🛠️MMA Tactical Tool Box: Slipping in MMA - Ilia Topuria Study
Tim Wheaton and Phantom Punch study collaboration and the resources used.
Please watch the video below for the study 👇.
Behind the Scenes
This project took several months to complete and put together beautifully by Tim Wheaton of Calf Kick Sports.
Here are some behind the scenes articles and animations that lead to the making of this video.
Premium Articles and Videos
Tip Sheet: Positions in Striking
Borders (a term coined by Fight Ready MMA) is the distance where if both fighters extend lead hands, then they will be able to touch knuckle to knuckle. This is the extended distance necessary in mma since takedowns are a factor. It’s called borders since its one step away from either fighter being able to low kick, thus the fighter has to determine when cross the “border”.
Borders is the distance where entries occur in MMA and the optimal distance for feinting. Feints are used for getting reactions from the opponent and for a fighter to read those reactions they need to be far enough to see the reactions, but close enough to make the feint enough of a threat for the opponent to react.
Rest of the article here👇
Tip Sheet: Study of Slips - Open Stance
The way to make slips work in a sport that involves kicks:
Understand the stance matchup and where the standing leg of the kick is.
Don’t overuse it.
A general rule to follow is one slip followed by either exiting the pocket or clinching up to prevent further offense from the opponent.
In boxing some fighters can use 2-3 slips, but that is still dangerous since each subsequent slip in the pocket can damage the structure of the stance as well as position of the fighter.
Rest of the article here👇
🛠️MMA Tactical Tool Box: Study of Slips in Combat Sports
When a fan sees a fighter transitions their weight from the lead foot to rear foot and vice versa , they refer to it as slips and head movement. The reality is much more simple, slips refer to the transition between the lead foot position and the rear foot position. When the head, knee, and ankle are aligned, that is where the weight is placed and the end of the weight transition.
Rest of the article here👇
How to exploit the inside slip with the rear hook breakdown below.👇
Flow chart used in the video:
Rear Side Weight Diagram
My Thoughts on Loaded Slips
Loaded Slips and Counter balance slips
A loaded slip is when a fighter commits their entire weight to one foot during the slip. This means the stance is heavily shifted to the side, and the fighter’s center of gravity is over that leg.
Counterbalancing: This refers to using the hips and torso as a counterbalance during slips, allowing the fighter to move their head off the centerline while maintaining mobility and the ability to move forward.
Here’s a loaded slip - a committed weight transition
Useful just outside of striking range as a feint, because the fighter’s weight is already set for a quick step-in or counter.
The fighter can only move backwards easily if attacked, since their weight is already on one foot.
Surprisingly topuria might be the best example of loaded slips in mma both in the pocket as well as outside of it.
He’s also an example why it’s bad to use these loaded slips but hasn’t lost because of it yet
Problems with a loaded slip
The loaded slip commits weight to one side of the stance so the fighter that uses it is vulnerable to feints and movement. When a fighter commits their weight to a side they are stuck there for a split second.
In rulesets that involve kicking; these types of slips can be exploited by ending combinations with either a high kick or low kick. The high kick lands in the space where the head is going and the low kick is to punish committed weight transitions where the opponent is not in position to check or retract the leg.
Problems with a counter balancing hips
This needs a square stance in order to execute. Straight shots to the body exploit the square stance.
In rulesets that involve kicking; these types of slips can be exploited with a front snap kick or push kick. Its harder to get a high kick off this type of slip since the side to side movement also allows the fighter to move forwards.
Easy to tie up on someone like this. Example is and Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield against Mike Tyson.
Animations
These are some of the animations that I created for this project. I normally animate at 15 frames per second, so if the video is 10 seconds long, its 150 frames. Drawing that amount of frames takes time. Instead, I streamlined the process by animating at 8 frames per second when the video clip is over 3 seconds.
Topuria vs Volkanovski : Outside Slip get punished with calf kick.
Topuria v Herbert: Inside Slip - weight transition to rear foot - punished by left high kick.
Topuria v Herbert: Inside Slip Punished by Knee.
Topuria v Holloway: Inside slip-Cross counter
Topuria v Holloway: Jab manipulates head movement and creates collar tie entries for Max
Topuria v Holloway: Holloway v-step jab vs Topuria inside slip
Topuria v Volkanovski: Inside slip body jab simultaneous counter
Topuria v Herbert: Finishing Sequence starts with an outside slip.
Topuria ambient slips (RAW)
Holland v Buckley: Example of when the outside slip is bad in an open stance match up.
Sittachai vs Noiri: Outside slip push and pivot after right hand.
Aldo vs Moraes: inside slip into body work.
Glover vs Jiri: Outside slip punished by using double jab to push out of lead foot position.
Aldo v Martinez: Open Stance inside slip to pivot
Topuria v Holloway: inside slip vs double jab
Edwards vs Kamaru 2: Rear high kick vs rear slip.
Justin Gaethje v Dustin Poirier: open side high kick to punish lean back.
Valentina v Chookgagian: inside slip southpaw but it works since Valentina is able to catch the kick.
Canelo head movement clip that causes lack of nuance in discourse.
Floyd Mayweather vs Canelo Alvarez head movement.
Topuria v Holloway: trying to punish outside slip with lead leg high kick.
Yanez vs Costa: high kick to the closed side.
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