Last week's feature discussed the armbar from the closed guard. This week we'll to take a step backwards and talk about even more fundamental aspects - grappling and dominant positions. There will be no prior assumption of grappling knowledge, these topics can be considered building blocks that will help with an understanding for more advanced techniques in future posts.
This week we'll breakdown dominant positions in grappling. We'll start where Brazilian Jiu Jitsu made its first splash in North America - UFC 1. In Royce Gracie's first match, he achieved a quick victory over top ten ranked boxer Art Jimmerson simply by establishing a dominant position called "side control" and then transitioning to the mount.
When this match took place, few people in the United States knew what BJJ and submission wrestling were all about. Before the fight, Jimmerson talked with future UFC referee "Big" John McCarthy, who was also Gracie's training partner at the time. McCarthy showed Jimmerson some BJJ moves and, in so many words, explained that he was going to be in trouble once he got into the Octagon with Gracie. Having no real knowledge of BJJ, Jimmerson was convinced Gracie was going to break his arms and legs.
The fight starts and Gracie throws a few kicks and then goes for a double leg take-down (5:20). A double leg take-down is a take down that is usually setup with a faked punch or kick. You can even duck a punch and then go in. At this point you drop down and your back leg propels you forward as the knee of your lead leg drops to the mat. You then want to position you head on the outside of your opponent's lead leg (if your head is on the inside, which Gracie's was here, you could catch a knee to the head). As you are doing this, you wrap your arms around your opponents leg's, by the knees pulling their legs into you as you push them off balance with your head. Gracie executed this move very effectively here. Once you have your opponent down, you want to hold their legs together until you're able to gain a dominant position. Gracie holds Jimmerson's legs until he is able to secure side control (5:28).
Side control is a dominant position in grappling in which your opponent is on his back and your torso is on top of hgis with your legs off to the side. In this position you will generally put one arm under their neck and the other arm under one of his arms and you would hold your hands together to keep him secure while pushing your knees into his body and your weight on top of him. There are many submissions from the side control position ranging from armbars, kneebars, toe holds, chokes, and many others.
From here Gracie transitions to another dominant position, the mount (5:30), by swinging his left leg over Jimmerson's legs. The mount position is when your opponent is laying on his back and you are basically sitting on his stomach or torso. This is a very dominant position for the person on top as there are a lot of submissions such as armbars and triangles from this position, thus it doesn't allow for the person on the bottom to do to much. In this position, it's generally good to stay low to avoid getting bumped off. Gracie lay on top of Jimmerson in this match as he is looking for an opening to apply a submission, but Jimmerson, scared he might leave with a broken bone, taps out (6:25).
Side control and the mount are two of the basic dominant positions commonly used in BJJ and MMA. In UFC 1 Gracie demonstrated the importance of the dominant position on his way to winning the UFC 1 tournament. It's important to understand what these positions are and how they can be beneficial or detrimental to either of the fighters. Next week we will look at the remaining dominant positions - the guard and the back. After that we'll specifically look into how fighters can take advantage of these dominant positions to submit their opponents.
Henry Dziekan is a new MMATorch Specialist who will provide insight into how effective and popular MMA submission holds work with video clips accompanying his explanations.
[Royce Gracie photo by Mike Lano (c) MMATorch]
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