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Finnegan's Wake


I advice you to sprawl and not get taken down :icon_chee. I dont know if you are trying to focus more on escapes/reversals or what, but he is passing your guard way to easily. Work on that ground defence.

Seriously though not gona pretend like I know a lot about mma, other than being a veteran fan.With a lot more technique and your strength level you should do really well.
 
I advice you to sprawl and not get taken down :icon_chee. I dont know if you are trying to focus more on escapes/reversals or what, but he is passing your guard way to easily. Work on that ground defence.

Seriously though not gona pretend like I know a lot about mma, other than being a veteran fan.With a lot more technique and your strength level you should do really well.

Believe me man, I tried to sprawl. I have very, very little experience against wrestlers, as is evident in all the vids.
 
Believe me man, I tried to sprawl. I have very, very little experience against wrestlers, as is evident in all the vids.

Yea still you can use this as a good yardstick to judge your improvements. I have been thinking off doing some kind of mma, but I really want to have a wrestling base before doing anything else. Seems hard to find good wrestling training for adults around here.
 
I lucked out there. My MMA instructor is the wrestling coach for local high school.
 
Alright, to start off, I like the jab and the footwork. Didn't really see any crossing over of the feet, and you stayted on the balls of your feet.

You also did a good job of staying in the pocket, not backing out. This enables you to counter right away if you get hit or slip a punch. However against someone who is really going to crush you with punches or kicks, you might want to work on parrying and circling more, but he did not seem to be hitting you too hard.

Off of that jab I think you should work a hard downkick to his lead leg. Make it quick, like right after the jab, it'll completely ruin his day if you keep it on. Another option is to bring a cross after the jab. Cross, kick, doesn't matter, just follow it up with something that's got some heat on it.

Try and throw more cross hook cross, kick counters as well. Very effective and you usually get them hard with the hook or second cross, and by then they don't expect the kick.

Also, keep your hands high, you let them sink a little when you're jabbing. Also work on snapping that jab and bringing it back just as quickly as it went out.

When you're cut kicking, put some meaning into it, even in sparring. It's an effective and quick tool that's not easily blocked.

And two things I noticed on the ground:
When he has you in side control, shrimp. Post your forearm under his jaw on the side, and post another arm on his hip. Simultaneously explode and push with your arms while pushing your hips out with your feet, that way you can retain guard.

Also, when you are trying to pass guard, it looked like as soon as he got you over a little bit, you let him roll you. Try and keep a solid base and don't let people do that, a lot of people get a tendency of doing that in training.


All in all looked good, hope this helps.
 
Thanks Woogie. The advice I've gotten on here has been equally as useful as that I've been instructed in. Brandon McRea's advice from the last vid really paid off this week. I'll drill some shrimping.

In my defense (or more precisely, my ill-judgement) maxing on Z-Squats last night thrashed my core. I had nothing on the ground this week if it involved core strength.
 
Haha you know what, if that didn't affect you, then you are a god among men.
 
Watched those vids.
You're lively on your feet for a big man. Moving around nicely, head weaving and bobbing, pretty nimble.
In my opinion, your kicks are your strength. You really pop that left thai kick nicely. I agree with Woogie: every now and then really turn into it and let your partner know it's a real threat. From the video, it appears that it IS a real threat.

Against the MMA guy. I REALLY want to recommend Uchimata to you, but...
The next alternative to Uchimata (IMHO) is to sprawl. Develop your sprawl off the mat by doing burpees maybe. On the mat get your dick in the dirt (that's what I've heard a wrestling coach calling a good sprawl). Don't be a feared to kick your legs out and drop your hips to the mat.
He's passing your guard, again in my humble opinion, because your not thinking about your lower body.
As was mentioned, shrimp INTO him (not away). Take your closest hand and reach down under his body, between his legs, and push his furthest leg into your half guard. From there work to full guard.
When he's in side mount nothing else should matter except for getting your guard back. Later add scrambling out back to standing, but maybe for now just get that half guard back.
Against the Wing Chun guy, pass his guard by suddenly hugging his leg together with your arms at his knees. Literally hug his knees together. Muscle it. I've found that when I do the hug, it only really works if I lay completely flat down on them, kind of pulling them out at the same time, so that I've literally got his legs pinned flat on the mat, knees together, with all my weight. Then I walk around to side mount.

Your tackle against the Wing Chun guy appears to be working very nicely.

Just some things I see that seem like they might change your game for the positive almost immediately.
 
Bubble Boy:
Thanks for the tips. I'm all about using my strength when I can.

Zero: His Z-Squat was a hell of a lot cleaner than mine. I'll get there.Why wasn't he in the cage though? That doesn't make sense.
 
i watched vs the wing sun fight. the shaky/blurryness is killing me and i'm going to get some ass tonight so i will watch the rest later.

on a guy with a stance like him, you need to low kick his leg every time he puts weight on it. people should pay for having a boxing stance in a kickboxing fight. his hands are low and you should just feel confident snapping jabs at him. he's not low kicking at all or looking for the body so keep the hands high. his high kicks are half speed to kick out his bottom leg as soon as you see his hip about to fire a kick.

your shot was ok. when you get deep, lace your hands around the ankle. if your hand is at the knee he can bend his leg. if you lace the ankle he cannot and cannot sprawl.

the video is blurry and shaky. tell your cameraman to sit down, and/or put his/her free hand in her armpit, and rest her/his camera-holding arm on that hand. i'll take a pic of me doing this sometime.

you need to put on big gloves and start committing on the punches. doing these light punches will lead to bad habits of pulling punches. also, you're sparring for a long time and you think you have good gas but hard punches take a TON more energy to throw and you need to know how that feels. i'm not saying it will gas you but you need to know what it will feel like to really fight. i'm not saying KO power, but i'm saying "white lights" power at least.

it doesnt make sense to spend mos tof the time on your feet with little gloves so put on the big ones. if you have mma gloves on, you need to be focusing MMA TDs and ground work and GNP.

i'll try to take pics and vids of what i'm trying to explain soon or it gets too wordy.
 
On the mat get your dick in the dirt (that's what I've heard a wrestling coach calling a good sprawl). Don't be a feared to kick your legs out and drop your hips to the mat.
that is the wrong way to sprawl.

dick to dirt will get you hurt. there's a right way to do it.

i stand with my right leg forward. this tells me that my right leg is the leg you will be going for on a takedown. the only time my left leg will be a target is if he sets me up with a pull/push or circle step which will make me step and try to bring my left leg forward. in that case, my left leg is the front leg and that is the target. front leg = target. there is no fucking way someone can shoot and get your back leg if you have a pulse.

since my right leg is the target, that's how i will sprawl. i will throw my right leg back and slam my right hip into the ground. my quad and lower leg should make a nice sound like a kick on a thai pad. this does not hurt because it's more like my outer thigh hitting the ground and not like the bone directly on the ground.

if someone is deep and under my hips, i will throw the hip bone down and this will rip their shoulder off of you and smash them into the ground. for this, they will end up prone under your body.

if they stay erect and you cant break them down, if you throw a hip into their chest/clavicle, you can "hip check" them and "lat whip" (reaching over their back and grabbing their lat on the side you're checking and flip them over while i turn my torso to my left).

for the first sprawl i described, your left hip should actually be up in the air with your hips turned to the side because your right hip is down. also, once your face people who "turn the corner" on a shot you will learn to counter turn the corner on your shot.

if someone is shooting for my right leg, he wants to take it and turn the corner to come around my side (my right). if i sprawl my legs back, he drives me sideways and i will fall. knowing this, i will sprawl and turn right in the air and end up facing him square on.

also, on the sprawl, shoot back 2-3 feet in the air from the point you start. ideally i want my upper body between him and my legs.

more on that, i have many lines of defense to the takedown.

1 distance. if he cannot reach out and touch me, he should not be able to take me down. we forfeit this to get into fighting range, but if you're so tired and gassed and up by points, this might be your only way to stall out and win if you have to. this is the ghey "running away" tactic basically. it has its uses.

2 your hands. you can stop a lot of takedowns with a simple football stiff arm. stuff someone's crappy TD and counter it/

3 your elbows. if someone tries to get under your arms, you can make a frame and block them wiht your elbows on their clavicles usually.

4 your head. another way to block and keep distance from them and your legs.

5 your hips. you can smash people when you learn to use your hips and a low center of gravity. watch matt hammel and mike bisping in that TUF show when matt was blocking mike's shot with hands behind his back. this drill is awesome. just keep the hips square and low and drive into him. you can come out on top of a TD war with only hips.

6 legs. just fucking kick them powerful car jacks back. keep then away and he has to reach for your legs. in this case he is now a weak bitch and is fucked.

add in some crossfaces and some head control (jamming the head) and no one should take you down.

the rule on head control is that if their head is high on your body, get a "whizzer" and/or cross face. kick the target leg back and jack them up your body at the same time, then body lokc and throw.

if they are lower on your body, sprawl and jam their head into the ground. also, hand control is awesome. no one should take you down with one hand so a way to stuff someone is to just grab one of their hands and pull it off. see what they cant do now. keep hips square and you should be fine.

gotta run.
 
if i can get someone to hold my camera and someone to be a grappling dummy, i'll vid some of this.
 
that is the wrong way to sprawl.

dick to dirt will get you hurt. there's a right way to do it.

I read the rest of your post and am presently absorbing it.
FYI, this is the kind of "dick in the dirt" thing I was talking about:

watch
 
look I'm no MMArtist or boxer but my 8 years of TKD kept yelling kick him in the freakin' melon. You've got a strong core and legs cedars, don't be afraid to put your weight into a high backleg roundhouse. It's easily set up with a 1-2, you can also counter his craptactular(wing tsun man) roundhouses with a turning back kick. Use them as you can but with big a set of cedars like yours you really oughta learn to give dirt naps with that right leg of yours. Happy training.
 
Thanks for the encouragement. Just to recap on this page though: I'd maxed out on Z Squats lterally 10 hours before this video, and am nursing a shin injury from last week where a guy checked a right low kick w/ his knee. My kicks from last week were much crisper and faster.
My fault for bad judgement. I should have lifted after sparring, not before.
 
Either way, you're improving in the sparring department.
 
I read the rest of your post and am presently absorbing it.
FYI, this is the kind of "dick in the dirt" thing I was talking about:

watch

That guy does a good job with "turning the corner" and an okay crossface for just getting his upper body between his opponent and his legs but his sprawl is weak.

He has the "run away" sprawl which is fine if the only thing you can do is stand-up fighting. On the shots that guy was doing, he should have done my sprawl and smashed him with a hip. He's break the opponent down and end in a dominant position versus running away and ending neutral.

You can't let someone make attacks without making them pay for it. Think of it like slipping a punch versus slipping and countering a punch.

If his opponent was good, he could step up, fix posture and possibly re-shoot. You never see that in MMA but he could do it.


And that guy's shot wasn't up to par. He shot right down on his knee, stopped his momentum on that knee and had to use an ankle lace to trip the opponent where he could have fought for guard. There was no penetration step. The front leg on a double leg has to step right between the line the opponent's feet makes so when you drive to the knee you finish a few feet behind where he started. Then you drive across and Matt Hughes somebody.

The ankle lace (with the foot) is a great technique, but if you have no momentum, the opponent can just hip check you in the mouth and knock you backwards if he is aggressive.

Keep in mind, that guy is a striker teaching wrestling, not a wrestler teaching wrestling.
 
Either way, you're improving in the sparring department.

I'm kind of worried about that actually. I don't want to be good at sparring. I want to be good at fighting. I'm going to push for the bigger gloves next week. We can always take them off when it goes to the ground.
 
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