of 10 individual then rapid kicks we worked on a series of simple “same-side” combos:
The idea is that is you are throwing opposite, e.g. jab-kick, the breaking of the cycle or rhythm with the cross and same-side kick will be more likely to score.
In order to make this kicking sequence more effective we worked on the step-out bounce. Previously I’ve been rocking foot to foot, but sometimes it helps to bounce foot to foot, bring in the lead foot to the base leg (think Matee’s warm-up at his seminars). Bringing the lead leg back, loads it allowing your to spring forward, switch leads to step back retreat, or to easily reset for tiip or kick.
Years ago I trained for a week in Kyoto Japan. While sparring, I had a number of folks do exactly this to me. It was incredibly frustrating because they could transition into and out of range more rapidly than I could. Having it broken down makes it more easily added to the arsenal.
Today’s private lesson focused on the reaction after defending the lead kick:
Always remember to circle out when you get near the ropes to restart the process of pulling them into this game.
Today I warmed up with three rounds of progressively faster:
First round was at my own pace, the second had at least 20 kicks and knees, and the third at least 30, in the same time interval.
Next we worked against the fighter who is attempting to close with a knee. That is, throwing the ranged knee to close, because that is either their style or you have shut down the game elsewhere. At first you read your opponent by check hand (simply extending your lead hand to push/guide them away as you step away), jab, and tiip. As they wear down, you work into landing your shots.
Throwing their left knee, you will typically evade to your left, and vice versa.
Step your lead foot off 45° and your rear foot follows shifting but not changing your stance, simultaneously your lead hand checks, followed by a rear kick or cross. Alternatively, you can step and throw a diagonal downward lead elbow, trying to cut the eye. Your hand will tuck to your ribs.
Step your rear foot through to the 45°, bring you off line but not switching your stance, throw the downward diagonal elbow with your stepping leg. Alternatively, use this hand to check, and bring your lead foot back (switching to the alternative lead), to throw the kick with your new rear leg.
A final alternative is to catch the knee and sweep, again “circling” the knee (they knee left, you step left). In the direction you are circling, this hand will push on your opponent’s chest while the other underhooks their knee. You can throw a knee to their thigh, before sweeping them backward by pushing and lifting while placing your leg behind theirs.
I used the bag to work on this, giving it a shove or a kick to move and then as it swung back toward me to work on any of the above. I would try to push to hard, and the bag would push me aside. My coach, Ian, explained that this provoked set-up was for a fighter trying to knee you, they are standing on one leg, when they do this is when you check. This necessitates less physical force, to stop and place them at range.
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