A key thing with athletes and people in general is that they got it into their silly little heads that in order to move something you should use your arms, when your hips are the centre of you power, your movement.
GUARD RECOVERY
Shrimping, the main movement used on bottom, is tough to do if you’re opponent has a pin. Heck, that’s why it’s called a pin. So to help develop a good shrimping game, we get the guy on top to put his hands behind his back.
Ciara’s eyes always look funny in photos!!! We don’t know why!
Note Sean’s got his hands in the boxer position. Keeping your hands tight helps create a shock absorption system that aids hip mobility.
To keep the drill “fair”, the person on top should keep the pressure on with their hips. If the guy on top puts their head on the floor, they’re cheating. You wouldn’t do this in real side control. Also, you’d be missing out on the benefits this drill can have for the guy on top – that is, learning how to control a guy based on hip pressure and mobility over arm strength.
Side Control Drill 1 (mpg, 32secs, 8.1MB) – Conor & Joey. Conor uses his hands in the shock absorbancy/bounce manner very well, and gets by with minimum hip movement. He’s turning onto his side, which is what we want, but he could do with more distance traveled with his shrimping
Side Control Drill 2 (mpg, 32secs, 7.9MB) – Sean & Ciara. Sean is shrimping well, but turns early. This is a common fault when doing this drill, people will shrimp when they think they’ve enough space, which gives them a very small margin of error. What does nice here is he continues his shrimp to his hands and knees, where he can execute a takedown or another turtle escape.
PSYKE WARD JIU JITSU
This drill is when the guy on bottom has their arms completely removed from making and impact by tying them to his side, forcing him to only use his hips to escape. What this drill show is two fold:
- Shows the importance of creating a frame with your arms between your opponents body and yours.
- Forces you to work purely through hip movement.
It should be noted that this drill is extremely difficult and uncomfortable for the guy on bottom. Since they can’t use their arms their partner can really squeeze them and apply a lot of pressure (weight). So we made sure we got the kids permission beforehand. Well, most of them, anyway!*
Psyke Ward Jiu Jitsu Round 1 (mpg, 2:01, 30.5MB)
Psyke Ward Jiu Jitsu Round 2 (mpg, 2:02, 30.5MB)
“Krazy” Kirsty decided to do two rounds, with kids who probably weighed almost 1.5 times her body weight!!!
* A footnote for concerned parents – Bill, Conor’s father, was present at the time of filming!