South Africa Day 4

Day 4, Durban, 9:00am

Saturday arrived with a temperature of mid 80s so a beach session was the order of the day before the gruelling seminar in this heat. The locals were still telling me it wasn't a great beach day, they don't realise we would call this a heat wave. Having the benefit of local knowledge meant we avoided the main tourist (crime) areas and found the perfect beach spot for plenty of boogie boarding, swimming and sun. Again it was over too soon as we had to head to the gym, I had to keep reminding myself that the main purpose for the visit was to train.

Met a local fighter, and cool guy as it turned out, named Victor who gave me a lift to the gym. Got into a conversation about the fight game straightaway so made the journey more interesting and much quicker.

Arriving back at the Muscle And Fitness Gym, the heat was there already waiting for me, we had a quick introduction then straight into the warm up. I taught some sport specific movement drills which seemed really easy being so warm as was the stretching then Haueter took over for the first section which was to be controlling and escaping side control following on from his previous session, finishing with ½ guard retrieval which led nicely into my ½ guard section.

Again everything seemed to be well received as evidenced in the sparring as someone pulled Z guard on me (1/2 guard with shin across stomach). When I enquired how long they had been doing that, they said that they learned it that day. As a coach it is awesome when someone uses something against you that you have taught them.

We then split into 2 groups, I got to work with the Fight Team whilst Haueter took everyone else. We worked through some more continuous passing versus sweeping and submission drills where winner stays on. This is probably my most favourite of all the training drills.

I explained my philosophy on passing guard for mma; I personally feel that some people try to punch their way through the hole in their game or are even happy to sit in guard whereas if they put the time in to learn to pass properly it would open up a whole new world to them. When they can pass without striking then they can pass with striking. Just my opinion.

Finished with the rolling and another Q&A, again I really think these are worthwhile just to clarify a little (or large) detail that you might not have got right away.

I had a great time training with these guys, everyone was really cool and would have fit perfectly into my own gym. It is always a pleasure to train in that sort of atmosphere where there are no egos, everyone shares a joke and we all benefit from each other.