Hmm...

This evening during some hand to hand training for my weekly future soldier Army training, we did knife work (knife on knife and unarmed vs. knife), pistol defense from the front (yes my instructor has used that once though that's the only tactic he's actually had to use..and it worked) and unarmed fighting.
During the unarmed fighting, I managed to take him down plenty of times without too much trouble and then take dominant positions and finished him with an armbar and a guillotine and narrowly missed another armbar that I guess I gave him too much space to work out of. I maybe landed 2 or 3 strikes though I had much more opportunity for striking and ground and pound I was focused on my grappling. My problem is, I ate a lot of shots (especially punches and elbows to the face) going for those techniques, even in dominant positions I got nailed good. How do I A. recover effectively and win after getting elbowed good in say the face (I kept going but it stunned me for a split second which is plenty of time to be hurt more), and B. how do I use those grappling and BJJ moves without getting nailed so much, especially with elbows and punches to the back of the head. I take hits very well and dominated a lot but it's hard to say if maybe I wouldn't have done so well if he hadn't of pulled his strikes and really hit hard.

That's why you need a rounded game. You've got to defend the strikes as you move into grappling range. Counter off the strikes as much as possible, and try to set yourself up for the clinch. Or, you might not need to take it to the ground, if you use your striking game well enough.

Yeah offensively I'm a good striker but I have a horrible striking defense.

That back of the head thing reminded me of something I heard at a tounament and really liked. One contestant got nailed in the back of the head and went down hard. After the time out and judge review, the ref said two things:

"Red - Warning for striking to the back of the head.
White - Never turn your back to your opponent and I won't have to give that warning. You might not get up from the next one."

I always liked that. Sure it's not legal in this arena. But don't offer it up to your enemy, you might not survive that mistake in a real situation.

You gotta work on your defense then. Unless your best defense is to block punches with your jaw.

Timing and reflexes is the problem. I got them moves but nothing to back them up. Damn I wish I could spar regularly. I gotta make faster takedowns to so they dont have time ot hit me.