CMAA Summer Course

Yesterday John, Dave K, Avi, Ric, Frodo, Gaz and Ste went to the CMAA Summer Course which is always a good chance to network and catch up with some of the other guys from arround the country.

I was teaching the lead-off slot this year and after weeks of going round in circles trying to figure out what to cover I decided to look at aspects of the 4 drivers and how they could help everyone's game. We concentrated on balance and footwork before moving on to tight, economical structure. Even the simple drills we played around with had people questioning the habits that they exhibited when training. Which is what it's all about.

Good to see Ste, Phil and Chloë down from SKD also sporting the shorts and t-shirts look.

I ended up being the crash test dummy of choice for the day and worked with Neil Froggatt (covering chokes with sticks and improvised weapons) and Andy Crittenden (covering apsects of the SDF approach).

Ask the guys about Apache Joe.

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Only one week till Rodney is here

Only a few days to go. :)

For anyone not attending the weekend seminar or the MA Life workshop please not that there are no regular classes next week. If you want to come to the seminar but haven't booked a place then let me know and we'll sort it out.

Don't miss this chance to learn from Rodney himself.

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Welcome to all the new guys

Over the past few weeks we've had a bunch of new members come down and get on the mats. Which is great. There's nothing better than seeing someone get to the end of their first session with a big smile on their face. New guys often look surprised, by the existing members, by the training and, most importantly, by themselves.

That look gives me a buzz everytime. Keep up the good work all of you and hopefully we'll see some more new faces soon.

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The four drivers of a performance game

Rodney posted this up on the membership site*, I thought you guys might be interested.

1. Balance - no balance no game!
2. Defence - No defense, then why bother with the rest
3. Tight, economical structure - You can have good balance and great defence, but if you open up to fire everytime - Well - you might as well not spar at all
4. Conditioning - You can have the best looking/designed engine in the wrold, but if you don't have the fuel, it's going to sit in the garage!

*Sign up today for discussion forums, online instructional video library, podcasts, articles and more.

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Thanks everyone

Thanks for the birthday vouchers guys. Much appreciated.

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Revolution goes global

Thought you might be interested to see where we get site visits from. This is a map of all the visitors to the website we've had in the past month. Pretty international.

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Needs Analysis for new members

Hey everyone

We have a Needs Analysis that I ask everyone to fill out, it is a series of questions about what you want to get out of your training and helps us to refine the direction of the classes we offer.

I'm looking at introducing some new, and very different classes, in the next few months and getting your input will help me to hit the nail on the head with these.

If you have any comments or reasons for training that aren't covered on the needs analysis drop me a mail so we can be sure I'm getting it right.

Thanks

Phil

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[Student activity] Understanding your reality

A huge part of the coaching process revolves around understandng your current reality. You can set goals but without understanding where you are now how can you plan a route to where you want to be.

Try this:

If you had to spar/roll with someone who was blindfolded would they be able to recognise you from your game? What would they describe your game as? How do other people see/feel your game?

I think putting yourself in someone else's shoes helps you figure out what you are doing without too much rose-tinted embellishment.

Post responses as comments.

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Changing the way you play guard

For the past couple of weeks we've been working specifically on turbocharging everyone's guard game. Rather than just look at lots of techniques we've been concentrating on how to keep a pressure game going and make people give you opportunities.

I've been breaking this down into 4 areas.

1) Mobility - Keep your hips working all the time, stay off your back, sit up and work with your arms and legs to make space. As part of this look at the following directions of movement to open up gaps (or slam them closed):

1. Lateral - keep your hips moving out to the sides
2. Longitudinal - keep moving in or out, getting underneath or making space to keep yourself safe
3. Elevation - Sit up and down, bump them with your hips, keep making a nuisance of yourself

2) Weight control - Whoever controls the weight controls the passes or sweeps. If they have control of their weight they will pin you and pass. If you have control you will carry them and sweep them. Use your movement and constant pushing, pulling, hooking and dragging with your arms and legs to keep them off balance. You should be aiming to make them fall into your subs and sweeps or just fall over completely.

3) Attack - Guard is a dominant position, although you wouldn' think so the way some people play it. From here you should be threatening with one of the following all the time:

• Sweep
• Submission
• Stand up

4) Recovery - Guard is hard to keep, you need to work at it. Don't just hang on and wait for the pass, work to claw back from every escape attempt. Work head control, knee insertion and foot hooking to keep resetting, retaking or transforming your guard to make it frustrating to work against.

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