Body Shots In The Guard For MMA With Chael Sonnen
In Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, being in someone's guard can be a pretty bad position. Even though you are technically on top and your opponent’s back is on the floor, they are in control of you and can attack submission even though you can’t. That is the case in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu but not really in MMA.
If you’re in someone’s guard in MMA, even though you are technically in their control, they can go for submissions while you can’t. What you can do from the guard is effectively rain down some ground and pound on your opponent. A lot of fights are finished with the top fighter raining down heavy shots to a grounded opponent from the closed guard position.
This makes being in the top position in closed guard a good one for MMA. Don’t take that to mean that it is easy to get a finish from here though. You can’t just throw punches at your opponent’s head from this position and hope that it will take them out. Just like with stand up striking, you are probably going to need to vary up your strike targets to make your opponent guess and expose themselves for you to take out.
This is why hitting the body is a good choice, even on the ground, as you can still land some devastating shots on your opponent. In fact this is so important that you might consider being able to land body shots on the ground as a fundamental skill in MMA. If it’s fundamental then you need to learn how to do it and there’s nobody who’s better at the fundamentals than the bad guy himself, Chael Sonnen.
In this video Chael Sonnen goes over how he likes to land body shots on the ground from the closed guard position. Chael Sonnen is a former NCAA D1 wrestler and one of the most powerful wrestlers to compete in both the UFC and Bellator. Chael has huge wins over big name fighters like Maurício Rua, Paulo Filho, Michael Bisping, Nate Marquardt, Wanderlei Silva, and Quinton Jackson.
How To Throw Body Shots From Closed Guard
The video starts off with Chael talking about how a lot of people only think about the rib area of the body when they think about body shots. This isn’t bad at all, as hitting the side of the body where the ribs are located,especially the lower ribs. does a lot of damage but Chael also likes to aim for something else.
Chael prefers to target the navel belly button area. This area, despite being right on the abs, is actually usually pretty soft. Striking it will stun your opponent for a second and likely bring their arms down to defend it.
This will open up the head for you to strike. You can punch or even elbow the naval to damage and you can even elbow your opponents legs to get them to loosen up their grip if you’re trying to pass guard or get back to standing.
Learn More From The Bad Guy Chael Sonnen!
If you like this technique breakdown and want to learn more from the Bad Guy Chael Soinne then why don’t you check out his full MMA instructional video “The Winning Fundamentals of MMA by Chael Sonnen” available exclusively on Dynamic Striking!