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Here’s a great way to inflict some ground and pound punishment while you’re passing.

When you’re fighting in MMA and you wind up on the ground, the odds are at some point you’ll wind up in your opponents guard and when that happens you have limited options. Often, you get a succesful takedown but wind up in the guard. When that happens, you can stay flat and work the body and head with hooks but you’re probably not going do that much damage. Sure you can stay in his guard and try some ground and pound and work some elbows Tito Ortiz style but ultimately, if the guy you’re up against has good Jiu Jitsu skills, you could be in trouble. Despite the fact that the judges may still give you an advantage in the scoring for being on top, the truth is, your options are severely limited. You have no submissions when you’re in someone’s guard and if the other person is a good guard player, they have multiple sweep and submission opportunities from there. This leaves you in a 50/50 position at best. Your main goal when you wind up in someones guard should really be to pass and attain a dominant position to try and finish the fight.

The video below is by Jeff Joslin, Jacare’s first Canadian Born BJJ black belt and creator of  the MMA quick start training program. It is an incredibly practical way to work from staying safe to attaining posture and breaking guard to doing some ground and pound damage and then passing.  I’m a huge fan of this sequence and find it to really work well. The little tip about where to place your feet has also helped me to avoid getting swept when using this combination of techniques.

Follow the steps and drill them a lot to get your balance and timing right and you can use this stuff to win fights.

• Attain the safety position by placing your head on your opponents chest and cupping their biceps near their elbows. You use this to control his arms to stop him striking and setting up submissions or tying you up.
• Keep your own elbows on the floor and tucked in tight against him to restrict his hip movement. Without doing this, you’re vulnerable to sweeps and submissions.
• When you’re ready, use your palms to push of his biceps and jump into a squat position.  Attain posture and jump up with both feet in one shot and keep good posture, keeping your chin above his, to position you to punch.
• Smash a few strikes into his head. use straight shots to his eye sockets to force him to cover up and then send in wide hooks from the side to try knock him out.
• At this point he should open his guard to defend himself and you need to be ready for this.
• When he opens his guard,  immediately pinch your knees together, clamping your thighs around his legs to keep them in place and stop his hip movement. Don’t move your feet forward when you do this or you’ll risk getting swept.
• Drop your knees and sit on his hamstrings so that he can’t move and you’ve got a balanced position.
• As you move your hips forward, leave your feet back so he can’t grab your ankles to sweep you.
• Grab his calf with both hands and push his legs sideways to the mat to get the pass.
• Attain knee on belly and strike until he gives up his back or move into side control if you’re more comfortable and work from there to finish.

Related posts:

1. How to break down your opponents posture when they’re in your guard.
2. Here’s a little Half Guard secret to help you out of trouble.