Making the transition from submission grappling to mixed martial arts (MMA) is no easy task, to say the least…
Because there are quite a bit of modifications and additions that you’ll have to make along the way to your mat skills.
But which ones, exactly?
Well, Gordon Ryan revealed several things that you’d need to do to become successful in MMA as someone who’s trained grappling for the most part.
He shared them in a conversation with Morning Kombat:
Number one, you have to have the ability to actually, of course, take the fight to the ground.
So that means you have to have good, reactive and proactive takedowns in the open, like a GSP, for example, where you throw punches, get the guy’s hands up and shoot takedowns.
A lot of it is about holding people down:
So holding him down, stopping the initial explosion up and then being able to have a combination of working through a hierarchy of things while also having open hands to be able to punch when you’re happy, but still holding people down when they’re trying to get up.
If they’re going to get up, it shouldn’t be for free. It should be them getting up, carrying body weight.
And if they’re not carrying body weight as they’re getting up, they should be getting hit.
He summarized:
So, the ability to take people down from top position to double down in the open, take people down the fence, make them carry body weight when you’re on top of them and they’re not carrying body weight and they aren’t getting up being able to hit them.
