Let the position do the work for you: It's natural in combat sports to feel like you have to work and hustle the whole time to beat tough opponents. There certainly will be many times in a tough match where you indeed need to work very hard and hustle to stay ahead – but there will be just as many times where you ought to slow down your work rate and relax a little. This will enable you to recharge after a physically demanding period of action and add greatly to your endurance. One of the best time to do this is after you have scored in a dominant position – the two best are mount and rear mount with side pins also very good (I would not recommend this from knee on belly pins however). In these cases – let the pin do the work for you for a while. The onus is on the OTHER guy to work hard to escape – not you. As you relax and recharge, he is under great stress – if you can maintain this state of affairs for a minute or two you will have a big energy advantage over the opponent. Watch how Nicky Ryan rewards himself first the hard work of taking an opponent down and passing his guard to mount with a little siesta time that will soon create a situation where is recharged and the opponent exhausted – and then the job of finishing will be so much easier.
