Make dominant grips your superpower
BJJ match starts without grips and the first thing both fighters try to get is a grip. This happens also in various situation in the ground. When ever there is a disconnection between the fighters, they connect again but taking the grips. When you are going for the grips you like, your opponent will likely try to resist them. They also want to get grips they like. If you want to have a grip, you need to fight for it.
Grip fighting is quite straightforward, of course many things can happen, but there are only few building blocks to it. (much more like Boxing in that sense compared to BJJ ground fighting). Grip fighting can be started with fairly little technical expertise beforehand. And once you practice it, you will get better.
But why should you aim for dominant grips? Why not just regular grips? If you have dominant grips, what does it mean from your opponent point of view? Yes, they are having worse grips than you. No matter what will happen, you are kind of one step ahead already.
Let’s consider following scenarios.
1# You are fighting against a guard pull. If your opponent pulls guard from bad grips, he/she not only has a slimmer change to succeed, but also you will have much greater change of winning following scramble.
2# Your your opponent is trying a takedown. If you managed to get dominant grips, you are most likely not dealing with a judoka or possibly not even a wrestler. So, there is a high likelihood that you will be able to counter the takedown attempt and get on top. (Takedowns are just so damn hard without proper setup for which he/she would need proper grips).
3# You are about to perform a takedown yourself. Like said in previous, takedowns are hard without proper grips, but they are also hard from even grips as well. However, with dominant grips you can force your opponent in to worse and worse situation, potentially even increase your grip dominance, before you make your takedown attempt. Leading to better change of success. Grip dominance also allows you to use much less athletic and more simple takedowns, which again turns in to your favor. In BJJ the points are scored only if you maintain control after the takedown. And that becomes much easier if you had dominant grips to start with.
4# You are pulling guard yourself. Same here. Getting your pull countered is harder and your changes to succeed is better.
Furthermore, in any of the previous scenario, if you started with dominant grips, you will have a greater change of maintaining dominant grips in the following situation in the ground.
Conclusion: If there is a one standup skill that you should invest more than others, it’s the grip fighting. Not only to avoid bad situations for you (you need it for this too), but to be able to get some edge over your opponent. No matter what happens in the match, being ahead with grips always increasing your changes to win.
Do yourself a favor. Exercise grip fighting.
PS. If you don’t know which dominant grip to use or what to do with them, study more BJJHeadStart.
