If I Could "Cheat", I'd...

[sensei8]

For those who are practitioners of a grappling art, I'd like to pose a direct question...

If you could eliminate all of the rules that govern the UFC, for example, what technique(s) would you use if you found yourself in??...

1>Guard

2>Half Guard

3>Mount

4>Rear Mount

Rules exist to protect the practitioners, and not to destroy the effectiveness of said grappling art. Having said that, if, for once, we could be honest with ourselves, many different/"forbidden" techniques would and could bring a different light onto the venues and into the "street".

[JusticeZero]

I think a big part of this is the fact that the defenses used to deal with legal attacks when in certain positions are also applicable to illegal attacks in the same position. I'm sure that takedown quality would need to increase to deal with the possibility of ending up on the ground with a still-standing opponent.. that or they'd have to work some of our material into their mix somehow.

[tallgeese]

Honestly, probably not too much different. Largely because I've trained to use certain tactics from those positions and those tactics tend to work. Why transition to a hypothetical skill set that I haven't practiced full go from time to time when I have a tried and true, perfectly effective set on hand?

If we breakdown what you've asked about:

Guard

Half Guard

Mount and

Rear Mount

let's first take out the bottom of these out of the equation. Excepting, perhaps the guard (and it's a bit of special case) all of these positions if you are on the bottom mean you're in trouble (even the guard). You don't need to be "cheating" to get out. You need to execute good escapes. All of these are legal. There's no leverage from the bottom to aid you, what ever method of striking out you want to use.

Next up, the top. Why, if I have established dominant position, should I have to look past anything outlawed by the ruleset you mention. With a good mount, punching someone into unconsciousness is pretty good in it's own right.

There might be some exception with the rear mount, because you could drop strikes directly to the back of the head and C-spine. But that deviation is minor in its "cheat" factor I would think.

Are there other tactics that would produce results? I'm sure. But why tinker with success. Good position is key. Then easy to execute tactics that work. And finally, training and proof that they do work. We've seen all this demoed by the UFC and other outlets.

[ps1]

For those who are practitioners of a grappling art, I'd like to pose a direct question...

If you could eliminate all of the rules that govern the UFC, for example, what technique(s) would you use if you found yourself in??...

1>Guard

2>Half Guard

3>Mount

4>Rear Mount

Rules exist to protect the practitioners, and not to destroy the effectiveness of said grappling art. Having said that, if, for once, we could be honest with ourselves, many different/"forbidden" techniques would and could bring a different light onto the venues and into the "street".

1>Guard- up kick to the head from the bottom (there's not really anything illegal from the top

2>Half Guard- Not much that would be useful from here that's illegal in the ufc. The upkick could be useful from here.

3>Mount Can't think of much

4>Rear Mount Pull the hair to make it easier to sink a choke.

Also, I tend to agree with what everyone else has said prior to my response. Doing things like biting, reaching for eyes, fishhooking ect...are not really the best things against someone who is grappling and can often get you into a worse position.

[Tempest]

A lot of this depends on your success with, and willingness to apply, pain compliance and injurious tactics to your opponent.

So lets look at Guard first: Ok, the first thing is, if I am in bottom guard, no-gi and my opponent is raining dowd strikes, or attempting to pass, a thumb to the eye will provide an execellent distraction while a set up a finger lock to then feed my armbar. See, the same basic transitional strategy applies, armlock from the guard, but adding other techniques removes/reduces my opponents ability and will to resist.

Half-Guard: From the top, make sure to target strikes to areas most likely to INJURE rather than subdue. Head punches are good, but grabbing the hair/head and holding it against the ground while punching with the other hand is better. From the bottom, if they crossface you, bit there ear off. If you are diving for a Kimura and can't quite get the arm out, elbow them in the back of the head until you can.

More on this later. I am at work at the moment.

[ShoriKid]

Other than the above mentioned strikes to the back of the head the 12 to 6 elbow from mount/back mount might be added to the attacks.

From guard/back mount I might fish hook/get an eye to gain a bit more head control. That just to get a sweep from bottom or to open the neck for a choke.

Half guard, I might and I stress might, use a groin attack of some kind to create space to get a gap for guard or a sweep. If the person had a strong base that I was having trouble with, it might give me a little room to work. Haven't hit the groin enough from half guard to know if it would give me room or not.

The positions are already what makes me have options. The "cheats" are just extra bits of leverage I can apply if I'm already doing the right things. Just like a groin kick isn't the be all, end all of self defense on the feet, a groin grab doesn't equate to an insta-win on the ground.

[ps1]

A lot of this depends on your success with, and willingness to apply, pain compliance and injurious tactics to your opponent.

So lets look at Guard first: Ok, the first thing is, if I am in bottom guard, no-gi and my opponent is raining dowd strikes, or attempting to pass, a thumb to the eye will provide an execellent distraction while a set up a finger lock to then feed my armbar. See, the same basic transitional strategy applies, armlock from the guard, but adding other techniques removes/reduces my opponents ability and will to resist.

Half-Guard: From the top, make sure to target strikes to areas most likely to INJURE rather than subdue. Head punches are good, but grabbing the hair/head and holding it against the ground while punching with the other hand is better. From the bottom, if they crossface you, bit there ear off. If you are diving for a Kimura and can't quite get the arm out, elbow them in the back of the head until you can.

More on this later. I am at work at the moment.

Respectfully, most of what you think would be effective here, would simply set you up for failure. I do agree that you could get the eyes from the guard. But everything you mention from the half guard would not be good. Holding the hair would open the back door for your back to be exposed. Holding it with the other hand would get you rolled over. If you're being crossfaced, you can't turn your head to bite anything. Getting the arm out of a kimura is a matter of proper mechanics. Elbowing the head isn't illegal now. That should tell you it's not an effective way to set up the kimura, unless you honestly believe you're the first human to think of that. It will get them to defend, but more likely to get you the americana or straight armlock. More importantly, give you an underhook so you can advance to a better position.

[MasterPain]

Sweep, stand, deploy weapon.

[Tempest]

A lot of this depends on your success with, and willingness to apply, pain compliance and injurious tactics to your opponent.

So lets look at Guard first: Ok, the first thing is, if I am in bottom guard, no-gi and my opponent is raining dowd strikes, or attempting to pass, a thumb to the eye will provide an execellent distraction while a set up a finger lock to then feed my armbar. See, the same basic transitional strategy applies, armlock from the guard, but adding other techniques removes/reduces my opponents ability and will to resist.

Half-Guard: From the top, make sure to target strikes to areas most likely to INJURE rather than subdue. Head punches are good, but grabbing the hair/head and holding it against the ground while punching with the other hand is better. From the bottom, if they crossface you, bit there ear off. If you are diving for a Kimura and can't quite get the arm out, elbow them in the back of the head until you can.

More on this later. I am at work at the moment.

Respectfully, most of what you think would be effective here, would simply set you up for failure. I do agree that you could get the eyes from the guard. But everything you mention from the half guard would not be good. Holding the hair would open the back door for your back to be exposed. Holding it with the other hand would get you rolled over. If you're being crossfaced, you can't turn your head to bite anything. Getting the arm out of a kimura is a matter of proper mechanics. Elbowing the head isn't illegal now. That should tell you it's not an effective way to set up the kimura, unless you honestly believe you're the first human to think of that. It will get them to defend, but more likely to get you the americana or straight armlock. More importantly, give you an underhook so you can advance to a better position.

Elbowing the back of the head is illegal, and that is the angle that would make it work. And the difference here is that most of what I mentioned is not going to give you the most stable position, or the most efficient method of advancing the position, HOWEVER what it will do is let you INJURE someone quickly. For example, holding the head opens you to being rolled, but if you pin the head against an unyielding surface then the physics of striking it become more like those of executing a breaking technique than a boxers punch. Those of you trained in a style which practices breaking techniques will recognize the amount of damage that can be done with even a single strike in this position.

[tallgeese]

Lots of good points have been made so I won't rehash them point by point. However, there is some merit to digging into a couple of examples.

First up, the eye gouge always sounds like a great weapon. It's much harder to make happen than it is to say. For one thing, if the bad guy has any ground training at all he's postured back, making the eye gouge hard. Or attempting to stand and pass, making it even harder. Another, how often you really practice driving thumbs into people's eyes? While in guard? Probably not often. Now, how often can you practice at high tempo attacking from the guard while under fire of punches? Pretty often if you do it right.

This is important. I can train high tempo, with normal jiu jitsu skills and mma striking without too much risk of injury. I can't gouge eyes. Now, if I get good reps at one thing that is shown practically to work, that's (to me) much more reliable in the street than hypothetical attacks.

Besides, when having shots rained down on you the primary concern quickly becomes breaking posture and locking the bad guy down in a control posture. Not attempting to strike him back. It's body mechanics and position. Once you move to the ground it's everything and drives the tactical decision making process.

On that note, we move to the second part of this. When you start talking about tying up hands holding things to the ground and striking, you start talking about removing your ability to maintain base and stay on top. Again, we go to positional decision making.

It's far more important to stay in a position of dominance than strike. If you maintain position, you can do anything you want- in time. But posture is everything. You might have to sacrifice some tactics due to the fact that they don't prioritize base.

I'm not holding out that BJJ is the ultimate are or anything. Although I do think it is really effective speaking from a LE aspect. I just think that there is a pretty big misconception that there is a way to "cheat" around grappling. The fact is, the best way to overcome grappling is to become versed in grappling.