The Importance Of Maintaining Postion With Chael Sonnnen
In MMA, positioning is important and we aren’t just talking about ground fighting. Even when you are standing, making sure that you are in a solid position is a great way to maintain an advantage on your opponent.
However in striking there is a lot more ambiguity in position. When it comes to grappling, every single position is defined in detail to an insane degree. If you’re in a position and not just in a scramble with your opponent, then there is already a name for the position you are in.
This makes it easy to know which positions are good to stay in and which are not the best to find yourself in. For the most part, especially in MMA you want to stay off of your back. If you end up on your back, even with your opponent in full guard, in MMA, you’re in danger.
This is why it’s important to do everything that you possibly can to stay off of your back and maintain a top position, even if you think there might be an opportunity for a big move.
That’s why we’ve brought in one of the greatest MMA fighters of all time to talk about this key fundamental.
In this video, Chael Sonnen goes over the importance of keeping a good position on the ground and the benefits that it gives you.
Who Is Chael Sonnen?
Chael Sonnen AKA the bad guy, 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. Now that the bad guy has retired from the sport, he works as an analyst and commentator for many promotions and even owns his own, Submission Underground.
How To Maintain A Good Position In MMA
The video starts off with Chael talking about how learning techniques is easy, especially for someone of his level when it comes to the ground game. What’s hard to learn is positioning, “it could take you a lifetime,” Chael says.
That’s not just a nice saying, it is true. Once you reach a certain level in BJJ, learning new techniques is pretty simple, even newer students have a pretty easy time with that. However positioning and the IQ that comes along with it can take forever to really get down, let alone master.
The main thing that you need to keep in mind with position is never give up a good position to be greedy. Chael demonstrates this in the video with something you will commonly see in MMA and in BJJ sometimes. That is when a fighter has their opponent in a turtle position and they go to pull them into a full guard guillotine.
Now this is bad for a few reasons, the first and most important one is that you are literally giving your opponent your back. You’re also doing this for the sake of getting a big submission that is pleasing to the crowd, but isn’t that high percentage. That means your opponent is probably going to get out and all of a sudden your opponent is on top.
It’s also bad because you have a ton of options for submissions off of the turtle, like anaconda’s and D’arces. In MMA you have even more options with strikes and transitions. Remember that you have options and are in a strong position. Don;’t give up your back in the hope that you can submit your opponent from a weaker position.
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!