Full Guard Tips For MMA With Greg Jackson
Grappling in MMA has changed over the years; initially, the Gracie family and BJJ practitioners dominated the scene. Until a new style has developed that is suited for wrestlers and can deal with BJJ fighters, this strategy is called - Ground and Pound, where one fighter pins his opponent to punish him with strikes.
Other than combat sambo, there is no other sport that involves Ground and Pound, this strategy is unique to MMA, and it is simple to understand; take the opponent to the mat and hurt him.
This strategy allows fighters to do a couple of things successfully:
- By punching our opponents on the ground, we can advance position quickly as the opponent will not focus on his position
- By utilizing Ground & Pound, we can deny our opponent from going into submissions from the bottom position
But Ground and Pound is not that easy to perform against knowledgeable opponents that want to escape and get back to their feet at all cost. If Ground and Pound was easy, wrestlers would dominate the scene with ease, so what can we do to improve this area and win fights consistently?
First of all, we need to understand that each position is different, and an excellent way to develop it early on is to stand inside the guard and focus on having a good stance with one leg forward, and the knees bent.
As you get better in this position, you can start working from your knees inside the guard or half guard. Here the key idea is to control our opponent and never be static; we always follow him, not giving him enough space to use his hips and get an angle, so we want to control him with as many contact points as possible before punching him.
Let’s look now at some of the fighters that utilized this strategy better than anyone: Mark Coleman, Fedor Emelianenko, GSP, and Khabib Nurmagomedov. If you want to see good Ground & Pound in action, you need to see those fighters using it.
In the following video, Greg Jackson will show us his working method from inside the full guard in MMA.
Who Is Greg Jackson?
Greg Jackson is an elite MMA coach and the owner of Jackson Wink MMA. Greg has built one of the most outstanding training facilities for MMA fighters, where he trained countless Champions like Jon Jones, Rashad Evans, and Holly Holm. Greg and his facility won three different World MMA Awards: Best Coach, Best Gym, Coach Of The Year (2010).
Walrus Anchor Position In The Full Guard
In this video, Greg Jackson will explain how to use the walrus anchor position inside the full guard. Before moving forward, Greg reminds us that Ground & Pound inside the full guard is risky as he has all of his attacks and can use his hips to move around.
If we decide to take the risk and enter the full guard, the walrus anchor position will benefit us. The walrus anchor position goes like this:
- Keep our eyes aligned over each other
- Get bicep ties
- Drive our hips forward, so we posture in a position over his head
This position anchors us very well and nullifies our opponent from using his knees and feet. The next thing we look to do in this position is to win the hand fighting game. To win the hand fight, we should keep things as simple as possible because he is very mobile and complicating things won’t work.
So, the first thing we will do while hand fighting is to get our hands over his wrists. When our opponent tries to escape the grip, we immediately let go with an elbow to his face.
Notice now that as we let go with the elbow, we drive our head down to add to the impact and power behind the strike. We always posture with our heads high in the walrus, but we change levels as we utilize the strikes.
let’s recap everything we went over in this video:
- Control our opponent
- Walrus posture
- Hand fight
- Strike
We will go through all these steps as a loop when we Ground & Pound from the full guard.
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