Weekend Wrapup -Takedowns

Finished a "perfect" week of training my backside off with two hours of No Gi Friday night (the culmination of  Wheeee!...Ow! That's Going to Leave a Mark) . The session, after warm-ups, was spent entirely on drilling and then sparring takedowns. Just takedowns. Did I mention that we worked a few takedowns? All worked at a pace that would be pretty grueling for 20 minutes, much less two hours, but I'm not bitter ;-).

The first technique we worked on was a knee tap from neutral over-underhooks. Mechanically it is very simple - you drop your overhook hand to the outside of you opponents knee while at the same time driving up and across with your underhook. Your arms are driving across your body, one high, one low and your bodyweight is driving through your underhook (kind of like an Aikido tenchi nage - heaven and earth throw but with real world grips and pressure). The key to success with this technique is timing. Your opponent has the same initial grips, so you have to set it up by pulling with your overhook to expose the knee you want - works well during a pummel war. 

The next technique drilled was a fast lateral drop starting again from neutral over-underhooks. You step back and pull on your overhook side to get your opponent to step forward and put his weight on that foot. You immediately step with your opposite foot (underhook side) to the outside of his same side foot and as you lift up with your underhook, pull down with your overhook, start to rotate perpendicular to his hips and slide your overhook side leg across his body to block his instep. You continue rotating as you drop your overhook side hip to the mat pulling your opponent over your blocking leg into a shoulder roll. Because of your over /underhooks you follow and control his roll and come up into top side control. This is a "sacrifice throw" - you hit the mat before he does and pull him over your blocking leg - as such, if you don't have good control with your over/underhooks and get his shoulders turning toward the mat before you drop you will be pulling him on top of you. It looks a lot like this with less emphasis on the back arch and more emphasis on the blocking leg to make the technique more effective against a larger opponent you would not be able to lift.

Last drill was a little work from the head tie-up, shrugging off the arm on the neck into a russian 2-on-1, countering with a step back and pull gaining head control and working from there.

The sparring rounds consisted of getting the takedown and then right back on your feet. Concentrated on working the "techniques of the day," so a lot work on controlling the clinch and working for the takedown from neutral over-underhooks (a lot of pummeling going on). Got a good feeling for the new techniques timing and set-up wise against full resistance. Noticed that when you are in the neutral over/underhook clinch if your opponent has his feet back and is "leaning in" to the clinch, the lateral drop works well. When he has his feet and balance more centered it makes it easier to reach his knee with the first technique.

When not working from the clinch, had decent success with a snatch single leg and using an arm drag both for a takedown directly and to set up a side or back clinch to takedown.