The seminar last Saturday with submission grappler extraordinaire, Brandon Ruiz, was amazing.  Brandon mainly talked about takedowns, posture, clinching,  and grip fighting. He gave a couple of core concepts that have changed the way I think about the standup game. Anyway, let me share a few of the insights as best I can.

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The double leg takedown.

Most people drive directly toward their opponent as if they will be running right through them.  The problem with this is that you land in the guard. In MMA, instead of having a game plan of 1. Score takedown 2. Pass guard 3 Punish opponent – why not skip step 2 altogether? IF you land in a guy’s guard, you’re opening yourself up to submission risks that you wouldn’t have in side control.

Instead, you want to utilize takedowns that solve this problem before it starts. Brandon taught a version of the double leg from clinching positions taught to him by one of his coaches at the Olympic training center that involves lateral movement. This variation has the benefit of never touching your knees to the mat.

The procedure is as follows: Get inside position (more on that later), armdrag/bump/schuck, keep low-but-upright posture, shuffle laterally, lift the far leg and pass the near leg as to avoid the guard.

Here’s Eddie Edmunds finishing the takedown like Brandon taught.

Once you throw your enemy to the ground in ruin, its time to give him a fair option.  Ankle submission or side control. You sink in a catch-wrestling foot lock – and your opponent has to choose between defending the lock or have you pass his guard. He can’t do both. Obviously, there are more details – if only you were there to have Mr. Ruiz to explain them to you, you’d be set.

Inside Position

I’ve used judo style clinch in the past, so I was especially interested in Brandon’s Greco-Roman and submission wrestling clinch work. His bread and butter was “inside position” which was one hand on the bicep, one hand on the collar bone.  Simple, but effective.

Brandon showed us how to arm drag, fireman’s carry, double leg, and hip throw from this position. His setups were super solid. Even a wrestling novice like me was able to use them effectively against bigger and stronger opponents (which was about 75% of the people  at the seminar).

Two on One

So you’ve tried to armdrag and take the back, but your opponent is turning round you like a merry-go-round. Or maybe your opponent has let you grab one of his arms with both of yours. With the two on one position gained, the world is your oyster. Brandon showed us some principles about posture and hand placement that really make this position work – forearm into the armpit and cutting a straight line in front of the guy, using your head to wedge in his jaw.

From here there were several options. One move he showed us came from Kali stick fighting – a simple move that makes you say, “I can’t believe that this works!” – but it works very well. Another one was a wrestlers version of judo’s uchi mata. If they try to stop it, you’re set up for an awesome snap down and subsequent back taking.

Dealing with the guard

Don’t. Deal with taking top

Submissions and other things

Leg locks and chin-straps, forcing submissions, taking control via first contact – there was a ton of stuff. Brandon taught for two plus hours, and then we did king of the hill and sparring drills. I’ll stop myself from droning on and I’ll sum up. It was awesome training.

Also, if you read this in time – Brandon is competing down in Florida right now – check www.themat.com to watch the FILO championships live. If you don’t catch them streaming, they’ll most likely have youtube links up.

So the burning question is this – is it “takedowns” or “take downs”? I’m not a grammar snob, and I’m into evolving language so I naturally think “takedown” is the winner, despite my spell checker’s evil red underlines. Anyway, I just heard that Quinton Rampage Jackson hurt his knee, so for UFC 98 it will be Lyoto Machida vs Rashad Evans.

I think it’ll be a great fight; Machida is a defensive mastermind and smooth operator, while Rashad is a young, explosive buck with strong wrestling. Both guys have focused, accurate striking.

I expect that Rashad’s camp will be trying to concoct a specific strategy for Machida – tie him up, push him to the cage, rough him up a bit – or maybe try to just it to the ground. Whatever the case, I suspect that a deciding factor in the fight will be who can pull off takedowns or sweeps, and who can’t.

Above there are two video’s, one of Shogun defending the double underhooks and subsequent throws, the other of Yves Edward showing how to defend the single leg takedown.

Below is a link to John Hackleman teaching about takedown defense via lateral movement, striking etc. Remember that John is one of Chuck Liddell ‘s trainers, and the Iceman has great takedown defense.

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Waaaagh! Wrestlers. They’re a tricky sort, and as big names like Randy Couture, Matt Hughes, and Brock Lesnar have shown. The purpose of this article is to help fighters who have difficulties in dealing with wrestling based mixed martial artists. Certainly, I don’t know it all. Hopefully though, you’ll get some tips and ideas to take to the mat and gain an upper hand against wrestling MMA’ers.

In part 1, I discussed the basic wrestlers strategy, side control management, preventing the guard pass, and striking from the guard.

In part 2, I want to add some details about dominant positions, submissions from the ground and elaborate a bit about the standing striking game.

Get Dominant Positions

If you want to improve your chances of winning a match, focus on gaining and keeping dominant positions for greater percentages of your fight practice sessions. In jujitsu, we have a mantra that applies well in MMA: Position Before Submission – make sure you are secure in a dominant position with all the various technical points under control and the submission will be WAY easier. Instead of struggling to lock in your choke, transition to a more dominant position. Don’t fight strength against strength in neutral positions, focus on getting some place where you have a leverage and body advantage.

Part of what makes wrestlers such frustrating opponents is that they are good at putting you in disadvantageous positions. The take down, the guard pass, the ground and pound – it’s all about being on top, weighing you down, smacking you until KO or an arm/head becomes undefended enough to submit it with ease.

Your job is to do essentially the same thing. Get into a dominant position and work the techniques you know.

It makes sense when you review all the fights you’ve seen through your mind. How often does a fight get finished once one competitor takes the others back? 60-80%? It’s almost natural to just call the fight done when someone gets back mount because it’s so common to see TKO due to strikes or rear naked choke in a few seconds.

In striking realm, the essence of position before submission is no different. Beating down an opponent from the mount position is much more deadly than being restricted in guard and trying to grind out some ground and pound. Position matters.

Gaining dominant clinches assures that you’ll be able to get in some punches by controlling the body position and angles made between your body and your opponent’s. Randy Couture takes a good deal of time talking about this in his video on “Learning to fight and win.” Get a good single collar tie, step off to the side and land a straight punch to the face. Anticipating that an opponent will get wise to this, he’ll angle back toward you to try to defend. Respond by “swimming” to the other side, hooking the arm or head and keep the dominant position.

Create Angles To Land Strikes and Frustrate Take Downs

I love a still-photo that can capture the exact moment of a knockout punch in all of its sweaty head-snapping, rippled cheeks and fist to face glory. It’s a special moment, really (unless you’re on the receiving end). Just like in Sesame Street where today was brought to you by the letter Q and the number 7, there’s a big chance that the KO blow was brought to you by good attack angles.

It’s tough to over-state how useful proper angles are in fighting. Whether standing up or on the ground, moving position to get an angle on a opponent will open him up for nearly unblockable punches/submissions while simultaneously diminishing the strength of his attacks or obviating them altogether.

Leg take downs are initiated in a very linear manner. The wrestler drops his level and bursts forward. Upper body throws all have to be worked from a body clinch. Both are well countered by circling, angle movements.

It’s a deep and rich subject, one worthy of it’s own post, so I’ll keep it brief here and post a couple of specifics.

As you drill for take downs, one variation is to train as if you see the take down coming. Remain light on your feet and angle off to the side, push the head and shoulder girdle to the side of you, letting them go past you as you side step and angle off their attack line. If the take down is already underway when you notice it, you’re probably too late avoid it altogether, but you can still angle a bit as you begin to contact. As they close that distance, see if you can gain advantage via over/under hooks. See if you can notice which leg they try to grab first – either by intuition or fight videos – and get that leg back first. As you “retreat” that side, turn or pivot and parry their driving energy forward to that side behind you. Punch to the face or send a knee up to the head.

Watch the fight where Lyoto Machida defeats Tito Ortiz. It’s almost like Lyoto’s a matador, and Ortiz a charging bull. Ole!

When exchanging strikes, always trying to work your way out of the power zone of your opponent by circling around them. In a nutshell, that striking power zone is shaped like a round support pillar – imagine your opponent hugging a stone column, barely able to connect hands. Looking on the floor, the power zone can be seen as a circular arc between where their feet are pointing.

There is a good boxing DVD on the market that deals with attack angles specifically – see Fight Resources bottom of the post for the link.

Create Angles To Get Submissions

My Sensei summed up getting jujitsu with two words – hip movement. In this context, I’ll throw in an extra word – lateral hip movement. If you’re not a jujitsu player, this advice may be lost on you. If you are a jujitsu player, this advice might be beyond you. I certainly haven’t achieved that level of grappling nirvana where two words is all I need. Still, it’s the root of the idea and I’ll try to do my best describing it.

If you’re in guard, don’t let the guy get his posture. Even if you’ve broken your opponent down so you’re chest to chest, their body laying directly on top of you like the two hands of a clock at 12:00 is bad. In this case, you will always need to push or pull off on one side and try to isolate one half of their body – either an arm or the head and one arm.

Think of the omoplata submission; you start off in a twelve o’clock position but push off one hip to move your body to the side, going to a body position that’s about two o’clock. As you do this, you get your leg up the back of your opponents body and in front of his face, trapping his arm – you’re probably at three o’clock. Continuing on, you go into a jiu-claw position (six o’clock) and sit up and start tweaking the shoulder joint. Check out the article “Omoplata Omoplata Omoplata” here to see what I mean.

Angle off the body line and see how your opponent may expose himself to submissions. Additionally, one of the great pluses to this is that angling off gives less for an opponent to strike.

Fighter Resources

I’ve mentioned a few things you might want to check out.

First of all, if you didn’t catch Dealing With Wrestlers In MMA Part 1, check it out here.

The learning to fight and win DVD with Randy Couture is well worth the money. He breaks down the clinch game really well. As it’s a wrestler staple that he’s been using, you can use it to fight with or avoid it. To really know how to defend an attack, you have to know it yourself.

With all the talk of clinches, you’ll want to bring yourself up to speed on pummeling and the different clinch positions. The article Basic Pummeling, can be found here.

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The other DVD I mentioned was the Title Boxing Attacking and Punching at Angles. It’s a solid video from some of the best in the business.

As for hip movement, I mentioned that it’s a tricky thing to describe. Instead, watch grappling guru Jean Machado perform his 5 favorite submissions. The armbar recounter (2nd shown in the vid) is very instructional on lateral-hip-movement. See it below, or click here.

Also, three posts in the archives were mentioned directly, or indirectly.

Omoplata instruction : Tons of omoplata variations and how to pull them off. Watch the hip movement!

Extra Bonus:

Here are some pics that show some good attack angles.

On this one (above) notice how Rich Franklin’s right foot is out side his opponnet’s left foot.

Above, Liddell is square up to Rampage. Both of Liddell’s feet are the same distance away from Jackson, “squaring” his shoulders and face for impact.

Side step and uppercut: It could equally be a failed take down attempt.