Someone, somewhere has taught Ian Freeman how to teach.
As such his seminar covering the basics of high level MMA was excellent, especially for someone as takedown deficient as I am. After the requisite warmup, Ian got us quickly working on two takedowns from the clinch, a body lock to trip and a throw from the tie up position. Ian took the time with each pairing of students and was open to questions along the way.
While the two throws from the clinch were great for me the highlight of the stand-up half of the seminar was the high double leg. I’m quite tall and I have always struggled to change levels quickly enough to make the double leg work for me. Ian’s high double (which if you watch his recent Cage Rage title fight against Paul Calhoun you see him use to great effect) solves this problem. You can even hit this double leg from the clinch if you choose. Ian took great care to break down every step for us and showed multiple applications of the same move but different set ups.
Rather than just break for lunch Ian then walked us through his last fight and pointed out his particular fight methodology and how he applied it to that particular fight.
Ian also commented on physical preparation for fighting again after a year long hiatus:
“I stopped sucking c*ck”.
Ian did in fact detail some of his preparation schedule but for some reason this stuck with me. Needless to say if you’re sensitive, this might not be the seminar for you.
After lunch Ian moved to teaching the basics of his ground game. He took us through a flow of ground and pound and submissions (if you’re a pure BJJ guy I can’t recommend this seminar enough) and making them work together.
Ian structured his teaching style around teaching two moves in depth from each position.
The four hour seminar absolutely flew by and I got a lot of out of it. I hope that Ian will consider putting out an instructional DVD as he has an extremely integrated MMA game that will benefit anyone who is looking at fighting in the ring or the cage.
Two gloved thumbs up from me, if you can make it to a seminar with "The Machine" do it.
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