Last night I watched an amateur boxing fight just outside Cambridge and I was surprised and disappointed by the low quality of the technique in the majority of the fighters.  This post is not about me being disrespectful toward those young men that had enough courage to wear their gloves and enter the ring but more as a criticism toward coaches that dare sending inexperienced fighters to fight in a potentially very dangerous sport.

Boxing is a full contact fighting sport: this means that regardless the safety measures imposed by referee and judges each strike is meant to be thrown and hit at maximum power.  Considering that the preferred target for most strikes is the face and the side of the head it is obvious that damages and injuries are likely and frequent.

In more than one occasion, during last night’s 11 bouts fighters were bleeding, the referee was counting because they were loosing it and in two cases it was a clear knock out.  In fact since the beginning of one of the fights it was pretty obvious that the two guys had no idea about how technique should be and, apart from wearing gloves and shorts, they were pretty much fighting like in any street brawl on a Saturday night.  The referee even stopped the fight at some point in the second round to indicate that swinging punching like a bar fighter was not the way to go: just about 5 seconds after I made a comment about the fact that if one of those uncontrolled punched connected it would have been a KO when it just happened, bang.  The boxer fell on his side, unconscious and did not move at all for several seconds: referee and medical officer intervened and helped him recovering.  When he regained consciousness he was looking around with the typical expression of who doesn’t know where he is.

Perhaps I am from a dated, maybe even out of date, school and I value my students’ safety above anything.  Perhaps it is the fact that, in our case, when kicks are also used damages can be even worse: in any case I am pretty sure that I would have not put most of those fighters in a ring given their actual level of experience.  Fighting is not about being tough and fighting like a man: it’s about reaching the right level of preparation and quality of technique and having enough experience to avoid being slaughtered.

Post from: Martial What?

Please leave a comment

Forward to a friend

Sent this by a friend?

Password to download the Free Ebook

We define combat sport a sport application or expression of a martial art where we set and impose rules to limit and control the amount of damage that can be inflicted to the opponent.

Ranging from contactless Karate tournament, via Boxing and all the way to MMA fighting sports usually assign points to each technique that scores and in many cases contemplate the eventuality of one of the opponent being knocked out (KO) or giving up the fight before the end and accepting defeat.

I am a strong fan of good technique and properly applied guard at all times: high quality technique will be more efficient in terms of using your energy as well as minimising your change of running out of it.  The guard, as I previously wrote about, will ensure you won’t be hit as often or as hard, reducing the chances for a KO from your opponent as well as minimising the points scored on you.  Most people I am teaching to are buying into this concept and accept that good technique must be there as a foundation to build on the remaining attributes of a winner.  A minority of others, being naturally aggressive and perhaps with a higher pain threshold, they assume they can just get in the ring let the opponent coming forward and aiming at knocking them down before the end of the fight.

From my point of view this is a strategy that is meant to be short lived and not guaranteeing a long career for a winner.  Here are my reasons for it:

• Knocking somebody down, in a fight where both opponent are well trained and fit sports fighter is a small chance of hitting the right spot at the right time: it doesn’t happen often, particularly if your opponent has proper technique and guard;
• Regardless how tough you are is just going to be time before you meet somebody tougher, somebody who has higher pain threshold, more adrenaline in their body and don’t go down as you expect;
• If you are just aiming at the KO strike without a point based strategy two things can happen: you don’t succeed at your KO and the opponent wins because scoring more points or you become victim of your own strategy and get hit hard where it really hurts and get knocked down yourself;
• Repeated hard strikes in the head cause long term disabilities and injuries so even if it doesn’t hurt now it will cause problems later.

Muhammad Ali was the first boxer that demonstrated that a fight could be won by playing by the rules, not looking for a fast KO but keep scoring on the opponent throughout the fight.  That doesn’t mean being a lower quality fighter but simply someone who is there to win, repeatedly, aiming at the top title.  Another demonstration of what I am stating here was the recent boxing fight of David Haye v Nikolai Valuev: the quality of the show was somehow not there as it can be seen in these videos.  Haye kept moving backward and away from his massive opponent Valuev but as he kept scoring with many, many points at the body, he won the world title.  That was a very well managed fight played strategically from beginning to end with the victory in mind.

I would like to conclude with a simple clarification: good technique is not just meant to look good, it’s meant to be very powerful, fast efficient and effective for the person using it.  At the same time when training for sport fighting you should always bear in mind what the rules are and understanding how you can win by scoring more points.  If the KO is allowed in your discipline and you can finish the fight before it may be a bonus but a good fighter is more likely to win more often than a tough one.

Post from: Martial What?

Please leave a comment

Forward to a friend

Sent this by a friend?

Password to download the Free Ebook

In life like in martial arts timing is everything: correctly timed footwork allows you to be in the right place at the right time to either strike, block or avoid an attack putting the basis for your next move.

A punch, like a kick or a throwing technique requires by definition correct footwork to maximize its potential.  At the same time correct footwork allows the following crucial actions:

• align yourself toward the opponent in order to offer a correct posture, stance and weight distribution, suitable for the situation you are in and the strategy you would like to implement
• shift your weight in the correct way and direction according to the technique you are performing
• deliver maximum power with every technique by directing appropriately your momentum

I’ll use an example that can be applied to virtually any technique, even when the movements follow a circular line rather than a straight one:

1. Imagine, as matter of example, to be throwing a straight punch just by simply extending your arm toward your target.  Depending on how strong you are the punch will have a certain level of power.
2. Now imagine of having your arm already fully extended as in a punching position and you being on a train, travelling at 200 mph: even if you arm doesn’t move your whole body is moving very fast and the impact will be disastrous.
3. Now, going back to our punch, if you are using a correct step of even a couple of inches in the same direction of your punch and you add this to the correct, well timed, extension of your arm your punch will deliver the sum of the momentum built by the same movement in point 1, together with the extra momentum created by the step.

Different martial arts are some times based on footwork that is so different from each other to look illogical.  Nonetheless when used with their context they work and deliver the desired effect: enhancing the basic movement and delivering unexpected power by making a correct use of our bodies.

Post from: Martial What?

Please leave a comment

Forward to a friend

Sent this by a friend?

Password to download the Free Ebook

This is a question I found this morning on Yahoo! answers. The following text was submitted by Bigchief and it reads as follows:

Well im a boxer.at our boxing club i was kind of surprised on who has the hardest punch.

During our bag drills we are asked to hit the bag during sets of 10, 20, 30, /// 30, 40, 50

Well we each get our turn to hold the bag when we are done, and during this time we hold the bag for the next guy. During this time i get a great understanding of the guys punching power.

Some of the boxers there who work out, and are kind of bulky , hit fairly hard, but not as hard as they look they would.
Some of the boxers who have muscle definition , but are not bulky hit just as hard.
What surprised me the most was that some of the boxers with little to no muscle definiton, hit the hardest.

This brings me to the belief that punchers are born, and muscle mass has little to no effect on power.

Id like to know if this is true, or if anyone else has had a different expierience , or if this is just a coincidence at my club.

In spite of the details about how bulky or defined each person is you are not specifying their weight: that can make a big difference in the power of their punches. Muscle mass and density will also have importance here, as some people are naturally stronger than others.

Punching power, given two punchers of equal weight, will depend in large measure from the overall body co-ordination when performing the action. A jab thrown using just arm and eventual shoulder power will have a certain level of power. On the other hand the same punch performed using the whole body, leaning toward the target even slightly and adding a half an inch step forward will result a lot stronger punch.

If you have access to a good coach he/she can teach you the concept in minutes: the point is then to practice it until it come natural, without thinking about the whole process.

Post from: Martial What?

Please leave a comment

Forward to a friend

Sent this by a friend?

Password to download the Free Ebook

Have you ever heard expressions like:

• Practicing martial arts without thinking?
• Going with the instinct?
• Thinking is too slow in a fighting situation?

The main purpose of learning complicated moves and combinations during most martial arts practice brings two main advantages:

• improving the muscles, tendons, ligaments and joints involved in that move
• building connections in our mind to assimilate the move, storing it at subconscious level where most of our natural and instinctive actions are performed;

In the Western world many of us might have grown up playing some kind of ball sports and the action of catching or kicking a ball is natural for many of us. When somebody throws a ball at you and a natural instinct can be to catch it if it’s aimed at you upper body or to kick it if the ball is aimed at your legs. Other actions we do naturally are breathing, walking, running or perhaps driving: these usually require minimum conscious involvement, by this I mean that you don’t need to consciously think in order to walk and you can do it while talking, listening to music and so on. Sometimes you might require involving conscious thought if you are walking in a dangerous area or on unfamiliar terrain.

If you have never practiced martial arts and somebody throws a punch toward your face the instinctive response could be to over reacting or covering your head with both hands in a defensive position. Months or years of martial training will improve the reaction to same attack, depending on the martial art you practice. Different styles will suggest a variety of defences against the same attack (punch to the face in this case). The most important achievement will be to have an instinctive reaction where no conscious decision must be taken and when your subconscious mind takes over and deal with the attack in a simple and efficient way.

The latest neuroscience discoveries confirm that some of the principles that the ancient masters have been teaching for centuries have strong scientific backup. When you learn a new thing, being that a pure theoretical exercise like calculating mathematical formula or a physical operation such as swinging a golf club, you are creating connections in your brain that initially will require conscious thinking. If you keep repeating the same action over time you assimilate it, store in the subconscious. Our brain literally thrives on subconscious actions and whenever possible it tries to store things we are learning in our subconscious: from there it can be used and retrieved in a much faster, direct and more efficient way than when it requires conscious action.

Post from: Martial What?

Please leave a comment

Forward to a friend

Sent this by a friend?

Password to download the Free Ebook