The MMA Prime Directive: Positional DominanceFiled Under: Instruction
I have been teaching, training, and playing with the notion of pressures lately. Essentially, this had led me to conclude that achieving, maintaining and reversing positional dominance is the premier skill in MMA. That’s right. Positional dominance is the hierarchical king to all other concepts in MMA. Sure, I could be wrong. But I challenge you to outline a better one (please do! and then teach me). I dare say that positional dominance is at the root of success in MMA, indeed, it should be the prime directive of mixed martial artists.
Think of it this way – positional dominance is the ability to exert maximum pressure with minimal effort while simultaneously optimizing your mobility and decreasing your opponents.
Take side control for example. The top cross-body position is unquestionable dominant. Gravity allows you to crush your opponent pretty hard, especially when you learn the finer points of posturing for top pressure. You can switch position into scarf hold/kesa gatame, mount, north south, knee on belly, or even stand back up. Your elbows and knee strikes have “umph” and you can force openings to proper strike points. The guy on the bottom has weak control over your posture and mobility, and his pressure (hugging pressures, upa escapes, arm/knee frames) pales in comparison to yours. His hips are often blocked by your knee or arm, his shoulders are pinned to the mat – his mobility is severely restricted. The strikes from the guy on the bottom? Laughable.
Now consider the clinch game, two fighters both having an overhook and an underhook. They both exert pressure that controls movement and limits mobility. However, unless a fighter is skilled at the position, neither fighter has a positional advantage. Many times, over/under control becomes a battle of strength and explosiveness.
One last example – striking. Squaring off against your opponent puts you on an equal position. Cutting an angle behind him opens him up: striking his vitals becomes easier and his counter-strikes are hard to pull off. Often, he has to adjust his position before making any kind of offensive effort or block. Anderson Silva is great at controlling angles and space; see his book Striking for MMA, for more on that.
Positionally Dominant Game Planning
The overall frame work of your technical training can be broken up into two parts. Taking a dominant position and exploiting it. The delivery system differs on your body type, style presence, and martial art. The question is no longer “why is mount better than guard?” but rather, “Am I training in a realistic way that will emphasize my ability to gain positional dominance and exploit it along the way?”.
More and more, when I’m training or teaching, I’m trying to think, “How does this move help the application of positional dominance?” In my personal game, I’m trying to avoid just collecting a bunch of moves and instead try to build cohesive skills to gain dominant position.
Jujitsu escapes aren’t about blocking my opponents submissions – they are about advancing my position. The mantra of “Step every time you strike, strike every time you step” is becoming a way to not only increase punching power, but advance my body position by striking.
I think the overall shift in focus from details-orientation to “big picture” thinking will help my game. Its not that details aren’t important – they are. However, I want my game driven by fundamental principles from a top down approach, not a collection of moves from a bottom up approach. (I see the bottom up approach taught quite a bit)
Summary
Get and maintain positional dominance. When you do:
Strikes do more damage. Counter strikes do less.
You have increased control over your opponents movements, strategy and technical options.
You have increased freedom of body movement, more technical options and an more strategy selection.
Your pressure wears down an opponent physically and mentally, without overtaxing your energy.
Submissions become more viable and easier to pull off.
Almost every form of advantage is boosted when in a dominant position.
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Tags: grappling, positional dominance, positions, wrestling
- Permalink
- BartB
- 4 Nov 2009 6:11 PM
- Comments (8)
November 4th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
[...] This Article comes from SLC MMA To see the full original article click here [...]
November 6th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Excellent post! I completely agree with your points here. Even defensively it’s all about position. I was teaching a class last night on what to do from someone’s guard. I kept pounding into them: solid position. Start with a solid base. Posture up. Control the hips.
These are the ways to get in the best “position”. So you can attack and be attacked less from the person’s guard. The next step is: How to I transition to an even better position (e.g. guard pass into side control.)
Nicely done!
December 7th, 2009 at 12:34 am
I completely agree that positional dominance is the key to winning in MMA. Whether standing or in the ground game, the person who controls position and maintains their dominance will comes out on top. Outside of the heavyweight, haymaker punch throwing matches, even matches which employ minimal technical moves always seem to go to those who employ the best control and position dominance inside of their game plan.
December 11th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Was brought back to this because of tomorrows Diego vs Penn fight. While I expect a lot of flying fists from Diego and BJ to counter with his superior jab and timing, I think the fight will come down to positional dominance. I don’t know if Diego can take him down but Penn is the best at 155 for punishing guys when he gets a good position. He’s know for his dangerous guard because of his flexibility but his top/back control game is how he wins fights. He’s also one of the best examples I think of a guy who uses his BJJ more as well as his wrestling to obtain top control. I think we’ll see more BJJ like this as the game progresses, they’ll use their guard to stand up or sweep instead of trying for submissions. Good wrestlers like Edgar and Griffin are already doing this and it’s a good habit for MMA imo unless you have Maia-esque ridiculous BJJ.
September 5th, 2010 at 1:47 am
[...] we’ve been drilling footwork. Not only is footwork one of the most essential tools in achieving the prime directive, we’ve seen some great fights that have been won by superior footwork (Ex: BJ Penn vs Frankie [...]
September 7th, 2010 at 9:20 am
[...] we’ve been drilling footwork. Not only is footwork one of the most essential tools in achieving the prime directive, we’ve seen some great fights that have been won by superior footwork (Ex: BJ Penn vs Frankie [...]
November 2nd, 2010 at 5:50 pm
Why, when in a dominant position, are elbows not used more? Are elbow strikes to the ribs, thighs, etc. illegal?
Elbow strikes in self-defense are awesome weapons.
Thanks,
Pete
November 12th, 2010 at 12:06 am
Pete -
All elbow strikes except the 12 to 6 elbow strike(think of a clock) are legal.
I agree – I love elbow strikes!