BTG 188 - The Wisdom in Taking a Knee

Hello and welcome to another episode of Breaking the Guard. On today's episode, I want to talk about the wisdom in taking a knee. Or in other words, just yielding for a moment. I've talked about a concept of yielding, but this is going to be from a different perspective. And it came to my attention because we watched UFC Fight Night 274 where in the main event we had Aljamain Sterling with Youssef Zalal. Good fight, although it was mostly a one-sided affair with Aljo taking control of the fight. Round one was on the feet, not a lot going on. Aljo, I felt got the better of it. And then he was able to secure takedown towards the end, which uh really sealed it for him. And uh I forget which round. I think he got a takedown right away round two. But at one of the rounds, he got reversed, ended up on his back. And then he ended up with uh Zalal on top. And at one point on his back with a body triangle. And it looked like a real reversal of of fortune as Aljo was dominating the whole fight and then all of a sudden he's in the most compromised position, body triangle back with Zalal trying to dig in for a choke. However, I believe it was a veteran move, which was he took a breather. The equivalent of taking a knee. In MMA, there's no real taking a knee like you can in boxing. Uh the closest is pulling guard, right? Or just being in a bottom position where you know you're not getting punished, so you're just catching a breather. That's what it appeared like to me cuz he didn't get really busy. He didn't mhm take any big risks. He just kind of coasted there and when at well, I correct myself. He kind of acted like he was going to go for a triangle choke a few times and on one of them got his guard passed. But he didn't really fight it, just went to side control and then that became a back take and he just coasted there hand fighting. He did not look like he was stressed out or fatigued. But when they went the round ended in back control. And he kind of walked uh very sluggishly to his corner. He looked quite fatigued. Whereas Zalal looked like he was pretty good. If you were to judge it just there, you would think, man, uh Aljamain Sterling's going to have a lot of problems in this next round. But he came out in a very strong pace and almost finished Zalal in that fourth round. Just totally dominated him. Standing, on the ground, everywhere. It's kind of surprising that he didn't finish him because that would have been at least a 10-8 round uh how dominant it was. So, that's what made it signal to me more he took a rest round. He He might have felt like he was pushing too hard those first two rounds, decided round three, you know what? I kind of goofed here. I'm just going to rest a little bit. I can afford to give up one round just to recover my energy so I can come back around four and push hard. And it worked great because Zalal did not look great in round four. And in round five, he was still pretty weathered and Aljo was able to continue to dominate the fight winning four rounds to one quite easily. Then this is what the the meaning of this, which is like taking the knee is not always a sign of weakness, right? In boxing, when you see a boxer drop to a knee, the average person looks, he goes, "Oh, he's hurt. He's a coward, right? Or he's trying to quit." He doesn't want to get punished. And that's not normally what it means at least from my point of view. What it means to like and the reason this is the reason why I say it's wisdom is that you know you are hurt. And if you stay on your feet, your opponent will be able to exploit that to hurt you far worse. And the rules allow you to take a knee, which will then force a reprieve giving you, you know, about 10 to 15 seconds depending on how slow the referee recounts, so that you can recover and be in a better defensive position. You So, the way to think of it like a tactician is if I can say, "Hey, time out." at any moment in a fight that's only going to cost me a point, it may variably worth losing that point so that you can survive the fight. It would be the equivalent if I'm in the middle of a fight and I can see in slow motion, you know, like a giant haymaker coming that I'm not going to get out of the way of and I go, "Hey, time." >> [laughter] >> Take a point off my score, but I get to reset in a better position where that punch is not going to land. And then, you know, time out or time in. It's a smart move. In MMA, this is pulling guard. Very few people do it, though. You see people keep standing up when they're hurt. And or they're hurt and they're just staying on their feet and getting demolished. In my opinion, it's wise to be able to pull a guard if you're hurt and that is the best defensive position for you. I'll give you an example where this could have saved somebody, which was Rich Franklin and Anderson Silva. Anderson Silva gets a nasty Thai clinch. Rich is stuck face down. And he's not able to effectively block the knees. And that's how he gets knocked out. He just stays there until he gets knocked out. Fight's over. What would have easily prevented that was you get in a Thai clinch, you realize, "Oh crap, I'm stuck." Fall down. You can drop right to your butt, go into a guard. And if he's holding that Thai clinch hard, he might even get swept there because now he's you're pulling him with you and he might go to chest heavy or head heavy and fall forward. Now, I would think in normal situations when the opponent feels you falling, they'll probably release. But either way, you've gotten yourself out of a very precarious position, which is being in a plum clinch with the knees coming right at your face to now where I'm on my back. And while he may be able to to still punish me by raining punches down below, I would take those over the knees to the face, right? At least I can use my hands to try to block the punches. I can use my feet now. When you're in the, you know, that Thai clinch head down, if your hands aren't working, you're pretty screwed. And clearly it didn't work out for him. So, that's an example of that That's the what I would call a taking a knee in MMA, which is, "All right. I'm going to give up bottom position because standing is not working out right now. I need to recover or, you know, change the position to survive this battle." Being able to think like this will allow you to fight longer. Most people want to fight tougher, right? And that's not smarter. You're going to get yourself far more hurt. And the crowd may love it and then as you get into a slugfest, but chances are you're probably going to end up losing or taking some serious damage that you could have avoided. So, I would urge you to think tactically. When you're in a sport and MMA right now is very much a sport, you have to think of the rules and how you can use them to your advantage. This is why uh a while back we talked about fouling and how right now a lot of fighters are making that decision like, "Hey, I know I'm allowed to foul the guy at least once without getting in trouble. Tactically, it's sound to do that. I'm going to start throwing a high inside leg kicks and whoopsie daisy, I clipped him in the nuts. I get that a free shot. Or I can get that eye gouge free shot. Those I don't like because those are cheating. Those are breaking the rules. But the way the rules are framed, they allow you to do that. But I don't like that because that doesn't make sense. But taking a knee is not an un- like a hidden foul, if you will. It's totally allowable. And the only consequence really in MMA is judges' perception, right? If you get hurt and then you pull guard, you know, they might call that a They might think a knockdown and start thinking 10-8 round, but so be it because if you are on wobbly legs and and trying to stay on your feet against a guy who's already uh beating you in the striking department, it's probably going to end very poorly. If you're able to pull guard and catch your bearings, even if they don't like if you did I when I say pull guard, I don't mean just fall back and like hope they get into your guard. Uh what I mean ideally is being able to jump into a closed guard and pull them into you. So now they're stuck in this ground battle with you. But even if you can't do that, simply just by falling back, you've created a lot of separation and now you have your feet in the way. So even if they like oh they call you up, you have bought yourself like another 5 10 seconds, which doesn't sound like a lot, but when you're rocked, it's a lot, right? And you can see sometimes the guy comes up slowly and the referee has to like intervene and get in there. That's giving you more time to recover. And that's time that you're allowed to have just based on how the referee uh officiates. So you would be silly not to take advantage of that. And you see sometimes when people do this, they get booed out of whatnot, but you have to understand from the fighter's point of view, he is trying to win this fight and survive. And that's what it's going to take for him. And you might think oh this is desperation mode. It absolutely is desperation mode. But he's trying to buy himself some time. He needs to recover a bit. Now if you're not hurt, then it's kind of a different story and then it's you're not really buying time, you're actually killing time on the clock because you're hoping to get a ground fight that's not coming. All right, so it's a different intention. Then sometimes you'll see this where people will like pull guard continuously hoping the guy will get frustrated and go in there. And that's not really helping you cuz if you're doing that, more than likely you're losing the fight and you're hoping your opponent makes a mistake to engage in the ground game with you. What I'm talking about is you're hurt so you can't fight on your feet and now you're using going to the ground as a tactic to try to either get them with you or to buy some time. So different uh uses of pulling guard. But to me, ideally you want to be able to pull guard where you can get them uh clinch with you and then fall with you. Now and ideally you're the one controlling the fall. You wouldn't want to jump in the way where they're able to support your weight. So now you're on your you're you know, wrapped around them like a lover, you know, legs crossed and hugging them because now they can slam you. And those slams can be brutal. Uh so you don't want to partake in those. I just remember because one of my uh friends and training partners uh Jordan, he knocked someone out with this in the UFC where the guy jumped guard on him, he got his elbow in place, slammed, and the elbow knocked out the opponent when they crashed into the ground. Beautiful finish of a of a guard slam, which is why you don't want to be at the mercy of your opponent for how they're going to let you down. If you're able to drag them down with you so they fall as you pull them in, then the consequences are minimal. So I think that has to be made clear so that like people don't misunderstand what I'm saying. This in jujitsu is not as common because there really isn't a lot of safety that you don't get the same type of hurt you do in striking sports, right? Cuz you get a body shot or you take a big punch, you're dizzy and you need time to recover. We generally don't have those concussive blows in in jujitsu or grappling. I mean it does happen sometimes a good headbutt or a slam, but normally uh those are not allowed. So you wouldn't expect to see that. The one thing that you will come up with is fatigue, right? Where someone gets really tired and now they are trying to figure out how to recover. And if you have an opponent who's fresh and you're tired, that's a terrible place to be cuz you'll just get mopped up. This is when if you can find a position where you can clinch up and hold, that will put you at a great advantage, right? So example, a closed guard or body triangle guard, those can be really hard to break and if you have the legs for it, you can easily maintain that. And the overhook guard is also another solid option. Head overhook, jump the guard and now I can hold there. Uh I I would be in very minimal danger. My opponent's actually in some danger as he tries to push away, he's giving me options for triangle, omoplata. Uh so in jujitsu, finding a stable position you can hold is a a way of taking a knee if you will. Ideally, if you were going to rest in grappling, you would do it from top position. Get into uh a guard, you know, or a half guard, just hug, and stay put. You don't use a lot of energy. You will probably get called for stalling at some point if you are too stationary, but again, that might be a price worth paying if you need to catch your breath. So you have to be able to understand the the realities of combat. And when you see someone take a knee or give up a position and you think oh they're weak, they're breaking. Sometimes that's true. But other times it could simply be a tactical decision from your opponent saying okay, I'm going to take this knee, lose a point just so I can recover better. I'm going to pull guard because I'm getting really tired or I'm hurt and I'm going to recover a bit. And it it's important to be able to recognize that because you don't want to let your opponent recover. In the boxing case, there's not much you can do about it. The guy takes a knee, you have to let him you know, recover. But in MMA, you really want to try to pounce on someone when they're hurt when you can. All right, so letting if I drop somebody and they pull guard and then I'm like oh he's a I don't want to get in the guard. I keep calling them up. Sometimes that's a good move. All right, because if you are all striking and that guy is a jujitsu black belt, yeah, it might not be the best move to try to get on top of him because he might still be dangerous. You know, he might not be that rocked, right? Where other times the opponent might repeat this behavior several times so like you you drop him, he falls down right away. You summon him up, he goes back down, you know, right away. And he now he's buying like 5 10 seconds each time and that strong hit is starting to wane. His energy bar is starting to rise again. So sometimes I feel like it's worth taking that risk even if you're the striker to try to swarm the guy on bottom or at least land some precise shots. Don't let him use the recovery the way that he wants to. But again, this is a case-by-case basis and this is why I feel it's it's good to be competent everywhere cuz if you are a dominant uh a well-rounded fighter, if I hurt a guy, even if he's a good grappler, I should be able to beat the bricks out of him if he's actually hurt. All right? Uh and like you're just a few strikes away from getting a finish. So that's one aspect of it. And in in grappling it's the same thing. You don't want to let a guy get a rest round. You'll see it happen where a guy will pull guard and just hold. And you're trying to break that guard you're doing and he might just be buying his time. Like he's like I need to hold him for like a good 20 seconds just to catch my breath. It's like that's when you want to press. All right, you don't want to let them rest at that point. Because the recovery is quite fast. If you can put yourself in a comfortable position, a well-conditioned athlete just in I mean, when you talk about rounds, it's 60 seconds, boom, can be like fresh. For example, Aljamain Sterling, he was he looked really tired end of round three, came in round four like a firecracker and he ran all over Youssef. That was 60 seconds from a guy that was almost out to 100% all in. Half that time, 30 seconds is a lot of recovery time. All right, and uh you don't want to give that to anybody. So when you're the guy who's a cardio machine, don't be happy watching somebody taking a knee and thinking okay, now he's where I want him and like letting off the the gas. Like yeah, there's again, if you're overzealous on finishing somebody like you just in in the boxing example, you dropped you hit someone with a good body shot, they took a knee, and now you're like "Okay, now it's it's time to rush him." The the old adage of, you know, there's nothing more dangerous than a wounded lion, right? Cuz he's going to start clawing out. That's going to happen, too, right? And you might If you just go in there gungho, you might land on a get caught with a wild haymaker that drops you. Or in the grappling context, you fall into a triangle or or or submission because you were just blitzing. So, there has to be some caution as you approach for the finish, but you should definitely be pressuring, right? You know, because even if you're not going 100%, if I have full pressure on them, which is I'm cornering them, I'm making them have to move a lot to get out, that is fatiguing them. Right? The people can feel pressure. And from the outside, you might not know this, right? Like when you watch a fighter and one guy's walking down the other guy, and the other guy's constantly circling, you might think like, man, this is kind of silly. But what you don't realize is the guy that has to move out away from the pressure gets tired much faster than the guy putting the pressure. It's a psychological uh factor and physical because the guy driving in, pushing forward, it's a lot easier to move because you know where you're going, whereas the other person has to react. Right? So, they have to see where you're going. Like they're like, "Okay, like if I if you're moving in like at this angle, I have to react. If I if I go here, I'm going to crash with them, and I don't want to crash with them. So, I have to circle this way now. And I have to move a little bit faster so he doesn't adjust to me." So, I'm constantly reacting to somebody who's being proactive. And from a nervous system standpoint, it's a lot harder to be reacting the whole time. And that's the whole concept behind feinting, uh making someone uh flinch. It doesn't cost me anything to to do this, right? From a CNS uh fatigue, it doesn't do much. But for the other guy, when they when they see I do that little flinch and he reacts and flinches back, it takes a lot more out of him. Okay, so being the pressure fighter, you can put a lot more strain and fatigue because you're making them react constantly. You're making their nervous system fire constantly. Whereas and you're also putting them a lot more on the defensive, so you're taking less threats and taking less fatigue. Now, obviously there the the cost of this is that you have to have the confidence to be able to put pressure because when the guy pressures back into you, now we're getting into a firefight. Right? And that's why usually you see the paradigm is normally one guy's pushing, one guy's kind of managing distance, and that's the relationship, right? It's rare where you see two pressure guys. Normally those fights are fireworks because they're going to collide quite often, right? And you'll see lots of exchanges. Normally one fighter will become the {quote} dominant fighter or the pressure fighter, and they're the one that's putting more of the pressure. And many fights, it goes back and forth, right? Like at one point, one guy leads the dance, and then all of a sudden, there's a switch of tempo, and now the other guy leads the dance. And this can be a a variety of factors. Sometimes it's just a psychological thing. Sometimes it's a fatigue matter, like you start getting tired, and now you start pulling back. That gives the other guy the opening now to take control of that role. In any case, point is that taking a knee, taking a break, finding a space or a place where you can just >> [sighs and gasps] >> breathe and recenter yourself is valuable. It's not cowardice, it's not weakness, it's wisdom. If you can do it effectively, you can buy yourself time to come back stronger. Like I said, and to me, I was just reminded of this watching Aljamain Sterling and Youssef Zalal. I I feel in round three, Aljamain definitely decided it was time to take a rest and strategically gave the round away. And I didn't say like, oh, he wanted to get his back taken. No, I'm sure he did that, but the intent was I'm not going to use a lot of energy. I'm just going to try to relax as much as I can, not go crazy. And I think he was also confident that his opponent wasn't going to take too much advantage of it, which he was right. Zalal didn't do any ground and pound from the top positions. So, there was no physical damage from strikes and no real submission threats. It looked like there was one Well, there was a guillotine choke that was quite strong. And uh I think if I remember correctly, that's what started this exchange. Aljo had to give up top position, and yes, it was a takedown. Uh Aljamain got caught in a guillotine, took him down, acted like it wasn't a big deal, and then it became a big problem. He got reversed, and then he was able to break free, and that's how he got on his back. And he stayed there for the rest of the round. So, I I feel that was a tactical decision, like, "I'm going to use this time on my back to rest." And he They've trained together before, so he may have known that, well, this guy Zalal is not going to try to unload or go hard for the submission, so I'll be able to rest comfortably here. Anyhow, that's all I have for you guys today. Hope you take that to mind, and I'll catch you next week.