Grappling Drills

[Mike Cartier]

ARMA-SFL has incorporated a couple of old wrestling drills into our grappling curriculum, we do the drills once a month or so, not as intensively as say a wrestler or judoka would do. But I feel they deliver some excellent attributes which lend themselves nicely to the ARMA sparring.

We do the Wrestling Pummelling drill (Start in over/under clinch and work back and forth with a partner increasing the speed and intensity and trying to fight for double underhooks)

The Sumo drill (face of in an open wrestling stance with a circle of people around to act as a ring and try to push each other out of the circle. There are 3 options Push them out [hard], spin and yeild to toss them out [soft] or snap down their head to make them fall)

Clinch wrestling, (starting in a collar/elbow clinch we try to work to a dominant clinch on an opponent who is doing likewise to you. So start in collar/elbow and go to side or rear clinch or double underhooks or even the reverse headlock clinch)
We encourage grappling and ground fighting in our sparring if both paticipants agree so we try to develop some clinc, grappling attributes to pull out in sparring.

Anyone else have any interesting grappling drills they use to develop attributes?

[JeffGentry]

Hey Mike

Here in columbus we just plain wrestle pretty frequently, we have a couple guy's who have joined our group in the last 6 month's who have some experience in high school wrestling, Me personaly i have no wrestling or martial art's background so i like to just wrestle and try thing's from the manuel's whether it is from a standing clinch, or takedown's, or whatever i think might be appropriate and figure out how to do it, now that we have some people who have some wrestling experience they show us diffrent thing's and can explain why some thing were/are giving us trouble in exacution and how to actualy setup something's.

I found just wrestling in and of itself is educational even if i get a butt whippin i alway's learn something.


Jeff

[Mike Cartier]

Yes one always feels better when one win but more often than not one learns more when one loses.

All my greatest learning experiences in martial arts have usually been following a butt whoopin.

[Gene Tausk]

The Houston Southside group uses wrestling drills every practice session. We spend at least 15 minutes on falling exercises and next year we are going to move into more advanced falling/rolling exercises by doing a session of "le parkeur."

I am also going to be working with one of my more advanced compatriots on Nicholas Petter beginning this month.

In addition, we practice Greco-Roman wrestling drills such as body lifts, shoulder throws, hip throws and fireman's carry. We worked on these same drills at the August event here in Houston. Unfortuately, time prohibits us from more. You can only get so much done in a practice session.

However, once in an 8-week period we focus on unarmed combat, which also means grappling and, of course, wrestling.

I think that it is excellent, Mike, that your group is doing the same as well.


---------->>>>>>>>>>>>>>gene tausk
SFS
Study Group Leader - Houston ARMA Southside

[Travis Beamon]

After enjoying your class so much last August Gene, I've very much looked into ways to add grappling drills into our practice.I'll take ideas from this thread and see what Ernie and Ran think.

Thanks all,

[Douglas L. Meek]

I normaly just "play" grapple with my friends we dont look at any style, I sometimes look at things from hans talhoffer, but not always. It seems like every time i try to grapple with a little guy, they always cling to me. Its hard to get them off without punching them a good one.

also its hard to get out of head locks, and i have never found a great way to do that yet. Normaly if im standing i reach down between my legs, and grab hold of there leg then pull up. but with smaller guys there legs go up when i go down <img src="/forum/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" /> and if im on the floor i try to roll on top of them.
Is there any good ways to get out of a head lock? or to get someone who is clinging to you off?

thanks

Douglas

[Mike Cartier]

It depends on the headlock really but there are many methods of breaking free of headlocks and general close grips.

For the headlock I like the Brazillian JiuJitsu method of picking up the person and slamming them on thier backs. The headlock is quite harmless if you are used to ther discomfort of being choked senseless as most combat grapplers are. When viewed this way they are a great way to drain the opponents batteries of energy. he will squeeze for dear life on your head to no avail if you relax and breath through it. By putting him on the ground you put yourself on top and then once he tires of the headlock attempt you will be in side control. As a general rule when being choked you work yourself towards the open part of the lock or choke to make space to breath and let the blood flow.

For clearing people of close binds or clinches there are a bunch of techniques from the manuals.

Paulus Hector Mair manual teaches a methiod of closing the fists and pressing straight outwards to free yourself from a grip. (David Knight will correct me if I am wrong)

The Joachim Meyer manual has an interesting method of balling up the fists and crossing the arms when bear hugged or clinched, then as you shoot around generously with your elbows you free yourself with great leverage from any bind or clinch.

Ancient Pankration uses methods to escape binds very similar to modern MMA/NBH (not surprisingly)

This one works well against most clinches, working both hands into the bind and being especially mindful of your base which the opponent is going to try and topple as soon as he takes a dominate clinch position like this, base out and press out and you can make space to twist/spin out or simply get into a good sprawl.

and finally Wrestling and BJJ have my favorite method for free yourself from a tight bind/grip/clinch and that is to base out with a sprawl like footwork and push both palms into the face or even under the nose/chin of the opponent to make space and push vigorously.

[Matt_Bruskotter]

From my many years of grappling one of the best ways of getting out of a head-lock is prevention. Head-locks, while a legitimate technique, I find them to be easier to avoid than most other techniques. How do I get out of a head-lock? I avoid the situation, but that doesn't mean I don't know a couple counter techniques to it.

One of the great things about grappling weither it be judo, greco roman, or mma, is that you can do it anywhere. Inside with mats, outside on the grass, and it's fun. I usually viewed wrestling drills being more for conditioning. I believe the best way to achieve skill is to just plain wrestle as much as possible. Drills are for learning techniques, not acquiring skill. Then again, I'm not a coach. Most of my instructors had us wrestle all day. We did very little drilling. And we weren't a bad team. My teams being judo and greco roman wrestling.

[David_Knight]

Mike - That technique is definitely in the Codex Wallerstein and was thus probably carried over to Mair's unarmed chapter, but I haven't had a chance to translate those plates... yet <img src="/forum/images/icons/grin.gif" alt="" />

[Stewart Sackett]

ARMA-SFL has incorporated a couple of old
Anyone else have any interesting grappling drills they use to develop attributes?

The wrestling drill we practice in our group is one that I borrowed from my MMA training, it focuses on Greco-roman body control & is designed to teach the fundamentals of body position & pummeling. I’m particularly impressed with this drill because it gives you a good foundation of skills which can readily adapt to applying the throws or joint attacks from the manuals. Building fundamental sensitivity & attributes for grappling, I tend to think of it as the Ringen equivalent to press drills.

It goes like this:

2 people drill while a third observes & calls out positions. The drill begins with both fighters working for a dominants head position without the use of their hands. This is called “head position”. If a fighter shows bad posture his partner can perform a snap down as a reminder, but otherwise the hands remain behind the back. The observer calls out “head & hands” & the fighters start to hand fight while continuing to work for a dominant head position (I believe hand fighting is particularly important in HEMA as it serves to defend against a dagger & to set up arm breaks). When the observer calls out “add the body” the combatants try to gain control of their opponents head & torso. All this is done with standard Greco grips & anytime one man achieves a secure dominant position, or the action stagnates for some other reason, the observer switches to a new command. In my gym we tend to do 5 minute rounds of this “clinch surfing”, cycling through “head position”, “head & hands” & “add the body”.

P.S. I’ve begun to think that my group should practice with our rondels in our belts & add a 4th command so that it would be: “head position”, “head & hands”, “add the body” & “Stab!”

[david welch]

Anyone else have any interesting grappling drills they use to develop attributes?

Have one of you get on your back and the other get on top, chest to chest. The guy on the bottom tries to get on top, and the guy on top tries to keep the bottom guy down. The catch is this is a "no hands" drill. Stick them in your pockets or something.

It really enforces and teaches using your hips and keeping them moving..

[Corey Roberts]

Hey, as I am generally inexperienced with grappling, do you know of any where on the net or anything where any of the above mentioned drills are pictured?

Also, Gene, I remember doing the body lift drill in your class in August, as well as the drills where you touched the opponents hips and so forth, but I've forgotten, what skills do these drills develop in particular? This is good information for me right now as Ryan Lee and I have begun working a little with Kampfringen recently, and I'm looking for drills we could do to create some foundational skills.

[John Farthing]

[quote="Mike Cartier"]Yes one always feels better when one win but more often than not one learns more when one loses.

This reminds me of a great quote from Anthony Robbins, "When you lose, do not lose the lesson".

[Robert Bertram]

Here's a great one from Auerswald. You're probably already familiar with it, but here it is anyways:

"
78.
Look, thou, and see: how men in the past would wrestle in the hole.
One stands in the hole
and may not remove his leg from it
and his opponent must hop on one leg
Much art comes of this
and it is funny to see."

The idea is that the person in the hole tries to get the guy on one foot to put his elevated foot down and the guy with the raised foot tries to get the guy in the hole out of the hole.