Well, my short trip to the Philippines is coming to an end. I'm leaving tomorrow for the U.S. I wish I could extend my stay with the weekend coming and the Fearless Fighting Championship being held on Saturday. But, I have to be in Las Vegas by Friday night for Throwdown's 3rd Fight Camp and I have a bunch of work deadlines next week. 
This trip went by very fast. I'm not even over my jet lag. I already know I'm going to be so "messed up" when I get to Las Vegas. I wouldn't be surprised if I have to go to sleep in the middle of the day and miss some of the training; however, I'm going to try my best to stay awake.
I taught another group class last night and covered the infamous arm-in-guillotine. At every class I taught while I was here (in Makati, Pasig, and Quezon City), there were always questions on the guillotine. So I decided it was a good topic to cover in detail. For those of you who missed the class, and for the rest of you reading this who are curious, I plan to create a little instructional clip or entry on it some time in the future.
I love the guillotine choke because it is quick, simple and very effective. In fact, it was the very first submission I pulled off back in the 90s and the first submission hold I started to use regularly (i.e. I'd try to catch my sparring partners in a guillotine at least once a round). Pretty much everyone can pull off a traditional guillotine with the arm outside and just wrapping around an opponent's head. However, some people find it difficult to use the guillotine when a person has their arm inside.
Since the arm-in version became popular, I started to experiment with it and also asked for tips from everyone I knew who could execute the technique. You'd be amazed at how many different versions/variations I have discussed with different instructors and fighters. The technique does not seem to be as clear cut as other submissions. However, through time, I've taken what I have found to be the best advice from different people and combined it with common movements that every instructor I've talked to thinks is necessary execute the move properly. I'm happy with "my version" of it as I'm able to get the choke when the opportunity presents itself. Also, all the students who learned the choke for the first time last night seemed to have little trouble and were tapping people out consistently while drilling.
If you have no clue how to do the choke, or you've been struggling with it, keep practicing and trying to vary up your positioning, and arm/body movement. Again, I will create a short tutorial on it in the future for the blog's readers. Then, you can start choking people left and right regardless if your opponents arm is inside or outside of your arm position.
To the guys from New Breed who I got to see and teach, keep up the good work. All of you are doing great and I'm happy to see solid improvement. There's no doubt in my mind that many of you can and will perform well internationally--some of you do, already.
I might be able to write another entry before I leave, but if I don't have time, there won't be a blog entry for a day or two. Las Vegas here I come!
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Off to Las Vegas to Train with Uriah Faber, Robert Drysdale, and others @ Throwdown
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2 comments:
A short vid tutorial would be great for that "arm-in". Or show it to us at New Breed Chicago when you visit :P
I'll be coming up with some kind of "tutorial" in the future--probably a series of them.
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