SLC MMAExploring MMA and Jujitsu in Salt Lake City Utah

Ground and Pound 101Filed Under: Instruction

Ahhh….. putting fist into face. What could be better than that? Nothing, of course!

Motivations

I watched a little interview clip where BJ Penn talked about striking inside the guard and bringing one knee up to make it more effective. He just casually threw out the technical tip, but it got me thinking about how much more there is to know about ground and pound than just top pressure and flailing your arms like a barbarian.

Re-thinking some fights made it even more clear – some fighters are much better and dishing out punishment with G&P than others. Fedor, GSP, Diaz – what makes their G&P good, and what’s more important, how do I get it?

Be Top Dog

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First and foremost, you need to get into an aggressive position where G&P will be effective (side control, mount, guard and half-guard, rear mount, north-south, scarf hold, knee on belly, or top turtle). When you are in a top position you use gravity to your advantage. Also, you can use your body weight to help pin down your opponents body and limbs, creating openings to land your punches.

Just because you’re in a top position doesn’t mean you’re in an aggressive top position. If you’re broken down in a guy’s guard, he has good over-under hooks – you’re not in a situation where you’re strikes are going to do much damage, not to mention open you up for a submission.

Control

I’ve noticed that the high-level ground fighters don’t necessarily out muscle their opponents on the ground, but they do out control them. Without controlling your opponent, ground and pound is weaker and potentially risky. So within the skill of G&P, there are the skill subsets of grip fighting, getting/escaping hooks and posturing/tripoding/stacking.

There are multiple variations on these themes – the following video by Joe Lauzon shows off how to put some sneaky shots into the head with wrist control, bicep control and  using your head as an extra limb.
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For side control, I love this CSW video with Erik Paulsen and Greg Nelson. Greg shows how to really sink in the cross body control. BTW, for SLC locals, you can see a Brian Yamasaki from the Bountiful Mushin Academy (red under-armor shirt) make a cameo.
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This is obviously a tight, heavy control. Bas Rutten suggests a different take on side control where you don’t stay too connected to the person because it fuses you’re bodies together and helps them escape.

Oh, one last thing. While at Fusion BJJ, head instructor Eddie Edmounds was talking about getting submission while in the mount.  He differentiated between high, mid, and low mount and how you never want to try to get a submission while in mid mount ( sitting directly on the bellybutton). If you are in low mount, weight down on the hip girdle you  want to grapevine hook one or both of the legs and stay low. If you are in high mount, the king of MMA mounts, then you can go nuts. Get your knees under the armpits of the guy on bottom, using your legs to separate the limbs from the body.

Whatever you methods of control, make sure you’re not overcommiting pressure. Your body may be heavy, but stay light mentally, being ready to transition, avoid escapes, and see submission opportunities open up.

Economic Striking and Accuracy

Another thing the pro G&P’ers have in common: they don’t waste energy. A sure sign of an amatuer fighter is when they take mount they spaz out like a starving chip on a pile of bannans. Guys who are good cover up and usually throw them off with a bronco-bump hip buck escape.

Yes, the pro’s drop bombs, but they do it in a measured fashion.  If you have strong top-position control skills, you can take your time and pick your shots.  That’s what I mean by economic punching – efficient usage of energy. Also, the spazzing punches aren’t bombs – they don’t have weight and power behind them. It’s not possible to fire off many heavy shots in rapid succession.

One good example of too fast G&P: Couture vs Lesnar. After a big shot from Lesnar, Randy goes down and Brock starts hammer-fisting him in the head. The first few were rocking Randy’s head, but as Lesnar keeps going like a rabbit, the punches dramatically fade in power. Still, Brock is a big dude so little punches do damage, but this brings up exceptions to the rule – when an opponent is fazed or on edge of being overwhelmed, a flurry (damaging or not) will often get the ref to stop the fight.

Alright, back on track. Let’s say you get the mount and want to pick your shots. I think you should keep 3 things in mind.

1. You want to take advantage of an openings created by escape attempts. If their arms T-rex and push down (shrimping escape), punish ‘em with a blow to the head. If they try to bridge and roll – know how to s-mount and transition from the mount to the back.

2. Create openings with control positioning. If you are in side control, get your knee under the shoulder and hook the head, like Kru Nelson’s video shows above, or trap an arm between your legs to get into the “beatdown” position.

3. Mix up your strike angles, types, setups and submissions.  In particular, for striking from the mount, I learned a ton from Bas Rutten’s Big DVD’s of combat. Don’t throw 10 striaght punches to the face, alternating from left to right with a rhythm. It’s easy to catch on to a pattern like that and block. Instead, throw 3 right hooks, 1 left straight, 1 slipping left elbow, 1 right punch to the body. Mix it up. Use the punches to sneak up your knees and go for an S-mount armbar. Bas even shows a nasty back elbow to the thigh – it does a ton of damage when they don’t expect it. If you want, you can even trick the opponent by “spazzing out” with a series of left-right striaght punches and then throw your true power shot in the form of a hook to the body. When an opponent protects against linear stikes they are typically open up circular strikes.

Don’t get stuck on punches. You’ve got knees, elbows, hammer fists, shoulder strikes while in guard, etc. MIXed Martial Arts.

For punching accuracy on the ground, I like to watch Fedor.  He’s so aggressive mentally – even when he’s counter-punching, he’s angry like a bear ( K.O. of Andrei Arlovski anybody? ).  He’s really slick at landing bombs while transitioning from one position to the next.  He must always have his strikes in the back of his mind, working and wrestling on the ground – when space between bodies is made  he’s already mid-punch. The Fedor MMA Book has several techniches that end with a transition strike.

As you can tell, lot of accuracy is based on control and effective setups.

High Damage Attacks

Here’s the deal. The longer a strike travels, the more damage it will do when it hits it target.  Next time you watch a fight, take notice of the shots that really stun guys.

In Bas’ previously mentioned DVD’s, he talks about distancing, which is very important to get the strikes to travel the right distance for power. Little looping punches do a minor damage, especially if they’re not hitting a vital target (accuracy!). In general, your arm should be 80% locked out when you connect.

When you’re locked in on top in a high mount, you can cock your fists back to head level and unleash to full extention; when you’re scrambling to control a position, a big wide punch will cause you to loose control.

That’s the trade off. Harder punches take longer to arrive and leave you more open to countering, but do more damage. Every strike to it’s situation.

Other Resources

Was that not enough to slate your thirst for ground and pound?

More Joe Lauzon vids:

http://www.fightauthority.com/mma-video.php?vid=202

Some G & P Practice

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2z-2M0Njy2E

Chuck Liddell Practicing G&P

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_dqxLVepik

Frank Trigg showing off a little G&P

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dK5-uJmQCSs

Tags: g&p, ground and pound, side control, striking the guard