It's On!

So the countdown has begun in earnest. In the words of Martin Lawrence in Bad Boys 2, “Sh*t just got real”.

Those of you who have checked in here before may have noticed the countdown timer over to your right. This is counting down to the Combudo Amateur MMA tournament that me and a group from Leicester Shootfighters are entering.

Combudo is run and promoted by Lee Hasdell, a name known to anyone who has followed the UK MMA scene since its inception and a pioneer in terms of both competing and promoting. The rules are interesting in that they're not the usual 'no headshots' amateur rules – they allow shin and foot kicks to the head (standing of course!). In the style of Japanese amateur MMA there are also ring escapes, i.e. If you get caught in a submission and you can reach the outer ring of mats you can escape.  Allowing head kicks encourages competitors to keep their hands up adding a different defensive aspect to the bouts. Training has stepped up for those of us not regulars to competing with sparring becoming a key part of the preparations. This includes stand-up striking, wrestling and submission grappling,  making sure to get enough good quality rounds in for each discipline as well as the transitions between stand-up, clinch and ground.  

At a recent seminar legendary Judoka Neil Adams stated that fights are often won or lost in the transitions, and thinking about it, this is certainly the case once clean knockouts are taken out of the equation. How many times do we see scrambles resulting from clinch work, takedowns or transitions/submission attempts on the ground?  The positional hierarchy that often results can decide a fight or at very least a round.  

Taking all this in to consideration, some of our recent sparring has been about winning these scrambles.  For example, if the opponent wants to fight on the floor and I don't, I need to ensure that I've got a game to keep the fight where I want it and make my opponent fight there.  Therefore I've got to be able to stuff the takedown/sweep and win any resulting scramble.  We've been training exactly this kind of thing recently.


Some of the sessions of sparring have been led by competitive fighters at the gym and it's a real tribute to the spirit and culture of the gym that they make time for and tolerate the likes of me, a rank amateur.  I've been blown away by the time that these guys will take to help those of us who are less experienced and with the encouragement,  coaching and tips they're happy to provide. Especially as it has to sit alongside their own training.

Hopefully I'll be able to find the time over the next couple of weeks to get some updates on here outlining some of my preparation.  Until then, Godspeed.