Ride-to-Finish Chain Playbook

Mat Manual companion guide to "Ride Them Somewhere Worse." Print it. The article explains the four-link chain: ride established, breakdown, crossface and the turn, then the finish the turn presents. This book drills each link with the bottom player's counter-link beside it, paces the turn against a spoken pin count, and runs the chain through a four-week build ending in timed rounds.

Name: ______________________________ Dojo: ______________________________ Grade: ______________ Start date: ______________ Current week (Part 12): ______________

BEFORE ANYTHING: PARTNER SAFETY AND AGREEMENTS ☐ All turning work in this book lands a partner on side and shoulder, guided, never spiked onto a posted straight arm and never driven down through the neck. Any rep that loads a posted arm stops the set. ☐ Crossface work runs at agreed pressure, stated out loud before the set. The crossface turns the head by position and pressure across the face line, never by striking, and never by cranking the neck sideways. A partner with any neck issue does no crossface reps as the bottom player; they drill the counter-links only. ☐ Finishing holds reached at link four (cradle squeezes excepted, which are pins) are applied by leverage in steps, never ripped or cranked, and every finishing card carries a controlled-finishing checkpoint (CF): pause at first resistance, partner confirms they can tap, then continue. ☐ The tap ends everything at once, hand, foot, or verbal. A verbal stop counts the same, always. ☐ Breakdown and flattening drills never drop body weight onto a partner's ribs, kidneys, or extended arm. Weight is settled, not dropped. The difference is coached in Part 5 and audited in Part 15. ☐ Stop on any pain, numbness, dizziness, or loss of control, from either partner, no argument, no finishing the set. Log it in Part 17.

Part 1: The Chain at a Glance

Chain law: no link is skipped. Write the four links on the first page of your training notebook and check them off in order during your first week, until the order is in your feet rather than on the page in front of you. Turning a based-up player is a fault in this book, logged like one, because the breakdown is what makes the turn cheap.