Grip Fighting
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In a sense, all grappling begins with a battle of grips. Even in the standup game, the clinch positions and pummeling are extensions of the grip. Submissions are set-up by a proper gripping situation and to an extent, strikes can be too.
Randy Couture uses his grips to set up his preferred clinches, so does Karo Parisyan. From what I’ve seen, Jens “Lil Evil” Pulver uses grip fighting to set up his favored style of dirty boxing. A lot of fights really get dictated by the flow of the gripping positions.
Here are some videos to get your creative juices flowing.
First things first, the vid above shows some of the two handed gripping positions like the s-grip and the gable grip.
From the guard, there is one particular gripping situation that has both frustrated and delighted me – depending on who’s using it. You have one deep overhook and use that arm to reach over to the opponents non-hooked wrist. You’ve blocked his use of both of his arms and you’ve one free arm to punch, manipulate an armbar, or get into rubber guard’s mission control. In the video above, Kenny Florian uses this grip to stand up from the guard.
I was first shown this by Eric down at Fusion gym – I’ll tell you, it’s tough to escape.
Double wrist control from the guard is more potent in submission grappling than it is in MMA, and even more potent in gi jujitsu. In the video above, Frank Trigg illustrates why. Circling thumb-side and delivering elbows, compressing the hips forward when you do, helps break the grip and deal damage at the same time.
This circling applies both ways though, if you’re on the bottom and a guy is double wrist controlling you, you can swim around like this to break his grip.
Above: Greg Nelson, at Erik Paulson’s CSW, elaborates on grip training, freaky wrestler strength, and training.
For Judo players and gi Jujitsu, grip fighting is huge. Every match begins with a grip, and if you can control the grips throughout, you control the match. The above video shows a drop seoi nage drill that is pretty slick. Tony, one of my instructors, showed me something similar that the Gracie-Baja guys were killing people with down at the Mundials. You set up the same way, entering in for seoi nage, but instead of passing through the legs you disappear on the the side of the legs and remain control of the sleeve. You finish with an easy single leg take down, among other things.
Here’s a Judo friendly grip strategy video and another one about setting your power hand.
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