Not too bad. You had some pretty good pics that showed a lot which is very important for this type of article.
Just interjecting some advise; don't only practice the basic drills, practice the complicated ones too so that you get a feel for grappling. Also, don't practice the drills without a coach watching over you, because you don't want to learn to do the drill wrong.
I learned some of this from some infantry guys in the army while I was deployed to the sandbox. I have always wondered how effective this is for a woman of my size and build to learn and use this? Almost always, I see very strong men of varying heights using grappling. Is there any practical use for a woman to try and use these if on her own and attacked? Especially against a man who is trying to harm her?
Grappling of any kind is a vital part of self defence training (IMO), particularly for women - given that attacks against women can often be with the intent of taking them to the ground for a sexual assault. Although there will often be a weight disadvantage, knowledge of grappling can be used to escape an attacker, particularly if they are unfamiliar with grappling.
Great fundamentals drill, here. It depends on what kind of grappling you want. If by "grappling" you mean "grappling on the ground", Brazilian Jiu-jitsu focuses most on that. If you really like throwing people and also some basic ground work, Judo is better for you. If you like a bit more ground work than Judo offers and maybe also some leg locks, Sambo might be more up your alley. And of course, you can never go wrong with wrestling, which teaches control both standing and on the ground.
We practice these at my TKD. We still teach TKD predominantly and do close to 0 groundwork EVER, but we practice these and how to get out of them....just enough to be able to get back on our feet if we are taken down, not to submit the enemy. I am surprised that you did not include North-South position.
Interesting introduction. I wish I had an opportunity to practice these more frequently, but we don't regularly practice this in my style of art (TKD). Respect to the grapplers.
north-south is not really considered one of the big 4, to be honest scarf isnt by most people either- its normally guard, side control, mount and back mount
Kesa/scarf should be! It is one of my trademarks - BJJ guys are quite dismissive of it, but at the risk of being controversial its because they don't utilize it properly. Kimura made heavy use of it in his match with Helio Let's make kesa sexy again!