Matt Combat Base Question

Underground
1

Matt, I have been drilling the passing concepts we covered. I have been drilling combat base a lot, and isolating it against resistance as you suggested. You emphasized T-Rex arms (elbows in tight, don't reach out). My question is that my partners are shrimping away and going to their knees lately. Do you use your hands ever to control/impeded their hip movement? or is it just a lag in timing on my part? I know that if they shrimp, there is an opportunity to knee slide pass but do you ever try to control them with your arms/hands from combat base? Thanks.

Bruce C.

2

you can try to control them, absolutley. But if they are good that can be dangerous. Thats a great time to change levels and pass standing.

3

YES!  Like guard surf.

4

tysaw: if I can chime in here...

The idea of t-rex arms is to prevent you from trying to reach inside his
guard and control his upper body, leaving yourself exposed to subs. You
DO need to control his legs though, with the ultimate objective being to
impede his ability to create space (shrimp away). This is Point 2 in the Fun
5 of passing.

5

I worked a drill last night with this in mind. We worked using combat base in real tight. I had students grab the waist of the bottom guy. We concentrated on a grip that kept our elbows in and in contact with our hips. It looked kind of like a bicep curl. We isolated this by having the bottom guy work to get his feet to the hips of the top guy. The top guy's job was to keep his elbows in tight and control the hips of the bottom guy and not let him get the feet to the hips. When the bottom guy gets his feet to the hips the top guy would stand and work standing pass for 10 seconds or so then get back in guard and go again. What we found was that it was very difficult to hold the position for an extended time and that keeping your elbows in was critical. As soon as the bottom guy got a foot in or a knee we had to bail and go to a standing pass.

6

Thanks Mike. Cvrevost, we found the same thing! It is very difficult to hold that position for very long (although that isn't the goal really anyway). They can and do get their feet in the hips/DLR hook occasionally/or shrimp away. Standing is definitely the option we seem to favor. I drill with huge guys and all I can do is impede hip motion for a very short time with my elbows/hands. My question wasn't very well worded. Thanks for the responses guys.