Mixed Martial Arts: From Kicks and Punches to Grappling Monday, 23 August 2010 10:13 Written by Jennifer Tesado

It’s official. I became an MMA training fan and decided to sign up for a great MMA bargain in the Hongqiao area in Mingshen Gardens. Albeit it wasn’t that close to my area but for only 400 RMB for twelve two-hour sessions of classes, how could I resist? (That comes out to about 30 RMB per session) The plan was to have kickboxing and Muai Thai for the first hour and grappling and Jujitsu for the second hour. My initial thoughts were to join the first hour and observe for the second. Given I was new to the Hongqiao commute and , on my first day I was almost an hour late and I wasn’t about to waste the trip by just observing. This became my first experience with grappling. To be honest, I was feeling a little awkward about doing it at first since I was the only girl at the time but after a few tries it became challenging, and fun.

Grappling is very useful especially if your opponent (or attacker) gets you on the ground. It enables you to get out of tricky positions and also helps you get into the right position to gain control and dominance in a fight. Drills in light grappling involve a lot of strength and energy and is definitely a good way to build up your stamina, try out new techniques and build your confidence as well.

My latest MMA learnings? Read on…

1. Learn to fall properly – One of the drills that we had to do was to learn how to fall properly. Strange as it may sound (since you don’t exactly plan to fall) learning to fall in a certain way actually can prevent injury and even save your life. Falling properly involves falling in such a way that your head particularly is protected. The drills we did enabled us to fall backwards and forwards by rolling mostly on our back and also by making sure your fall on your behind and slamming the mat with your hand for more support. Ramsey our instructor told us that one time since he practiced falling properly so many times it was so well-programmed into his muscle memory that when he flew off his bike, he was able to fall by rolling and got away with only a few scrapes and no major head or face injuries.
2. T-Rex arms or the “Home Alone pose” as a basic control technique – by placing your hands tightly under your chin and your palms on your face while keeping your arms close together and tightly to your chest, you can actually prevent your opponent from gaining control. If your arms are loose and away from your body, you can only fight with the strength of your arms and it leaves you open for submissions (arm bars, chokes etc.). When you take the ‘T-rex arms or Home Alone” pose you are actually fighting with your whole body weight. A great drill that we do for this is lying on your belly on the mat and dragging your whole body across the mat just using your arms .
3. Submission moves are more about technique than strength ­– when you attempting a submission move (like an arm bar, a guillotine, a choke etc) it not just all about squeezing very hard with your muscles but about making sure you position your arms or legs at the right points. (e.g. making sure your opponents neck is hooked right into the crook of your arm cutting off the blood flow at the carotid arteries) Some moves, even with minimal strength but with the right positioning and movement like the Guillotine can create the submission you need.
4. Respect the Tap- when grappling, your opponent can “tap out” when he feels the submission move is already working (e.g. he or she can feel the affect of a choke or an arm bar—pain or discomfort). Once you feel or hear your opponent (or training partner) tap, release right away.
5. Breathe Out when giving or receiving strikes- breathing out definitely gives you more power when you strike. I personally find my strikes stronger when I shout. When receiving a strike especially in your mid-section, it is good to practice hissing out air and contracting your abdomen inward. This deflates your lungs and can prevent lung collapse or injury when in a sparring match. An exercise we did to practice this was to do crunches while our partner whacks us with the pads on the abdomen. As we are struck, we were asked to contract and hiss like snakes in order to receive the blows.
6. Do it with “bad intentions”- it’s not about being a war-freak but actually practicing the moves with a little more aggression adds power and fluidity to the movement. (e.g. practicing a double leg take down) For me, it actually felt great to be able to throw my instructor to the ground well.

MMA continually proves to be a rewarding experience and starting training in Grappling just adds a whole new dimension to it (not to mention sorer but stronger muscles too!).It is also would be great to see more Dolls kick some butt in the class! Again, training in MMA is a fun and challenging journey of discovering you could do things you never thought you could do and becoming stronger and more skilled in the process.

Classes with Ramsey Dewey at Mingshen Gardens are on Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays from 7-9pm. My commute route is taking Line 10 to Shui Chin road then a quick bus ride (#69) to Wuzhong Road.

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#2 RE: Mixed Martial Arts: From Kicks and Punches to Grappling — cheeky monkey 2010-09-19 15:09

Mingshen sports gym-633 Wuzhong lu No.85

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#1 INFORMATIONS — 2010-09-12 16:10

Hello jennifer

Your article is very interesting.

can you give me the siteweb of MMA or the adress ; I am living near WUZHONG LU and I would like to go over there;

Thanks a lot

NAT PASTOR

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