Effective ground and pound is an essential part of the skill set required by mixed martial artists who are serious about being the best as well as for the average person who may need it in the street. In MMA, ground and pound refers to when your open is on the ground and you get on top of them and pummel them with all you’ve got in an effort to finish the fight. Grounding your opponent is often a great feat just by it’s self, however it is an opportunity you cannot waste to end the situation and come out the victor. Giving your attacker or competitor the chance to fight back or get to their feet can quickly turn the fight back in their favor. So when the window of opportunity is open to ground and pound your opponent you must give it all you have. Interestingly enough, for how important good ground and pound is, it is something that receives very little attention in most martial arts classes. No wonder it is sometimes almost embarrassing to watch how pathetically weakly some of the contestants in the UFC flail on their grounded opponents. In fact is often looks less effective than two school girls playing patty cake. So how can you improve your ground and pound, do some serious damage and save your reputation on camera?
Weight Training
Build up strength specifically for dropping big bombs on your competitors by using weight and resistance training. Use cables and resistance cords to practice downward strikes including punches and hammer fists. Also another fantastic piece of MMA training equipment is The Burn Machine which has been used by the likes of Brock Lesner and Anderson Silva.
Get A Sparring Partner
If your instructors do not allow you enough time to work on your ground and pound in class then sign up for private lessons or train at home with a sparring partner. This will add the realism and difficulty of working a live target that moves and hits back.
Now you can easily and cheaply invest in your own grappling dummies like you see the UFC contestants train with on The Ultimate Fighter. There are a number of sources online where you can find deals on them. Then even if your training partner doesn’t show you can work on improving your ground and pound anyway. Use heavy mma gloves during training to add weight and make it more difficult. However make sure to try all possible combinations of hand and elbow strikes so you are ready to take advantage of any opening.
Becoming a professional mixed martial artist takes a lot of resources. Besides the hours of dedication needed for training, the cost of coaches, gym and dojo memberships, travel and eating right can add up to some serious money, that many find it hard to afford. Then of course there is the cost of marketing yourself and trying to get noticed. So how can you pull off meeting all these expenses and taking the time off from your day job to get in shape at the same time?
The answer for many has been to find a sponsor. If you are just getting started, or in fact unless you already have a championship belt or are on your way to one the chances of you landing a contract or big corporate sponsor is probably slim to none. However this does not mean that there are not options available to you.
Mixed martial arts and the UFC has made fans out of millions in the US, Canada and worldwide. Among these are wealthy individuals and businesses with a passion for MMA or who are looking for a new marketing idea or write off for tax purposes. These are the perfect candidates for becoming your sponsor and helping to offset your costs to make it to the big time. However do approach getting a sponsor with caution. Some will just be happy with the benefits that come from being a sponsor while others may want a part of the action when you start rolling in the big money. It is true you may never make it to the octagon without them, but you also do not want to be handing over millions of dollars of your winnings because someone helped you with a few thousand.
To get sponsored you of course need to show that you have great potential and are dedicated to making your run in the MMA world a success. Step one to getting a sponsor should be to do your home work first. Get all the figures together of what it is going to cost to get you where you want to go and lay it out on paper. Of course you will also want to put together some projections on how much a sponsor is going to gain from partnering with you, whether it is tax write offs, marketing and advertising which brings them new customers or a cut of the winnings. This is what is going to sell them on the deal.
Then put up a blog or small website online, showing off your skills with videos of you training and beating others. You can use this to market yourself to sponsors and eventually raise interest from those who make the cuts for joining the UFC. Start approaching potential sponsors by contacting those you know in person and testing their interest. Then you can send out emails with links to your website or blog to local businesses to try and get them to sponsor you as well. Your sponsor could be from any industry, however ones related to martial arts or health and fitness are a good start. Try gyms, health stores, your dojo and more.
There are tons of volumes of advice on what you should do to become a great mixed martial arts fighter and how to win in the octagon. However from watching many fights it may look like there is much that coaches and instructors forgot to tell their fighters not to do or what to watch out for. Making a mistake in the UFC octagon or other martial arts competitions can mean you losing within a split second. So what are the top three mistakes that MMA fighters make?
1. Burning Out Too Early
While nothing is quite as spectacular as starting the fight with a furious onslaught of combinations and finishing a fight in the first few seconds, burning out early and not getting that immediate knockout or submission will leave you at a disadvantage for the rest of the fight. Save energy and use strategy to wait for your opponent to give you an opening before unleashing your full power and going for the gold.
2. Being Over Confident & Sloppy
Being over confident is a far bigger problem and mistake than many realize. Of course a little ego comes with the territory when you are a mixed martial artist and it does help make you a more prominent figure that can bring in the crowds and sell seats, which is exactly what promoters are looking for. However running out of your corner and getting knocked out in seconds by a smaller and less experienced opponent will have your professional martial arts career diving before it even gets off the ground. Be confident, but not over confident. The worst thing you can ever do is to under estimate any opponent and not put everything you can into your mixed martial arts training camp.
3. Not Seizing The Opportunity To Finish Your Opponent
Not seizing the opportunity to finish your opponent when you have the chance is possibly the biggest mistake a fighter can ever make and unfortunately is far more common than it should be. All your training for months on end, hundreds of hours in the gym and dojo and strict discipline to diet as well as the huge expense all comes down to the few minutes that you have the chance to shine in the octagon. You owe it to yourself if not many others as well to dive on any chance you have to finish the fight and wail on your opponent with all your might. Do not hesitate!
Last week we asked the question, “Can Women Really Be Part Of The MMA Game?“. A member of the Martial Arts Blog brought this video to our attention. So please take a look it looks very good and I hope it makes it to prime time! Please let us know your thoughts down below with your comments.
OK, while learning Bruce Lee´s one inch punch may be cool to show off to your friends and co-workers it´s probably
Bruce Lee
not something you are going to rely on in the octagon against a live opponent. However there may be occasions in the clinch or on the ground where you do need to be able to punch with force from close range. More than that learning the one inch punch is about developing a more powerful and forceful punch that can be used from any distance.
Putting aside all the mysticism and talk about Chi, the principal of the one inch punch is simple about focusing your energy and delivering a more forceful and effective blow. The principal is in fact just like successful board breaking. There are two basic parts to developing more powerful punches, especially at ranges like the one inch punch.
Different people may use different names for the way they focus their energy; for some it is Chi, others it is mental focus and others still just describe it as tapping and channeling their inner anger. Though the bottom line is that it all means, focusing energy on the target and channeling it through your fist. Motivational speakers will tell you to envision breaking through the target whether it is a board or person with your mind before delivering the blow and that it is all mental. An easier way for most is to envision the target as your most hated enemy or the source of all the stress in your life. See how much harder you hit it then!
The second part to mastering the one inch punch and improving your striking power is about technique. To hit with more power at a closer range you must increase the speed that you punch with and get more weight behind it. It´s simple science. Just like with board breaking you must aim not to hit and end your punch at the target it´s self but beyond that target. Practice focusing on a space at least several inches beyond that target and improving your snapping motion. Others may also find success in combing the strike with a reverse movement by the other hand which helps focus more forward energy and weight to striking hand. See the movie ´The Master of Bruce Lee´ for insight into this style and technique.
The second part to mastering the one inch punch and improving your striking power is about technique. To hit with more power at a closer range you must increase the speed that you punch with and get more weight behind it. It´s simple science. Just like with board breaking you must aim not to hit and end your punch at the target it´s self but beyond that target. Practice focusing on a space at least several inches beyond that target and improving your snapping motion. Others may also find success in combing the strike with a reverse movement by the other hand which helps focus more forward energy and weight to striking hand. See the movie ´The Master of Bruce Lee´ for insight into this style and technique.
