One man who has made extensive use of the looping overhand punch is UFC fighter Chuck Liddell. To me, the backbone of his success with his “sprawl and brawl” style was his hard-hitting punches that seemed to sneak past your defenses. His loose and unorthodox boxing punches slip past because they’d come at crazy, unexpected angles.
To illustrate a little bit about the punch, I present the Iceman himself:
A couple of pointers not covered expressly in the video:
The overhand has a greater range than a horizontal hooking punch. If you fire off an overhand when you’re in traditional hook distance, expect to miss your mark.
This is an aggressive punch – your body mass is moving forward, your torso is leaning forward over your center of mass slightly.
It can be an excellent counter punch – perhaps from a jab cross combo – but the timing is a little different. The punch needs to be initiated just before or at the same time your opponent is throwing his punch. If you can read your opponent, step slightly towards him and at an angle to his back, anticipating his strike. Both punches will start approximately at the same time but the overhand will land just a fraction of a second after you’ve slipped or parried his punch.
Watch out for the take down, even if the punch lands. A single or double leg takedown is a well fitting counter to this punch. Just like Chuck, “brawl” and “sprawl” go together for a good reason.
When you’re fighting standing up, everybody has a punchers chance – the opportunity to land a lucky shot and end the match. When you’re on the ground, the luck factor is greatly diminished and the battle of power, control and technique commences. You can dramatically improve your ability to control the ground game by developing “the squeeze”.
Here’s a video of Eddie Bravo – pioneer of the rubber guard – explaining a bit about the power of the squeeze, in the context of choking someone out.
Having a great squeeze is more than just the rear naked choke though- its vital in all your chokes and especially your guard game. In MMA, a guy can stack you in the guard, pass, or start a session of “ground and pound”. When you have the guard and a solid squeeze, it is more likely that you can control the action and work your gameplan. (This is doubly true if you practice rubber guard – a lot of guys starting out will have opponents pass their guard as they work to get or maintain the “mission control” position – practice squeezing your knees together tightly when your opponents in your rubber guard).
Strengthening your squeeze
In the video, you see one way to increase your rear naked choke squeeze by sitting flat on the floor, hugging one knee up to your chest and wrap the same side arm around the leg and squeeze down with the RNC. That’s the basic process to strengthening any of the squeeze-worthy chokes or positions. You sink in deep into the position, getting all the finer technical points set, and slowly start amping up the squeeze intensity until you’re squeezing as hard as you can go. Your whole body should be tight – you want to recruit as many muscle groups to the party as possible. Your abs, neck, biceps, hip adductor – all of these should be working in concert to add to the squeeze. However, you want to continue to breathe throughout the squeeze.
Other great positions that are improved by a good squeeze are the body triangles, triangle choke from guard, standing clinch, bear hug and armbar. You can seriously hurt a training partner, so make sure you practice on medicine balls, grappling dummies or punching bags/sand bags.
For more information on isometric exercises, see here.
Whether you just sprawled out from a takedown attempt or your opponent is trying to escape your side mount, it’s a great time to go for a choke. Three I like a lot are the guillotine, anaconda and D’arce chokes. Right as your opponent starts to move into the sprawl, you lead his body right into the choke. If you have a good “sprawl and brawl” game, drilling these choke off a single or double leg takedown attempt will really help out against a guy whose committed to take you down.
To help sink the chokes, remember that the anaconda and D’arce chokes are sometimes just called snake chokes. You have to snake your arm in and around like a snake weaving through heavy weeds – your hand needs to spear down through the gaps in your opponents body.
Here’s a couple of videos to explain how each one is done.
The D’arce Choke:
The Anaconda Choke
(Notice how the anaconda and D’arce chokes are really the same except one is working from the outside in and the other from the inside out.)
The Classic Guillotine:
“Modified” Guillotine:
I like this certain video because it shows off an angled version of the guillotine – often times when a guy is escaping half guard, side control, a failed takedown, what have you, you end up positioned like this. (The regular version you don’t have the opponents arm in the choke – you just have your forearm across his neck).
A few pointers on all the chokes:
Keep your thumb tucked in.
“Snake” your hand on or close to the body – you want your arm bone (radial bone) to already be in place underneath your opponent’s chin before before you push their head down and secure the choke. If they get alerted that you’re weaving your arm to choke, a good grappler will naturally tuck his chin down and shrug the shoulders.
These chokes work very well when an opponent is trying to escape from your side mount. Set up the choke by leading the mind – don’t put your opponents mind on high alert if he’s escaping, just let them “escape” from side control (pushing your hips away and shrimping) while snaking your arm on his body towards the opposite side of the neck. If you’re sneaky, he’ll roll into it and not notice until its too late.