This week my couple client completed their latest 10-hour course in submission grappling. The theme was passing mid-range guards. That means dealing with the awkward space where the bottom person still has useful legs, frames, grips, and angles, but the top person is close enough to apply pressure and start breaking those defences down.

When it comes to MMA, the ground game often decides the outcome of a fight. After training my client for seven years through various MMA Personal Training sessions, we recently focused on the ninth lesson of his course, which zeroes in on ground fighting. This lesson was crucial because it covered fighting from the guard position—a fundamental skill that every MMA fighter must master to control the fight and create opportunities to win.