Master Wong breaks down five core ground fight positions: guard, half-guard, side-mount, full-mount, and north-south. Each position offers different advantages for striking (top fighter) or submissions (bottom fighter), with specific control points and common attacks like arm-bars, triangles, and heel hooks.
Chapters
What's up guys, welcome back to another lesson in the Master Wong Grappling and Ground Fight System. In today's lesson, we're just going to be talking about the basic positions, as in the basic positions that you can end up in on the floor. So obviously we've gone over how to get the takedown, how to avoid the takedown, etc. Now it's a case of, shit, the fight's ended up on the floor. What do I do now? Where am I? What do I go into? So, I'll just talk you through the basic positions. I'll use the basic terminology that we hear these days, such as your guard, full guard, full mount, side mount, etc., rather than using Chinese terminology. So obviously, if I'm going through, you won't be going, what, what, what? What the hell does that mean? So I'll just use the standard terminology. That way you'll understand what I mean as I move from one position to the next. All I'm going to do today basically is just talk about a few of the pros and cons from each one and just mention what they are so that once we go into later lessons, if you're not so too clued up on all this stuff, you'll know what the hell it is I'm talking about. So if you can position yourself, Naz. So to start with, we're going to start from the guard. So from here, once he hooks his legs together, I am now basically in my opponent's guard. So this is his guard, and from here, in real terms, it's a pretty good position for him. He has many different attacks he can do in terms of submissions, but it's not so good in terms of striking because obviously he's on his back. He can hit, but obviously you can't create the same power that I obviously can as I'm coming down, and I can obviously get my waist involved in my strikes more. So in his closed guard, he tends to have better control over me than I would have over him. So for instance, while he's closed here, if he was to pull his knees to his chest, I get pulled forward. When he forces them backwards, I get forced backwards. So, and obviously if he was to twist, etc., I get moved side to side. Of course, a lot of this will depend on his control of my posture and me, if I'm not sure exactly how I can control him and his body. So basically he has things such as your arm bars, your triangles, etc. From here, I only really, in terms of submissions, have kind of like the key lock. So it's just basic arm lock. And I may, once the guard opens— so like from here, for instance, I might hit and this gets loose. Once it's loose and we now have what we call the open guard, from here I could maybe go for ankle locks, etc. And heel hooks and whatnot as I move away. So in terms of submissions, I don't have much. It's more a striking position for me, and for him it's more of a submissive position— sorry, submission position. So he'll be looking for locks and etc. on me, but only doing enough striking just to sort of keep me thinking, keep me guessing. But he won't necessarily be able to knock me out from here, whereas I could potentially knock him out if I land a good strike. So from here, if I was trying to transition out, for instance, I may end up locked in Naz's half guard. So from here, he's obviously ended up here. I've got one leg in, one leg out, and obviously he's the same. He's got one leg between my legs and one leg out. This is what they call the half guard. This position, really, for either of us, there isn't much you can do. You can obviously fight here and I can strike him, but I'm not as based as I would have necessarily been in his guard, and I'm not as, as based as I would be outside of his guard completely. So I only have really, again, the key lock to hook here. There isn't too much else in the way of submissions. And the same goes for him. He can obviously make a shoulder triangle and things like that, but there aren't too many other things going on unless I have clothing and things that he can wrap up and maybe choke me with. And the same with him. So from here, once I manage to get out of this position, next we have side mount. So from this position, again, it's better for me to be on top inside than it is to be on the bottom. Now, once I am here, again, there's various things you can do, but being on top, I can obviously strike a lot more effectively than Naz can. For instance, if I can manage to get here, lock an arm, and maybe lock this arm too. From here I have lots of strikes, elbows, etc. And even whilst we're fighting, if Nas is trying to defend and I'm here, I can still get this hand inside if I know what I'm doing. If I can control him enough, keep the hips pinned so my pin— my hip, sorry, pins his hip, etc., I can still strike from here. Nas can only really sort of hit me like this. There isn't much he can do. He can try to control my head and there is the option of maybe an armbar or something. But in terms of what's the best position, it's better to be on top inside than it is on the bottom. So once we leave side mount and end up here, we now have what's called the full mount. And again, for me, it's better to be on top. You don't want to be on the bottom because he can't really get his legs involved to control me. He can control himself, as in he can sort of try to move around, but other than that, there isn't a lot he can do with his legs that will affect me aside from trying to buckle around and try and get me off. So obviously from here, I can obviously strike him a lot. I have submissions, etc., and he doesn't really have much apart from defend, defend. And obviously as we're going and I'm distracting him, I may move up into a higher, a high mount, and from here there's even less he can do. And obviously I have still submissions, etc., from here. And he doesn't have much apart from, "Shit, I need to get this guy off me." So other than this, our only other real position that may be used is what they call north-south. So I may be in side mount or something here, and I might take an arm and I'm trying to shift. Now as I shift and end up kind of here, in this position, that's what we call north-south. So obviously I'm not this way on him anymore. I've gone from here and that's made me push him away. I maybe take the arm and as I shift here, this is now north-south. So I'm here based on him and then obviously I may switch and fall into arm bars, etc., from here. But basically those are your basic positions. We don't have much else other than that. You know, you'll go through half of this and half of that, but in terms of full positions that you'll end up in, You obviously have the guard, the half guard, side mount, full mount, and north-south. There isn't much else to be used, um, as I say, apart from you might be halfway between one position and another. Thanks for watching, guys, and I'll see you next lesson.
