The THUMBS!

Monday nights class was great, after a two week break from training mainly due to work commitments, I returned to a new training schedule and a revamped gym! fantastic. The cool part is that we now have a Brazillian Jiu Jitsu class on Thursday nights! This will be a great addition to training as Golan puts it you get to make the best cake 🙂 Krav Maga for stand up, weapons, take downs and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu for groundwork. Brilliant! Some info on the instructor taking the BJJ can be found here. Info about the Krav Maga classes can be found here.

Golan took last nights class, after the warm up we practised a zombie game where one opponent tries to choke and the defender deflects the oncoming attack by striking the outside of the attackers arms then moves out of line of danger and behind the attacker. We then moved on to cover basic releases from chokes from the front, side and back then moved onto more advanced releases. I found the more advanced choke releases to be simpler if anything, more aggressive but more direct.

Ive already written about the basic release from chokes in a previous post the alternative to those are as follows:

Choke from the front: Lets say the opponent is in front of us applying the choke, step back with either foot (for this example the right foot) at the same time pluck the opponents left hand with your right. This releases the choke. At the same time as you do this, your left arm should come over the top of your opponents outstretched arms and come down on the elbows. Elbow to the face, with the arm closest to your opponent. Continue with the same hand into a hammer fist to the face. Follow up with a kick/knee to the groin, cross with the right or whatever you need then escape and scan.
An alternative to this technique, instead of bringing your arm over the top of both of the opponents arms, simply attack with a finger jab to the throat as you step back.

Choke from the side: So for this technique, the opponent is attacking from the left side applying again a choke, first things first, deal with the choke by plucking the hand at the front of your throat and hold it to your chest with your right hand (hold it to the right side of your chest). The reason you remove the hand at the front is because that is what is causing all the problems in this instance. With your left hand, grab the forearm of your opponents arm that you just plucked. With your right hand attack your opponents face straight away as many times as you like. Escape and scan.

Choke from behind:As soon as you feel your opponent grab your neck from behind, spin to either side with an elbow directly to the opponents face, The elbow should come over the top of the opponents arms. Follow up with an elbow from your other arm again to the face. A simple but very aggressive technique.