Fusion MMA - Saturday No Gi.

I had the pleasure to go train with my buddy Sean B. at his home gym, Fusion Fitness and MMA in Marietta. http://fusionfitnessandmma.com/

It was a good time. The grappling class worked sweeps. I'll write more about the head instructor later, since I was really impressed with his teaching style and his patience with me and his ability to monitor the whole class and give pointers. He deals in frameworks and themes rather than a 'random moves of the day'. The teaching method is very much counter to the Brazilian way I'm accustomed to.

We worked sweeps this class:
Scissor sweep, wrist control, off balance forward (swim hands through and make him base out), get knee across belly, pull wrists away while scissoring, end up on top.

Bottom guy gets elbows in, and recomposes guard, then he sweeps.

If he bases, you can quickly switch the direction of the sweep by getting other knee in, etc., also can run subs off of this transition phase, triangles, arm bars, etc.

Stuffing this sweep: You have to kill the knee and hook that across your belly, sprawling and pinning that leg to the ground helps this. You can then walk around.

Sweep from open guard: feet on hips, shins on inside of biceps, if he bases, get a butterfly hook under that leg, bring weight on top, use hook to sweep to 1/2 guard.

Bump sweep- base off arm, attach other arm pit to his shoulder, lift hips, step over and sweep.

Did some shoots and double/singles, no knee stomp, but instead a good level change, and back of knee grab to finish. Good street safe takedown.

SITOUTS! off of a failed shot, if he sprawls, IMMEDIATELY base leg on side that your head is trapped, then step other leg under, sit out, apply head/ear pressure, get to top/back. Hook always goes on bottom side. I need to make this a standard part of my game. I can see this being super powerful and take away some of the fear of attempting take-downs.

Rolling with the instructor:
arm bar defense, grab own bicep w/ attacked arm, then use non attacked arm to hide behind the thigh to further lock it up.
Did wrong: putting leg up in his guard, where he could attack my legs (lack of leg locks bums me out in our school), didn't stagger arms when in his guard.
elbows tighter, keep knees tighter, think of it as guard on top, don't let elbows splay out, stagger hands in  his guard.
Needed to keep hips lower, follow his movement more, make a 'cross' sign out of myself. no space between hips and floor, nor between his body and my body.

Noted I was relaxed on the bottom and tensed up on the top. He recommended that I work a lot of sweeps and escapes to improve my top game.