18/06/2011: Asymmetrical Engagement – Striking vs Grappling Revisited

I have been very remiss in posting log updates over the past few weeks and I do apologise - things have been very busy.  Over the past three weeks, we have been working on increasing the number of combat multipliers or outliers we inject into our training drills - basically, introducing escalating amounts of chaos in small, controlled doses.  As Murphy's Laws of warfare say, no plan survives first contact with the enemy, so it is our goal for the season to build a living, self-evolving plan that will survive not only first, but all the way to last contact.

Training on this day involved liberal amounts of dirty boxing with a very Systema twist - strike absorption!  As everyone learned today, absorption is one thing when you are standing free and able to articulate every joint in your body unimpeded to dissipate impact, and quite another thing entirely when someone is cranking your spine into a pretzel and throwing nasty stinging strikes into your sensitive and tense parts.  This works both ways - when you are working to manipulate someone's structure, expect to lose the luxury of complete and unimpeded fluidity across your entire body as both your systems of forces merge into one and you share in a portion of your opponent's tension. 

Learning to breathe through unavoidable impact while maintaining purposeful movement towards a clear goal (breaking and controlling an opponent's structure) and using structural manipulations of an opponent to degrade the power of his strikes all featured prominently today.

Objectives

- Learning the importance of controlling consent to engage in symmetrical struggle (ie. the same ‘type’ of fighting) with opponent; learning to give and remove consent

- Blunting grappling attacks with striking and defensive grappling

- Smothering and defeating strikers with offensive grappling


Warmup

Intuflow Beginner/Intermediate routine


Prep Drills

- Neck and body pummelling

- Strike absorption – free-standing reciprocal and restricted motion (use a wall or other obstruction if third parties are insufficient); absorption via movement/structure/breathing – experiment with integration and isolation of each of the triad (ball/wave/airbag)

- Marionette/Sweater-snag drill

- Hair-brush defence


Weaponised Drills

- Slipping punches to clinch – tori aims to slip past uke’s punches to secure a head clinch; drill begins at half speed and creeps up in speed according to comfort; uke may aim to actively fend off clinch attempts from time to time.

- strike absorption from clinch – tori aims to maintain clinch on uke while absorbing strikes from uke; drill begins with simple absorption and may creep up to uke attempting to break or seize control of the clinch and tori aiming to manhandle or takedown uke in the clinch to diffuse the strikes.


Symmetrical Sparring

Partners begin the fight in head-and-elbow tie. Both partners will attempt to take each other down by any means necessary, up to and including the use of strikes to achieve dominance in the clinch.