I was watching a Shonie Carter video on throws and he said something pretty catchy: “Punish first, submit later.” I’ve known about the concept for a while, but I loved the phrase.
The idea is that after you gain a dominant position, you punish your opponent with some strikes and hopefully open up a submission. When they are defending your punches, try to isolate a limb and crank it - flowing between ground and pound and submission searching. I’ve heard a couple of different MMA legends - BJ Penn and Bas Rutten come to mind - say that you don’t want to have two modes: a striking mode and grappling mode. It shouldn’t be an on/off switch - your strikes and submissions should be integrated.
That being said, it seems that submission attempts can wear both combatants out physically, and unless the submission finishes, you may not have been better off because of it. Strikes however, chip away at the enemy and even when they are blocked cause cumulative damage. As long as you are striking efficiently and following some smart guidelines of ground and pound, you are making active progress toward both a potential striking victory and a submission finish - given that you have an integrated punch/submit attitude.
The season 9 Ultimate Fighter Finale Wilks vs. Johnson is a good example of a fighter who have this mentality. (Watch it below for as long as it stays up)
I was surfing the net and found a video of Antonio Rodrigo “Minotauro” Nogueira that I hadn’t seen before. It’s 30 minutes long, and shows Nog teaching 11 MMA specific techniques. The video was shot back in his Pride fighting days, for a Japanese audience. It’s pretty cool - Antonio speaks in broken English and it’s translated into Japanese.
30 minutes is quite a long time (for web surfers anyway), so I’ve listed the techniques in the video below. The video has nice technique recaps, so it’s easy to navigate to any distinct part of the video.
Open guard ground and pound defense, up-kicking into a triangle.
Closed guard ground and pound defense, transition to a belly down armbar.
Half guard G&P defense, sweep into side control, finish via headlock.
Attacking within the G&P, then defending the calf crusher.
Sprawl counter to a low single-leg take down, finish via a gator roll/anaconda choke.
I’ve seen Big Nog use almost all of these moves in MMA fights. Watch one of his highlight vids and you probably can check off more than half of the above list. (There is even an amusing compelation named after the anaconda choke he uses).
If enjoyed that kind of material, I hear that Big Nog’s book, “Mastering Mixed Marital Arts: The Guard” is excellent. After reading the amazon reviews, I’m saving my extra pennies to buy it.
Zebra Mats, one of the sponsors for this season’s ADCC wrestling tournaments, is selling off the mats used in this years competitions. If you’re looking for some “new” mats at a discount, you might want to check into it. See here for some details.
The Abu Dhabi Combat Club submission wrestling tournaments bring in some of the best no-gi grapplers in the world. (Although they have kids, teens, and beginners divisions, too.)
This year, regional tournaments are being held in Spring Texas, Los Angeles California, Las Vegas Nevada and Denver Colorado. For us Utahans, the most accessible would probably be the Vegas regional, held on August 1.
