Class 41...

Today we were spared the usual gruelling warm-up of neck exercises and press-ups to work on some takedown drills.

We started facing the opponent with one of his hands gripping your gi collar. Using two hands you break the grip, then push the opponent's hand towards his groin as you drop down a level with your head on his stomach. Both your hands grasp the backs of his knees and, keeping good posture, you drive forward as you pull his legs towards to send him flying on his back. You then switch over and practice on the other side. 

You then grab the opponent's left-side gi collar with your right hand and drop down onto the opposite side with your left arm grabbing his right leg around the knee. Keeping good posture you then drive to the right as you lift his leg to send him flying on his side. You then switch over and practice on the other side. 

This four-move drill helps practice the double-leg takedown and the single-leg takedown on each side and, although I wasn't particularly fluid at it, I can absolutely see its practical application. 

We then moved onto another drill where we drilled the set-up and the footwork for a judo throw called Ippon Seoi Nage, which is essentially a hip throw where you use the opponent's arm for leverage. This involved stepping in and out of 50 set-ups one after the other. It was tiring but it was also very good.

We then went on to work on re-establishing guard from full mount by hip escaping on one side then fishing for the opponent's foot and pushing down on his knee to establish half-guard before hip escaping the other side and achieving closed guard. This was quite a technical process involving several individual steps but again it's such a vital technique that I need to spend some real time on it.

As an aide memoir the steps from being fully mounted were:

1) Frame hands and push down on opponent's right knee.

2) Hip escape onto left hip and keep pushing knee down. 

3) Using right leg, fish the opponent's foot and drag it backwards.

4) Push down on knee until your left knee has passed it ad you can establish half-guard. 

5) Hip escape out onto right hip. 

6) Frame hands and push opponent's other knee down until his knee has passed your leg. 

7) Bring leg round and establish closed guard.

We also worked on bridging and rolling the opponent and I was OK at this. 

In sparring I got caught in a kimura by a blue belt but I managed to hold my own against him for the rest of the time. I was then paired with a smaller but very energetic white belt for a 10-minute round and we grappled to a draw. I then sparred with another much bigger white belt and managed to move from being fully mounted to turtle to throwing him and getting him to side mount.

I'm ever so slowly forming an idea of what to do in certain positions. I'm under no illusion, however, that I'm anywhere near really getting anywhere. A good class, though.

LESSON FROM TODAY: Drill the hip escape and takedowns.