This week was another class from Master Sean Phillips. I ran into him in the parking lot on my way into class and he explained that while his son Scott Ewen has taken over as head instructor of Coast Martial Arts, Sean is the ranking instructor. He gets to teach classes as much as his schedule allows, but he doesn’t deal with the day-to-day work of operating a dojo.
The lesson this week was the double ankle sweep. We started with the bad guy in our guard – meaning that you start on your back and your opponent starts on top and between your legs.
The first thing to do if your opponent is in your guard is to wrap your legs around their mid-section and try to get a clinch around their head and one shoulder with your arms to limit the damage from striking attacks. If your opponent is that close to you, they can probably land a couple punches, but it won’t hurt too much.
This takedown is essentially a what-if scenario, as in: what if your opponent was in your guard but then they stood up? In a street fight this is a dangerous position to be in because it most likely means getting kicked in the face, which we all typically try to avoid.
The double ankle sweep works like this: you’re holding onto your opponent with your legs and arms, but instead of wrestling you on the ground, they start to stand up. You can keep hanging on and trying to use your weight to wear them out, but if they’re way bigger than you, this won’t work.
Instead, you have to wait for the right moment when they’re straining to get upright, and then you let go – causing them to go off-balance. As soon as you can, grab right behind their ankles then continue their momentum from standing up by pushing your knees into their chest. With your hands stopping their feet from going anywhere, they just fall right over backwards.
Now you’re in a great position to take mount and you can go for control from here.
Alternately – if your opponent is very tall or has very long arms – knees to chest might not be enough to totally off-balance them. In this case you just extend your legs and use your feet to kick them in the chest.
This will definitely bring them down, but it doesn’t end with you in mount – it ends with you in kicking distance of their feet. Therefore, instead of going for control right away, your first move is to get away from their feet, then, when the bad guy is about to stand up, you run in and slam them back onto the ground – then go for control.
For more information, see www.coastmartialarts.com and stay tuned for more of the Green Grappler.
