Danny joined the ranks of the future warriors last night, passing from Clever Little Monkeys into the Agoge.

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Whenever you’re on top you want to cause as much discomfort to your opponent. This is known as “cooking” them. Ideally you want them to give you the arm or turn their back so you can sub them, because a sub is less uncomfortable than staying underneath.
The Shoulder of Justice (copyright Kavanagh) is probably the [...]

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In order to get a tight arm drag, or indeed to open up the arms for an underhook, using an “inside grip”, whereby your palm is facing outwards.

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Normally, when beginners (or kids) start with guard it’s necessary to teach them closed guard. Closed guard helps build confidence in guard, as it’s the easiest to control your opponent’s movement. Once you’ve developed confidence in your closed guard, you need to become more adventurous with your guard – leaving it open, switching to an [...]

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The best thing you can do to not get caught in a guillotine is to keep your posture and make sure you’ve a gap between your opponent and you. Looking towards the ground instead of straight ahead is one way you’ll end up in trouble.

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Our single biggest aim with any child/teenager we’re fortunate enough to train is that they have a positive experience with us. We always want to provide an environment that people look forward to training, push themselves and feel supported throughout their experience.

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Teaching Points:

Andy holds onto guard for two long. If you’re opponent is sitting so far back you should release guard and go on the offensive (shoot a single leg, try a pancake flip sweep)
When Andy’s guard is open he sits back. It’s better to keep your head further forward than your hips. Also, sitting back [...]

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Video of Clinch training on Wednesday, August 22, 2007 (4:17, 36.7MB)
For Spartans: look at your technique and see where you make mistakes. Think:

Posture/Structure
 Space
Controlling the head/hips
Stalling midway through a technique

For everyone else, here’s what training is like! We’d guys down on their first night trying this out.

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This is a good throw to execute from the under-over position. This is a neutral position since I don’t have control over Conor. Just because you have one hand underneath your opponents armpit doesn’t mean you have an underhook. Also, you’ll note there’s space between our hips. Normally, you want to kill space for Clinch [...]

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Ciara (2:11, 33.1MB)
Teaching Points:

No underhook against Liam, should have grabbed his support arm
Dropping head on underhooks, losing posture! (Joey pulls out of her, compensating for poor technique with bulk)
Hesitant towards the end, but fatigue makes cowards of us all. Andy makes several mistakes with the whizzer throw (all arms, wrong hip placement) but Ciara’s too [...]

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