The crowd was minimal, this was simply training to get us used to what we were going to do, I couldn’t help but be nervous. My palms started to sweat and I could feel the gloves stick to my hands. I bit hard on the mouth guard. My muscles tensed. My heart was pounding; I could feel it in my head, as if a drummer was rhythmically pounding away. We stepped forward. I looked towards the friend of mine, his slightly muscular, thin, bony frame staring back at me. I realized that he was just as nervous as I was. This was the point of this training, to get us out of the fearfulness, out of the shyness, and into the attitude that this was going to be the time where hesitation was loss. There were two soft thuds as the gloves met together in a friendly manner before we backed up to our sides.

“FIIGGGHHHHTTTTTT!!!!!!!” bellowed the referee.

             We stepped forward. For a split second it seemed as it all slowed down. “SMACK” I felt a fist bury itself into my left eye. “What??” I thought. He hit me. It was on. I covered and took a step back. Then just as he started to relax I let loose with a volley of punches. Left, right, then a hard left. He stumbled and I saw my opportunity, I lunged forward and wrapped around his torso, plunging downward, burying him into the ground. As soon as we hit, it was a frantic scurry to get dominance on the other, and I found myself having the lower hand. I felt as if I was sinking. “Oh no,” was my only thought as I’m getting choked. It is already over. But I noticed the hold wasn’t as tight as the training sessions and realized his hands were wrong. My opportunity was here. I slammed a forearm under his chin and pushed with all the energy I had, it wasn’t much since I had been choked but it was enough to force his shoulders back and loosen his grip. This is when I flipped to the top and got a solid mount.

An example of the rear-naked choke I was placed in. Photo is courtesy of mmawarehouse.com

Example of crossing to a side mount. This can be a big advantage. Photo from www.wildgeesemma.com

Pictured to the right is a picture of Forrest Griffin at the end of The Ultimate Fighter 1. Courtesy of www.theultimatefighter.com