ALTA Week 1 Grappling

Grappling – Shrimp, Shoulder walk, Break Fall, Technical Stand Up, Sprawl

Just like in the striking classes, week 1 is all about the foundational building blocks. There’s no Jiu Jitsu yet, as such. This is your Wax On, Wax Off week.

Shrimp (aka hip escape)

Used in various bottom positions to get out from under someone. It’s way easier to slip out from under someone, like a mechanic on a creeper board from under a car, than it is to lift someone off of you.

Start on your back with your feet as close to your hips as possible
Lift your hips as high as you can off the floor (glute bridge). Once your hips are up off the ground, they don’t return until you complete all following steps.
Turn on to one side (balancing on the ball of your shoulder and your feet).
Crunch your chest down towards your knees.
Push your legs into the ground which should propel your ass backwards (NOT YOUR SHOULDER). Your ass should end up where your head started. Now you can put your hips back on the floor.
Re-align yourself to the starting angle and bring your feet back close to your hips in preparation for another rep.
You can reverse engineer this sequence to get a forward moving shrimp. Not as common but still very useful to know.

Shoulder Walk

This refers to the undulating movement backwards you can make while rotating your shoulders in sequence. Your back stays on the floor for this and your feet can be used to assist the movement. The shoulder walk is used to gain distance away from an attacker before sitting up for a tech stand (next movement). If you sit up too early, they’ll kick or punch you in the head.

Backwards Breakfall

Breakfalling in general refers to the technique of landing safely without injuring yourself. The first one we learn is the backwards breakfall.

Starting from a seated position, roll backwards allowing your hips to lift off the floor. Don’t allow your head to hit the mat.
Next time, use your arms to slap the floor beside your hips just as your hips lift off the mat. Don’t be afraid to make some noise. Make sure your palms face the mat and hit the floor with your whole arm, not just your hand. This is more a symbolic gesture that conditions you and reminds you to only put your hands on the mat at the very end. Most injuries from falling occur when people put their hands down to protect themselves from falling. This leads to sprained wrists, dislocated elbows or shoulders and broken collar bones. By learning exactly when and where to slap your arms on the mat, you are learning to protect your limbs.
Once you’ve mastered that, do the same movement from a deep squatted position with your hand stretched out ahead of you. It’s exactly the same thing, just starting from higher up.
Finally, do it from standing up. Remember to first squat on the way to the floor. Don’t fall like a tree in the woods.

Technical Stand Up (aka Tech Stand).

This is how you get up most safely facing an opponent.

Start by making sure you’ve made enough distance between you and your opponent (using shrimp and/or shoulder walk)
Sit up with one hand behind you (fingers facing backwards), other hand up in front between you and your opponent. The front hand is the “placebo hand”. It does absolutely nothing to save you but it makes you feel better.
Whatever hand is behind you, that same side leg stretches out in front. The opposite leg bends until your heel is close to your hip.
Elevate your straight leg and hips off the ground balancing on your back hand and bent leg.
Fold your straight leg under you at the same time as you point your chest to the floor. Pointing your chest to the floor is the most important step to unlock the movement. Impossible to complete without it.
Place your leg on the floor behind you and stand up.
Throughout the movement, you should have your eyes and placebo hand locked on your opponent. Never lose sight of them.
As you get better at this, perform the whole technique while backing up. Your opponent will likely be chasing after you while you’re trying to stand so you need to keep moving back away from them as you complete the tech stand.

Sprawl

This is the common defence for double leg takedowns (later lessons). Your goal is to get your hips back and far away from your opponent. The solo sprawl is more a drill than a real technique. How this is used in real applications will differ but the skill of shooting your hips back aggressively is learned best using the sprawl.

Start from standing in your fight stance.
Hands go to the mat in front of you
Shoot both legs back as far as you can (laces down).
Your hips should plant firmly on the mat but your arms are locked out straight. This will put you in a Cobra style pose. Avoid the temptation to put your chest on the floor. We are not doing burpees here.
Next, hop your feet back under your hips and stand up to your starting position.

Isolation Drills – putting these movements into practice.

To get high volume reps on this we incorporate them into our shoulder and knees game with the coach calling out “Sprawl”, or “Back Fall”.

We also have the push and slap drill. Partner A pushes Partner B. B performs a backwards break fall to safely land on their back. A steps forward to stand either side of B’s hips. B performs a shrimp (push off A’s shins). Once clear of A’s legs, B shoulder walks to get clear even more distance, then tech stands back to the starting position. As B gets better, A will walk forwards attempting to slap B in the head as they are tech standing.

We can also perform all of these movement in line work drills during the warmup phase.