Victory Belt released Anderson Silva’s MMA Instruction Manual: The Muay Thai Clinch, Takedowns, Takedown Defense, and Ground Fighting. This is a sequel to his uber-useful The Mixed Martial Arts Instruction Manual: Striking which Victory Belt released a couple of years back. I was grateful to get a free review copy to share with Bloody Elbow readers.
This time Glen Cordoza alone co-writes with Silva as they cover basically everything in his MMA repertoire that is not striking at range. Silva’s approach to ground fighting and take downs are singular and very interesting, but let’s not kid ourselves, it’s the stuff on the Muay Thai clinch that makes this book such a gem.
Silva is famous for his use of the Thai plum aka double collar tie as an offensive mainstay of his arsenal and here he shares his secrets to success with the position. For many fighters the Thai plum is just a way station from which to throw a few knees to the face. For Silva it’s a complete system of moves to break down an opponent’s posture and deliver painful strikes in sequence from less to more and more damaging.
We’ve looked at Silva’s use of the clinch to rob Rich Franklin of the middleweight UFC title and to keep Franklin from taking it back. The book was an invaluable tool for decoding what Silva was doing to make the clinch so effective and to counter Franklin’s attempts to counter the clinch in the second fight. A student who really masters this book will have a big step up on the competition when it comes time for clinch fighting.
The rest of the book is well worth a read and includes a section on working out with a striking coach wearing mitts, a very practical section for those doing real striking training.
The book is colorful, well organized, clearly explained and includes hundreds of color photographs illustrating each technique in detail.
Co-author Glen Cordoza has also done books with Fedor Emelianenko, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, Randy Couture, two with B.J. Penn, Karo Parisyan, Marcelo Garcia, Dave Camarillo, Cung Le plus two with Eddie Bravo and I’ve enjoyed them all.
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