Okay, so I was thinking about grappling the other day, you know, watching some fights, seeing how certain guys operate. Like Aljamain Sterling, how he just controls dudes on the ground. It really made me want to get some mat time in myself and just drill some things.
My Session Trying Stuff Out
So I headed down to the gym later that day. It wasn’t too busy, which I prefer sometimes. Got started with a warm-up. Did some jogging back and forth, arm circles, leg swings, the usual stuff. Gotta get the old body moving before trying anything serious, you know? Takes me a good few minutes to feel loose.
Then I grabbed a partner, Dave. He’s usually there around the same time. We decided to skip the hard sparring and just work on specific positions. It’s way more useful sometimes than just banging heads. We agreed to focus on escapes and control.
We started with back control drills. Taking turns. One guy starts on the back with hooks in, the other tries to escape. We weren’t going for submissions right away, just focusing on the hand fighting, keeping the position, or for the bottom guy, peeling hooks and turning in. We probably did this for like, 15 minutes straight, switching every minute or so.
- Tried really hard to keep my chest glued to his back when I was on top.
- When I was on bottom, focused on protecting my neck first, then working to get my shoulders to the mat.
- It’s harder than it looks, especially keeping the position tight.
After that, we moved to side control. Same idea. Top guy tries to maintain it, transition maybe to mount or knee-on-belly. Bottom guy tries to create space, get a knee inside, maybe shrimp out. Dave’s got pretty heavy pressure from side control, so it was good practice for me on the bottom.
We did a few rounds of this, maybe 4 or 5 minutes each. My focus was just on the basics: framing against his hip and neck, trying to time my escapes when he was adjusting his weight. Didn’t always work, got flattened out plenty, but felt like I was recognizing the moments a bit better.
Wrapped up the session feeling pretty beat, but in a good way. Sweaty, tired, but felt like I actually practiced something specific. Didn’t magically get Sterling’s skills or anything, obviously. It’s just about putting the time in, focusing on the little details. Even if it’s just trying not to get stuck under side control for five minutes straight. That’s progress, I guess. Gotta keep showing up and grinding it out.
