In my recent analysis of the ground game (for, of all things, a commentary on our national Judo program!), I had to review a lot of footage of MMA, Judo, Wrestling, and BJJ. I was timing transition speed and frequency, and I noticed an odd trend that I thought I would share with you all.

There are exactly three places you can go from side mount if you want to stay on the ground:

1) You can move to half guard, sacrificing your advantage for a stable striking platform on one side. This can be done almost at will, but it is only situationally good

2) You can attempt a full mount, the lowest percentage play, but one that gives you a massive advantage if you succeed. This will often stall out until you get stood up or the round ends

3) You can commit to a North-South transition with good frequency... over THREE TIMES more N-S attempts make a successful transition when compared to the percentage of full mount attempts. This is one of the least utilized positions in MMA, according to my studies.

Perhaps it is a lack of understanding and training that keeps fighters from transitioning to North-South. The fighters who have the most success with this position tend to be high level wrestlers, such as Randy Couture and Jeff Monson. But a few months of training will give any professional MMA fighter options here.

Jason Scully over at Grappler's Guide has written an excellent article on the technical aspects of the North-South choke (found right here on Fighting-MMA: http://www.fighting-mma.com/ufc-betting-information/mma-training/north-south-choke/ ), and both the Anaconda and Kimura are fairly well documented, so I won't get into the nuts and bolts of North-South mechanics in this article. Instead, let me talk about all of the reasons that fighters should strive to add this position to their toolbox.

The net effect of side control, if you don't improve it, is time on top. Time on top looks good to the judges, but it doesn't end fights by itself. The way MMA is currently scored, successful transitions to superior positions also score points even if no real damage is done. So why not transition from side to N-S? It will score you more points, decrease the chances of you getting stood up, and open up some of the most vicious chokes in the game at the same time. Knees to the shoulders and collar bone are much more likely end the fight than knees to the side.

Defending against your opponent gaining the full mount is a basic skill, the technique fairly well known in all MMA camps. Raise the knee on the side of the potential mount, keep your balance, save your energy. Defending the transition to North-South is much more esoteric. Not every camp drills it heavily, and the position is unnatural enough to throw off even some veteran fighters.

Time remaining is a big factor on which transition to go for. If you're comfortable grounding and pounding, and it is early in the round, you might just want to sacrifice position, get into half guard, and start dropping bombs while you have a lot of energy. If it is late in the round (60 seconds left or less), you probably want to attempt full mount, because even if you don't make it or can't finish, you don't have the kind of time needed to make North-South pay big dividends. It is those middle parts of the round where N-S can make a huge impact. If you achieve a North-South position with 2 minutes 30 seconds left in the round, you have a lot of time to convert it. You can be slowly battering down your opponent, sinking in and rolling through an Anaconda, or launching knees to weaken a limb for the Kimura. North-South tends to take more time to finish from than full mount, but can be achieved with greater frequency, and the escapes are just as difficult (if not more) to pull off. From my analysis, a well rounded ground fighter should be moving from side control to N-S about 30 percent of the time. The reality is, we see a fraction of that, because of the single minded focus on gaining full mount.

I understand that training time in the modern MMA fighter's life is already spread thin. Another couple of hours a week on wrestling/BJJ training specifically for North-South positions is going to be hard on any fighter. But for those who put in the extra work, the results seem to be there for the taking. Gaining expertise in an area where your opponents are weak is one of the best ways to move up the ranks in MMA. With a technique as readily available as North-South position, this seems like a no brainer.

For the fans out there reading this, ask your favourite ground fighters why they don't transition from side mount to North-South more often. Get their opinions on whether or not there is a niche there that can be exploited. It will be interesting to see the way that the sport changes if some of the top talent in the world puts in the effort and makes the change.

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