I saw little footwork in most of the fights tonight. The most footwork I saw was with Tony DeSouza Vs. Thiago Alves with Thiago having some sound skills. I question the "let's stand here and trade blows" mentality we saw for most of the night. Check was the only one I saw who was feinting and trying to bait Tito with his footwork.
Thoughts?
Gruhn
I second this to a point, footwork is definately underated, but it is often hard to see and interpret. a person may actually not be appearing to use it cause he has a good idea on range and evasion whether that is head movement or footwork. Many more people are foot aware as things like ladder drills and plyometrics are so mainstream, but the link from the drill to the fight may not transfer over.
on the last UFC- Chuck had a nice display of footwork, effectivelly zoning, and keeping it in standing range when most would have cut the ring which inadvertanly would cause a clinch, he circled really well, i never liked his hand position and feel if he fought the same game with a CROCOP(different weight class) type, he would be in danger from the neck kick cause of low hands and the thigh kick cause of low base. Due to his attributes he is able to get away with the hand position up to this point.
Desouza had terrible footwork... especially for a southpaw constantly stepping into the right. Rich Franklin ate TRIG101/diamond. ouch.
i do see what you are saying Ryan. i think a lot of it has to with the the clinch, and danger of getting a single-pick.
what we do end up seeing are pieces... just as the sawtooth in it's drill form would not be transferred exactly over to be used combativelly, what we see are pieces of it. I do feel that practitioners of weapons seem to have more footwork awareness and in many cases training drills for combat. DBMA does have great footwork stuff that i feel can move into mma stuff and drills. i was actually trying to work on an mma type sawtooth. if anyone's got ideas i'd love to hear it.
on a side note i just showed my good friend TRIG101 who has been training mma and various ma for 10plus years and he was impressed enough to put it in his game. This friend lives in LV so is around and trains with guys who are in the ufc or coach fighters in the ufc.... it seems many may not be aware of such techniques. I tried to explain some other weapons concepts that i could interpret into mma with him, but i think i lost him there. I was trying to explain the Illustrimo crosstep, to defend a leg kick, or a single... he politely acknowledged it could work. I also covered a gunting, but i think he interpretted it only exactly how i showed it, not conceptually in that destroy his limb to pass. On that i also mentioned wrist control, instead of taking the arm drag or duck under combo, go for the bicep smash, then do something like a russian belly swipe to pass his arm and you have his back or atleast half a man. Another tactic i was speculating over on limb destruction would be if you're up and he's down doing open guard, instead of a toreando(sp?) walk around pass, while you have one ankle smash that lower limb with a horizontal type elbow hitting either his ankle or calf/bone(of course depending on rules).
hope to hear responses on footwork as well as using more weapons based theories in mma or unarmed self defense.
