A Takedown Strategy
This takedown strategy relies on giving you options from one basic starting point, and a small number of moves that can be applied to a large variety of situations, rather than having to have a different move for each situation.
Our basic stance is to have our right foot forward, whatever position he takes up. Also, we should all learn to shoot from both sides.
Basic penetration step – start drilling from a square stance, not rectangular. You have to be close enough to hit him with a right cross.
Drop (level change) – step in, shoot with your chest. Elbows stay at your sides. Grab his knees. Elbows stay at your sides. Knee goes to the floor, constant forward pressure. Hang off him like a lion dragging down an antelope, that will stop your knee hitting the floor hard. Keep driving into him.
Next, start from parallel stance, your left foot comes back a half step and stamps hard into the ground, change levels and shoot. don’t step back too far or you cannot close the distance. Can use this after a kick by stamping back with the kicking foot to shoot with the other – don’t step back too far.
Drills learn to shoot under pressure. Have your partner punch at you while you are in the shell, shoot from there. All similar drills we did in John’s seminar on the shell.
Visual rather than auditory cues – you jump and do the twist, when he twitches his right shoulder you shoot. In martial arts we are conditioned to rely on auditory cues and commands way too much.
Much better to drill the setup and shoot rather than taking the guy down every time, so as to increase the possible number of reps for a given period of time. Probably less overall trauma on the shootee.
Double leg – use him, lean on him to stop your knee crashing into the floor.
Outside single leg
His L leg is forward. you R foot steps outside of his L foot. Drop your R knee to the floor next to and behind his, and at the same time your R hand goes around his leg to the outside – hand and knee move together. Your L foot sweeps around counterclockwise so your L foot and his feet are roughly in line – not too far out with the L foot because you want ot be able to stand up on it in a second.Join your hands low in a guillotine-tyle grip. Posture is erect to avoid the sprawl, head up and on his hip.
You are now out of the “corridor of death”, i.e. the space straight in front of him where you are are vulnerable to knees, strikes with both hands, guillotines, getting sprawled on, etc.
To stand up, don’t put your weight on your R foot. Instead, lean and put your weight on him and drive with with your L leg hard, then brake hard with your R foot, so his leg stays in place while his body keeps moving, hopefully giving you the opportunity to stuff his L foot under your L armpit.
To take him down, throw your R hand in a HUGE uppercut to the sky, followed up immediately in a continuous movement with a low kick with your R leg to take out his L leg and dump him. The bigger the uppercut, the less kick is required. He lands on his back and you have already passed his guard.
High crotch to single leg
If his R leg is forward, do almost the same initial move. The R knee goes to the floor inside his R foot, the R hand wraps around his leg. This time you L foot circles forward to the outside of his R foot, once again removing you from the corridor of death. Put your weight and lean on him again, driving with your L leg to stand, as you transfer your R hand to the outside of his L knee. Lift his R leg to the sky with your L, block his L knee with your R hand, drive with your head as you run him sideways to your R and take him down with a high double leg, again passing his guard on your feet.
This is called a “high C”, though the real wrestling high C involves you lifting your R arm right up high in his crotch, standing up and lifting him off the ground and overhead. Not quite what we want in BJJ or MMA, where we want to pass his guard on our feet.
So the Outside single and high C are both very similar moves in different circumstances. Think of spiralling the knee to the ground rather than dropping it straight down to save on trauma to the knee.
Setting up the takedown from the clinch
Get a single neck tie on him with your R, inside elbow control on his R arm with your L, R foot forward, ready to shoot. Your footwork should never take you out of shooting position. So if dragging the guy around, we always lead with the back foot.
So, to get his L foot forward, we step L and back with our L foot and pull his head with our R hand. R leg remains forward in shooting position. If/when his L foot comes forward, we drop to our R knee and take the outside single.
To get his R foot forward, our L foot circles back and to the R and we pull his arm with our L hand. R foot remains forward in shooting position. If when his R foot comes forward, we drop to our R knee and take the high C.
If we can’t get him to move either foot forward, and his feet remain parallel – shoot the basic double leg.
2 on 1 defense against neck tie, MT clinch
He grabs our neck with his R hand, grab his R wrist with our R hand, step outside his R foot with our L foot, circle our L foot back. Roll the L shoulder over his R arm and put our weight on it to dislodge his grip. Under hook his bicep and put pressure on his shoulder with ours.
Same thing with MT clinch. Best to start with hands up, so you can get your hand in and grab his wrist before he has time to really set the Plum in concrete.
Keep circling back to your R and cranking down on his shoulder to stop him getting posture, throwing strikes and knees, etc., until you are ready to hit the next move.
2 on 1 to single leg
Get the 2 on 1 and keep driving him down until your face is so close to his R knee you can taste it. It is then easy just to grab the leg, bump him and get the high head-inside single leg trapping his lower leg between your thighs. You should be able to trap both arm and leg if you get close enough to his leg before changing the grips.
2 on 1 to guillotine choke
Get his head down low, then just reach around his neck with the R hand and move to the guillotine choke.
“Ten finger” guillotine
The basic guillotine has a pretty basic and well-known counter – the guy just puts his R arm over your L shoulder and makes you lift his whole body instead of just his neck.
This variation prevents that counter.
Wrap his neck with your R arm as for a basic guillotine. Your R palm is facing your chest.
Your L hand joins your R in an S grip, thumb rotates inward and down, your L palm facing away. Keep the S grip fairly loose.
Now put your L elbow on the top of his R shoulder. He cannot reach up eith his R arm any more. You have nullified the counter.
To finish the choke, twist your R forearm clockwise as you lift up.
John also showed us a nice flow from fence, into 2 on 1, into gooseneck come-along.
When learning techniques, after you have learned them step by step, try to practice them SLOWLY but continuously. Don’t go faster than you can think. don’t even roll faster than you can think.
John answered questions at the beginning about:
Escaping front control
Remember, you are trying move you feet and body away from his, so don’t bridge or shrimp! Practice the reverse hip escape.
If your hands and elbows are in the correct position, between you and him, use the pendulum escape. Try and see daylight each side as you pendulum.
Don’t get in the position where his elbows are on the ground in front of yours. But if you do, grab his belt and move yourself away until your arms are straight, the back-roll over a shoulder and get the hook in on that side. Transfer to tho other shoulder, get the other hook in and end up on his back.
Escaping headlock and switchbase side control.
Headlock – bridge into him, pushing his head toward his feet, pull your elbow out, go to his back.
Switchbase side control. He is on your R. Per last seminar, pinch his hips between your near elbow,and your hip so he is attached to you, you move one inch, he moves one inch. Feet up close to him. Bridge hard into him, move your L foot up to your R and slide your R knee underneath him so he is in your lap. Let your L leg go limp and shimmy under so he ends up on your L on his back with you on top.