Luuuucy, I'm hooooome!

[Mu Ryuk]

Got back from my trip to Oregon for the Team Quest Mini-Camp on Sunday. It was an awesome experience and God knows if I could I'd live there. Randy Couture, Matt Lindland and Robert Follis were there all the time, and the camp was only eighteen people so we all got personal attention. I learned a great deal.

http://photobucket.com/albums/v302/Tsypkin

The four newest pictures are from the mini-camp. The first two are myself with Randy Couture, the third is me and Robert Follis, head coach of Team Quest, and the fourth is a "decoration" in the gym. It's half of the mat that covered the octagon at UFC 34 when Couture faced Pedro Rizzo for the second time. The stains are Rizzo's blood. How symbolic

I'll have some pictures of me with Matt Lindland up soon, as well as a group picture of everyone at the camp.

[cathal]

Did you do much contact work?

[Mu Ryuk]

No, it was all drills. The only live work we did were some escapes.

[italian_guy]

Glad you had great time.

[aefibird]

Glad that you enjoyed it! Nice photo's.

What drills did you do?

[cathal]

Yes hearing about that would be interesting. Any photos of those?

[Mu Ryuk]

This is something of a write-up, I posted it on Myspace. I'm finalizing some more technical notes (though it'll probably take me a few days, I'm pretty busy) and once those are done I'll have them up as well.

Here goes:

If you don't see the sign first, you probably won't even know Team Quest Fight Club is there. It's tucked in the back of a used car dealership. When you first walk in, it seems more like an office than a world class mixed martial arts gym. But if you ever drop by, you'll soon learn different.

Day 1

8:00-9:00 P.M.

Matt Lindland & Robert Follis

We worked on different techniques from Pummeling. Some of the details we covered were to always keep the underhook hand placed on the opponent's overhook, ready to dig as soon as they move. As in everything else, head position was stressed as being extremely important. We worked on getting double underhooks, single underhook, and doing a takedown from that single underhook.

9:00-10:00 P.M.

Randy Couture & Matt Lindland

Randy showed us how to move into the single underhook position from a jab parry, as well as from the Muay Thai stop hands, where you parry the jab, block a cross from coming with your lead hand, push the jab down and circle into single underhook. Finally we worked on moving into the single underhook by throwing a right hand (or left for southpaws) and penetrating with it. By forcing your opponent to respect the punch and cover up, it opens up for you to move into the clinch.

Day 2

9:00 A.M.-12:00 P.M.

Matt Lindland & Robert Follis

We started with groundwork. There was a constant stress on options throughout the camp, so we worked on having options in likely situations. During the groundwork, we were working a lot on keeping our head higher then our opponents, because having elevation gives you a lot more options and makes you stronger. Then we worked on more techniques from the clinch.

3:00-4:00 P.M.

Matt Lindland & Robert Follis

We worked on finishing on the ground, various chokes and how to take different top positions.

4:00-6:00 P.M.

Randy Couture & Robert Follis

A bunch of takedowns. We did drills to work takedowns from the clinch, and from punching range. We learned how to use the wall/cage/ropes to our advantage by using their flex to move our opponent so we could slam them, and then keep them there.

Day 3

9:00-11:00 A.M.

Randy Couture & Robert Follis

Finally, ground and pound day. We started with two short drills from the clinch, both takedowns. Then we went to the ground and learned how to get to the knee ride position, and how to keep your opponent from escaping it the three most common ways, swinging their legs across you and pulling guard, grabbing your leg and sitting up, or rolling away. We talked about diet and nutrition, as well as some conditioning.

A few key things that were very stressed:

Always have options. One option is no option, because it's all you can do. The guy with the most options is probably going to win.

When on the ground, keep elevation. This gives you the ability to do more things, as well as more physical power.

Head position, in the clinch and on the ground, is very important to both offense and defense.

This one's obvious, but you have to completely integrate your striking and groundwork...one makes the other better. If your opponent is worried about you knocking him out, he's not worrying so much about your takedowns. If he's worried about you pounding him out on the ground, he's not so worried about you submitting him.

Everyone there was awesome...I think half the guys were expecting Randy and Matt to come in for twenty minutes each, show us one drill and leave. But they were there all the time, and the seminar was small (eighteen people out of a maximum twenty-five), so everyone got individual attention. Randy, Matt and Robert all personally worked with everyone quite a few times.

I would suggest that anyone who has the opportunity to go to a Team Quest Mini Camp does so, because even if you're already damn good, I'm willing to bet your game will improve. Their Training Manual and DVD are both excellent as well. I'd love to go back and train with them as soon as possible.

If anyone has any questions, feel free to contact me and I'll try to answer them as well as I can.

Email: Tsypkin@gmail.com

A I M: Mu Ryuk

Yahoo Messenger: JTsypkin

Also feel free to ask in this thread, or send me a PM.

[aefibird]

It's be good if you could write-up your experiences for the KF Articles section.