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Azato
Azato's picture
Basic Ground Work

Hey everybody,

Ground work is not my forte so I wanted to get some feedback about these two drills I've been exprimenting with. I want to have some basics that are a part of my teaching. The goal is not to teach my students to out grapple another martial artist but to give them just enough familiarity with being on the ground that they have a better chance of getting back to their feet. If you could let me know what you think of these drills I would appreciate the feedback. Thanks!

Trap & Roll -

 

Kicking From the Ground -

Zach Zinn
Zach Zinn's picture

Good stuff, this is similar to what I do in my own class - just familiarity with basic positions - mount, gaurd, side control, and kicking away an opponent.

If you can still find it, Tim Cartmell has a dvd called Ground Proofing that was basically a curriculum put together for "stand up" martial artists to have a complete set of ground drills.

One thing I found helpful is to spend time just grappling for position in classes, even though it isn't directly a "self defense" thing without the strikes and context of escape, the relatively skimple skill of being able to transition through the positions, escape them etc. is invaluable. Isolating the positions themselves prior to any striking leads to a greater understanding of them, in my experience.

Azato
Azato's picture

Thanks for the feedback! I'll look into Tim Cartmell. I've been dabbling in BJJ for awhile now and I'm starting to get to the point that I want to introduce it at a very basic level into my teaching. Just don't want my students to have absolutely no familiarity with the ground. These drills feel like they work, I was giving my student a fair amount of resistance. I'm always apprehensive about this stuff though because I'm such a novice at it. Don't want to teach my students things that will produce bad habits. 

Tau
Tau's picture

In my oppinion the single best and most important groundwork drill for the pragmatic martial artist is the technical stand-up. I'm sure there's a video on it somewhere on this forum and there will be lots of videos of it on YouTube. I have my students do it nearly every lesson, usually as part of the warm-up.

Zach Zinn
Zach Zinn's picture

Tau wrote:

In my oppinion the single best and most important groundwork drill for the pragmatic martial artist is the technical stand-up. I'm sure there's a video on it somewhere on this forum and there will be lots of videos of it on YouTube. I have my students do it nearly every lesson, usually as part of the warm-up.

Cartmell's program was actually centered around this very thing. When I did a  seminar with one of his students it was all technical standup + dealing with kicks from the ground, and a small amount of dealing with the mount. The only thing I personally didn;t like was that they insist you do this kick from the bottom leg with the standup...in my experience drilling it it made little difference.

Azato wrote:

Thanks for the feedback! I'll look into Tim Cartmell. I've been dabbling in BJJ for awhile now and I'm starting to get to the point that I want to introduce it at a very basic level into my teaching. Just don't want my students to have absolutely no familiarity with the ground. These drills feel like they work, I was giving my student a fair amount of resistance. I'm always apprehensive about this stuff though because I'm such a novice at it. Don't want to teach my students things that will produce bad habits. 

Yeah I did pretty much the same thing with my class after doing Judo and Jujutsu for a few years. I think you can be reasonably confident, even if groundfighting is not your forte (it's not mine either) the bare minimum of groundfighting for self defense is a pretty small set of skills in my opinion, if your students know the basics of dealing with mount, how to use the guard to avoid being mounted from a standing opponent and such, how to set up kicking off (as evidenced by your video, they do), and (this is just me) some striking from side control and how to stand up/get away...that is pretty good self defense wise in terms of physical skills for the ground.

I try to make it clear to my class that I'm not really teaching them "grappling", that I'm not really qualified to do so, and that this is just basic stuff to operate when forced onto the ground in a  self defense context. I mean, grappling can get really complex...I think just being clear about what you want out of your own curriculum is where it's at..

I found a link to Tim's stuff:

http://www.shenwu.com/groundProofing.html

Iain Abernethy
Iain Abernethy's picture

Hi Daniel,

Azato wrote:
The goal is not to teach my students to out grapple another martial artist but to give them just enough familiarity with being on the ground that they have a better chance of getting back to their feet. If you could let me know what you think of these drills I would appreciate the feedback. Thanks!

That’s a good aim. One of my instructors used to say. “You can be a 10th dan on your feet, and white belt on your back.” My own personal guiding principle is, “I can’t be an expert in everything, but I want to be a beginner in nothing”. I therefore want enough groundwork skills to be able to deal with the likely situations of self-protection / non-consensual violence, but I don’t want to switch focus to out-grappling grapplers in consensual violence as that will take training time away from core goals. Our syllabus therefore covers the basics and includes a number of drills so that the students will be competent in that context. One drill you may find useful is my two-person ground-fighting kata in the app: Main Menu > Misc Techniques and Drills > Ground Drills > Basic Ground Escapes Kata. It covers the core holds and escapes.

Azato wrote:
Kicking From the Ground -

Sound drill. Simple, retainable and relevant. The live nature is also good. My only addition would be to stand and look to escape at the end.

Azato wrote:
Trap & Roll - https://youtu.be/4dtRh7Dk7Gs

It looks like you have posted the same link twice? If you can post the link to the Trap and Roll drill, I will embed it in the original post.

All the best,

Iain

Jeb Chiles
Jeb Chiles's picture

Good drill! It might help to turn to the side a bit more while shrimping to stay structured and set up sweeps.

Here's some drills we use in class!

All the best

Jeb

 

Jeb Chiles
Jeb Chiles's picture

We do a lot of drills that start in a bad position and you have to fight to stand up or other control position. Keep up the great work!

Azato
Azato's picture

Iain Abernethy wrote:
It looks like you have posted the same link twice? If you can post the link to the Trap and Roll drill, I will embed it in the original post.

Sorry about that. This is the right link: https://youtu.be/MZLk2s-jdfg

Thanks for the feedback guys. Liked your drills in particular, Jeb. 

Iain Abernethy
Iain Abernethy's picture

Azato wrote:
Sorry about that. This is the right link: https://youtu.be/MZLk2s-jdfg

Perfect! Thank you! I’ve just embedded it in the original post :-)

All the best,

Iain