500 Fighting Words: Head Control
Control the head, control the body.
- 500 Fighting Words: Head Control
- A Clear Preference to Get Ahead
- Control the Head, Control the Body
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A Clear Preference to Get Ahead
UFC 286 is this weekend and one of the most interesting fighters in the UFC is fighting. Gunnar Nelson is attempting to take home his second win in a row after sitting out for three years.
Nelson is a grappling savant. While Nelson was a competitive karateka growing up, he qualified for the ADCC World Championships after three years of grappling training. To qualify alone would be remarkable, but the fact that he won matches against previous medalists outside of his weight class is phenomenal in the literal sense of the word. What’s most impressive to me about Nelson is how he uses those skills in MMA.
Nelson’s UFC record is 9-5 and 7 of those wins come from choking submissions. That means more than 75% of his UFC wins come from attacking the head. For context, Demian Maia has 22 UFC wins with 11 of them coming from choking submissions; and Charles Oliveria has 21 UFC wins with 14 of them coming from choking submissions.
This isn’t to say Nelson is unstoppable. Nelson’s game can fall flat when he can’t mix shots into his blitzing striking. This is to say that Nelson is a skilled and purposeful Brazilian jiu-jitsu practitioner whose success emphasizes one of my favorite principles in all of grappling.
Control the Head, Control the Body
When I teach Brazilian jiujitsu I keep it simple. I figure if you can teach people principles they can learn on their own and get better faster. One of the most important principles to see and understand is the idea that if you control the head, you can control the body. Gunnar Nelson’s grappling style shows us this principle in action perfectly.
- Nelson is standing over Leon Edwards’s open guard
- Nelson is using an under hook and his head to pin Edwards
- Nelson windshield wipers his leg out to widen his base
- Nelson brings his outside knee back in, almost to dope mount Edwards
- Because Nelson’s inside leg is still behind Edwards’s guard, Nelson takes full mount instead
The combination of Nelson’s under hook and head pressure on opposite sides of Leon’s own head cemented the current welterweight champion to the mat.
- Gunnar has a body triangle and half nelson on Demarques Johnson
- Johnson is trying to roll but the half Nelson from full Gunnar holds him in place
- Johnson gets belly down - worse
- Nelson hits him as a distraction
- Nelson finishes with a rear naked choke
The combination of these clips highlights one specific principle that can be applied broadly to control opponents from the front, back, or just passing to get into a position to do so.
Much like the hips, the head and shoulders provide a direct access point to control someone’s centerline. Once you have control of their centerline, you can do a lot to dictate the spacing and pacing of a fight. I’ll be watching to see if Nelson can control the head, but, for now, we’re at 500 words