MMA: John Jensen - How to Avoid Getting Struck While on Your Back

John Jensen is a BJJ Black Belt as well as a Pastor (his nickname on the MMA forums is "The Rev"). He is one of the founders of Millennia Mixed Martial Arts, which produced many pro fighters including Javier Vazquez, John Allessio, Romie Aram, Manny the Mangler Tapies and many others. His gym was frequented by such mma luminaries as Dan Henderson and Babalu Sobral. He has wrestled, competed in high level grappling competitions, trained MMA fighters and is part of the MMA scene.

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How to Avoid Getting Struck While on Your Back

By John Jensen aka The Rev

This is one thing that I think most people have just forgotten, or never learned. They have decided that the guard sucks so they just need to stand up, or they have taken the best defense is a good offense. Both of these are very good ways to look at it, but I believe it is also important to learn how to keep from taking damage while stuck on your back. Eddie Bravo has addressed one aspect of this with his great work on the rubber guard but let me give you my little tutorial:

To truly understand Damage Minimization we must understand the concepts behind our actions. And the best way to understand these concepts is to start standing. When you are standing up there are basically four ways to keep from getting hit with power:

1. Distance (if you are too close, or too far away to be struck)
2. Angle (you simply cannot hit across your body with any force)
3. Balance (if you disrupt your opponents balance they cannot throw with any force)
4. Block (get something in the way)

Now its easy to imagine these ideas while on our feet, how often have we seen a boxer dazed and almost out grab the other guy and hug him like he's got candy? Or some one like Jr. who changes angle and distance so well and quickly he is almost unhittable till he got a bit older :) ? Or Sugar Ray Leonard who would punch peoples hands on their way in?



The great thing is that on the ground all of these four still matter, but because everything is slower on the ground you don't have to be Jr. to make them work.

1. Distance:  Keep your opponent so close he cannot hit you (rubber guard is great for this) or too far away, extending your guard, or using butterfly guard which I use more than closed guard for reasons I will explain later. If you can keep your opponent to close or too far he must work on getting to the correct distance instead of working on your nose
2. Angle:  This is the least understood and practiced. Javier used to be so good at this, you never sit under the fighter. You are always moving hips out, when they adjust you adjust. Back and forth, never settling. As someone tries to get either closer or further away you simply move them and you in opposite directions left or right. In addition to having many subs available, the opponent has to focus on getting his angle back in order to hit you... as he adjusts, you simple help him over adjust and now he is back on the other side fighting to get center.
3. Balance:  Now this one can be a bit harder when playing a closed guard, but if you take the idea that I keep him off balance in order to keep him from striking me, you realize that you can hit sweeps, that aren't successful at turning the guy, but are successful at making him stop punching your pretty face. If you work the butterfly guard like I do, you have the perfect ability to not only upset balance whenever you want, but also to hit tons of subs, especially leg subs, sweeps, and the added bonus of hitting angles all day long by using heel hooking motions.
4. Blocking:  This is important to understand correctly. If you cover up you are not blocking, you are hiding, and eventually you have to come out. But if you are serious about blocking you must understand this simple concept, it is much harder to put something on or in front of a hand than it is and elbow, which is harder than a biceps. The closer to the body you attack, the easier it is to make contact. So as the guy throws the big right hand, you can use your shin or foot or forearm, or shin and forearm to aim at the biceps, interrupting the whole punch. If you try and pick a fist out of the air you get hit most of the time unless you are Sugar Ray Robinson.

Now if you put these four concepts together, work on them very hard you can become very good at Harm Minimization. In my case I got to the point where I could put fairly skilled people in my guard, put my hands behind my head and still avoid being struck. And yes I am serious.

rev (aka John Jensen)


Willis added:

Good post IMO. I like playing/practicing guard with no hands occasionally, keeps the hips moving..

Also another drill I like is almost like a sticky hands on the ground, variation with eyes closed. Striking is too often left out of grappling leaving people inexperienced with the combination. Just my 2 cents

Rev replied:

exactly right, in our mma class even when we used the gi we used 50% open hand strikes. You must always be aware of where you dome is and how it can get assaulted.

K-"Dub"-T posted:

Quote:

Originally Posted by the rev 2. Angle: this is the least understood and practiced. Javier used to be so good at this, you never sit under the fighter. You are always moving hips out, when they adjust you adjust. Back and forth, never settling. As someone tries to get either closer or further away you simply move them and you in opposite directions left or right. In addition to having many subs available, the opponent has to focus on getting his angle back in order to hit you... as he adjusts, you simple help him over adjust and now he is back on the other side fighting to get center. rev

Of all, THIS is the favorite of mine.

I call it "The Iron Man Principle".

It's actually the centerline theory in action while grappling.

I call it the Iron Man Principle because your Iron Man light (center point of your chest) shines directly on him, while you angle away so his Iron Man light is shining AWAY form YOU and he HAS to try to angle back to face you....

lol. Yep comic geek... I hope that makes some sense.

Quote:

Originally Posted by the rev exactly right, in our mma class even when we used the gi we used 50% open hand strikes. You must always be aware of where you dome is and how it can get assaulted. rev

You too? lol. Yeah did lots of this.

I seldom ever get hit on bottom.

From http://www.spladdle.com/forum/showthread.php?t=18138