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One of the most important factors in mixed martial arts and ground and submission fighting is the guards. Like in last week's newsletter you must build up neck strength and have a good base when either fighting on in the guard or when the opponent is on the top position. This week Stephan discusses three MMA fighting techniques to help you improve you ground fighting game which include; don't have a flat guard, more non-compressive neck trainings and how training layoffs affect your physical and technical skills.

This weeks issue focuses on training and establishing base which is the fundamental part of ground fighting for jujitsu and mixed martial arts fighters. Without a good base and solid fundamentals you will never improve as a fighter like neck bridging and proper and consistent training.

Guards and Necks and Weaknesses

There are three parts this week's MMA trainging tips and techniques:

1 - Don't have a flat guard.
2 - More non-compressive neck trainings.
3 - Hard come, easy go: how training layoffs affect your physical and technical skills.

1) Don't have a Flat Guard

A few weeks ago I discussed ways to shut down your opponent's guard game by 'caging his hips' (i.e. keeping his hips flat on the ground and squarely between your knees). If you missed it, you can read this tip here called Caging the Hips

The obvious flipside of this advice is that an aggressive, attacking guard is often characterized by not staying flat on your back and hips. I think that the following post by jonpall on the mma.tv forum illustrates this point very nicely: http://tinyurl.com/2kfkyx

Once in a while someone on the internet agrees with me!

2) More Non-Compressive Neck Training

Grapplearts newsletter reader Kevin shared his favorite method of conditioning his neck with us:

"A neck exercise I use (because I have the same issue with compressiing my neck) is to use a swiss ball. Place the 45cm ball on a wall at ear height - this should be done in correct spinal alignment so that when you press into the ball your neck goes to neutral alignment. Then force against the back using the front, side, back, and side of your head, and then inward rotation. This is done 30sec each for a static hold.

Proper neck alignment and stabilization is crucial for all athletic performance.

Note that this DOESN'T compress the cervical spine, which, as I discussed in a previous tip, can be problematical for some people in last weeks issue called The Pros and Cons of Neck Bridging

ALSO: several readers enquired about where to get neck harnesses.
They are available at various places online, but if I was to get a new one I would check out the one at Kamikaze martial arts supplies

3) Hard Come, Easy Go

In yet another previous tip I talked about how one makes the fastest progress by working on one's weakest area (http://tinyurl.com/ 22w6hv). An unfortunate fact is that when you have a break from training, intentional or otherwise, your weakest areas also regress and erode the fastest.

This works at both the physical or technical levels.

Physically, even though I train my upper and lower body about equally, the pushing muscles of my upper body have always lagged behind the strength of my legs and back. My bench press is utterly unimpressive when you consider how long I've worked on it: at my best I barely managed to squeak out a few repetitions of 225 lbs. If I stop lifting weights for a while, then my weak area - my bench press for example - goes down much more than the lifts I've always been better at.

The same thing occurs when it comes to technical areas. Let's say that passing the guard has always been difficult for you, and that pin escapes have always come naturally. After a training layoff you will probably find that your pin escapes still work OK, but that your guard passing game has regressed by a full belt level.

What can you do about this? Not having any weaknesses would be a good start, but it is a completely unrealistic one. The next best thing is probably to go easy on yourself after a layoff from training, and accept that certain parts of your game will have suffered more than others. Then go get your butt kicked by all your old training partners, and start trying to make fast improvement by working on your weakest areas once again.

Stephan Kesting
www.grapplearts.com