Midway through the week and we continue the lessons on double leg takedowns.
Professor addressed the class by paying homage to three members of the academy that recently competed in a grappling tournament. All of them achieved medals which of course made the professor exceptionally proud. He then explained the format of the lesson for the evening, concentrating on adding details to the techniques taught in Monday’s lesson.
We started a warm-up which included, running, side-stepping, raised heels and raised knees. We then performed hip escapes, cart-wheels and lizard crawls forwards and backwards.
Professor then discussed some basic self-defense concepts which involved clinching, controlling the arm followed by a knee to the groin, finishing with a hip throw. We didn’t complete the hip throw completely due to the amount of people on the mats.
We reviewed the previous lesson, with the professor going into more detail on hand positioning on the attackers legs, shoulder positioning when the attacker is on the ground and where to transfer hands to move to the cross body position.
We practiced this with an emphasis on connections. Professor then gave an excellent explanation on power vs pressure. Summarised, power can’t be maintained on an individual where as pressure can be via the use of positioning and good connection, better described by acting like a ‘wet blanket’ on the attacker.
This was demonstrated on a few students in the academy so that they felt the difference.
This brought the evening to a close. More concepts are coming our way in Friday’s lesson with respect to dealing with opponents who have more knowledge about grappling.
My thoughts, certain elements of the lesson I remember from other techniques taught to me, however some things aren’t working for me as well as I like, which questions my understanding or possibly my execution. To me if it isn’t comfortable don’t do it, but something that’s new is always uncomfortable! Perseverance and practice needed…
“Tapping out”
wbp1s 