Footwork Wins Fights: The Footwork of Boxing, Kickboxing, Martial Arts & MMA

Some writers have one good idea and pad an entire book with it. Others have excellent information, but don’t include enough of it for you to put it together by the end of the book. And then there are writers like David Christian who give you heaps of useful, actionable info. Take your time with this book. Play around with the contents, find out what works best for you. You could happily spend years mastering all the ideas here. If you enjoy watching martial arts fights or boxing, this will also give you a deeper appreciation for what’s going on.

the images are not always easy to understand and the book is not well structured.

I first found the author of this book, David Christian, on his YouTube channel (ModernMartialArtist) where he provides in-depth breakdowns of fights and fight strategy. His YouTube content is phenomenal and this book does not disappoint. It provides the reader with a breakdown of the fundamentals of movement, footwork techniques, fighting strategy, gives example of what positions are superior and which are less so, and finally provides examples of basic and advanced footwork sequences which you can copy. All of this comes with great photos and fight examples which you can pull up on YouTube. I was able to directly apply the techniques taught in this book immediately and with great effect. Learning is a long curve, but it was great to immediately see some small results straight off the bat.

Very big book with diagrams with in-depth explanations of footwork.

Coming from heavily martial footwork dominated schools, this is an awesome work of research and time on the discipline of Martial Footwork. When most think of Martial Footwork they tend to gravitate that thinking of styles like Capoeira, Baguazhang, Aikido, Silat, Shaolin, and others. Boxing, Kickboxing, Savate, Western Fencing and now MMA also possess tactical and strategic footwork. However, only a small fraction of practitioners have mixed and closed the gap between the two. As Sun Tzu would state that everything is of a duel nature, it important if your an Eastern Martial Practitioner to know the methods of a Western Martial Practitioner, and vice versa. This would be the first step in Sun Tzu's system "Laying Plans," in which you would discuss opponent Philosophy, Climate, Leadership, Ground, and Methods to see where you can win and where you can't. This text shows you exactly that. It discusses philosophy of Western Martial Footwork, "Climate" which is really trends is given by showing or providing references to each techniques/ patterns taken from real fights, Leadership shows how the energy is led when applying the patterns/ techniques, Ground talks specifically about the Ring dynamics, and Methods are the patterns/ techniques themselves with a chapter dedicated on ways to enhance those methods. As a strategist, and adept of the martial way this is an awesome book to add to one's collection of knowledge; to digest, to assimilate, and foster evolved growth in your combatives game and strategic thought. To the author, you mentioned that you put many hours into the crafting and shaping of this text, well It definitely shows. Thank you for your contribution to the Martial World and I look forward to any future work you might be contemplating.