Anyone practice their BJJ as ground fighting sometimes? i LOVE working my guard on someone who has boxing gloves on. Also i think the fastest way to develop a combat oriented half guard is through CONTROLLED strikes. Just my opinion.
Only when I've got an 'evolved' enough partner. You need to be able to slow-roll to be able to get the best benifits out of this, and the standard 'I HAVE THE BIGGEST PENIS GGGRRRRRRRRRRRR' young males out there can't do this. You have to be confortable enough with yourself to acknowledge a 'good hit' from your training partner and not go balls out to 'get him back'. When coaching, I normally use the 'light open hand slap' approach to the head and body. Once they've got a hang of that, we insert 'light' knees and elbows.
I do a fair amount of MMA sparring, but with people outside my BJJ club. It's fun! I find the guard is the most interesting position, as the guy on bottom has to worry about punches coming down, and the guy on top has to worry about submissions. I also find it's interesting when you can strike someone from bottom.
Since i work as much No gi as Gi, i find my MMA guard to be pretty strong. I was working with some guys who ONLY do Gi on a MMA guard the other night and they loved it. I mainly work over hooks, or neck and wrist control. Working neck and wrist control is hard, and requires you to use the elbow of/arm that is controlling the guy's neck to deflect punches. I read a quote from either Carlson or Helio Gracie (on-line) that (paraphrased) said, “To truly train GRACIE jiu-jitsu you need to train with the Gi, without the Gi, and MMA." Personally, i LOVE all three.
I'm not really interested in MMA at the moment, though I've done a little in the past (very briefly, though). I prefer to train striking and grappling separately, though in general as I don't like being punched in the face, I'm focusing on grappling. Of course, my goal has always been fun and fitness, so I don't need to worry about stuff like being a complete fighter etc.
About once a week we train strikes on the ground. Someone dons the old MMA gloves and has at it. Yes they pull their punches... but it's also enough to let you know you've been caught out if he lands. It's a big wake up call for a lot of people. Standing and striking is one thing. You cop a shot to the nose... it's expected... all part of the process. But in stand up you can roll with it... you head has somewhere to go. But if you're in guard position and you get wacked... OUCH!!! The head has nowhere to go... classic rock and hard place. We take it slow and go at it with good humor. Otherwise it's exactly the sort of thing that erupts into hard feelings and and an ego fest. The other fun one we do is shoots against someone wearing big 16oz. boxing gloves... but he doesn't have to pull his punches all that much. It's up to the shooter to create the opening and.. well... shoot. Many are surprised just how easy one can cop a shot and be stopped while trying to shoot. The person wearing the gloves... trying to stop the shooter can still sprawl and he learns first hand why judging distance is soooo important. All good fun with the right crowd.
In my experience this is the key Too many guys always want to 'win' in training, and it doesn't work so well for the training and people end up hurt bad.
