Today I went to class at Minnesota Martial Arts Academy for the first time in months. Actually I’ve been to Minnesota twice since January but the first time I had a hamstring tear that caused a big scary lump to grow on my thigh. The second time I had the flu. I’m still rehabbing my MCL problem that has been plaguing me for the last few weeks, but I went to class anyway because I wanted to see what’s going on at MMAA.
When I walked into the gym I saw Sean Sherk there working his ass off on the mat as per usual. That guy has the most inspirational work ethic. Nick Thompson was there too, as well as a bunch of other professional fighters. Minnesota Martial Arts Academy is home to lots of pro MMA fighters. A lot of people come from other states to train with Greg Nelson and scrap with some of the best fighters in the game.
Anyway, today Andy Grahn taught the no-gi class. He started with two 5 minute rounds of calisthenics with medicine balls and other instruments of torture. Andy always starts class with lots of conditioning. Today he said that the reason is so our muscles will be tired and we’ll have to use technique instead of brute strength. I thought he was just being sadistic. Hee hee. Andy’s classes are awesome. I use his combos all the time when I roll.
We started with a half-guard pass to a form of side control I’ve never seen before. Basically you make a tripod with your head, knee and foot. The key is to plant your head on the mat on the opposite side of your trapped leg.
- If your right leg is in your opponent’s figure-four, then you plant your head on the mat to your left next to his head.
- Then you get up on your feet and drive your trapped knee to the ground so that your opponent’s hips are torqued over.
- Pull your foot out and plant your tail-side knee on the ground right next to your opponent’s hip.
- Balance yourself by getting up on your other foot.
- Control your opponent’s near arm by grabbing under the tricep.
When we drilled this, Andy had us try to escape from tripod side control and it was really hard. None of the side-control escapes I know worked because my head was immobilized by my opponent’s head and I couldn’t shrimp away. It sucked. The only thing that kind of worked was to put my heels out far away from my butt and drag myself out from under my opponent with my hamstrings.
Transition to Mount
If you can’t get your foot out then you can transition to mount:
- Switch your knee to your opponent’s other side and drive it to the ground.
- Pummel for two underhooks.
- Inch your hands up so that both of your opponent’s arms are isolated above his head.
- Pull your foot out
- Establish mount
We didn’t go any further with this technique but I think you could finish with an armbar or an arm triangle because your opponent’s arms are totally stranded. I also noticed that you’ve shut down his mount escapes because
- he can’t do a hip escape without making a frame with his arms
- he can’t do an uppa because he can’t push up on your hips
- he can’t block your transition to S-mount because he can’t push down on your hips.
Finally we worked on a counter to a kimura from half-guard. This is a rad counter because you end up with your own kimura except you’re in a dominant position postured up over your opponent. Basically the context is that your opponent has you in half-guard and he swims under you and locks a kimura on. The counter is hard to describe but it goes something like this:
- Posture up on your head-side foot.
- Grab under your own thigh with the arm being attacked.
- Hip drive forward to break your opponent’s grips.
- Making sure that his elbow is in the center of your chest grip his wrist with your free hand.
- Lock in the kimura by passing your other hand underneath your opponent’s arm.
