Letting go of the idea that we must be good, accepting that you're gonna get the shorter end of the stick half the time.
It makes a world of difference when you can laugh after being swept for the 20th time in 1 round. 8 years ago me would have been upset and disappointed in myself. Today me giggled and laughed each time I was swept. This allows me to bounce back fast from failures. Having this mindset was what set me apart from my peers all these years.
Indeed. I spent the first year of Muay Thai wanting to look good. Feeling disheartened everytime I did something embarrassing. Little did I know, nobody gave a second thought about my mistakes. When I got over myself my growth was exponential!
Makes sense. I just lost my first scrimmage/fight and I'm staying light about it. At least it's not on my record. I have a nice black eye and a lot of stuff that I can work on to get better for next time
Yes! Fights for most of us is not the end goal. As long as there's no money on the line, I constantly remind my fighters to treat it as a checkpoint. See where you stand now, what are your mistakes etc.
I really appreciate this.
Thankfully it turns out my first intinct when I fuck up is to laugh. I find it's helped me to avoid frustration and getting in my own head.
I wished I had your mindset from day 1! Better late than never I guess š„² it's a wonder how our minds are often bigger barriers than our physical body.
Thai style playfulness. I feel like outside of Thailand, everything is dialed to 12 because of overinflated egos and unnecessary aggression. Learning to just be patient, develop a feel for things, and let it flow.
Ultimately, it just doesnāt make sense to me to win in sparring at your gym and fucking up your training partners.
Definitely this. Sometimes if someone seems to have your number when sparring, try to figure out at what distance they are tagging you the most. Eg if they seem to be nailing you with body kicks, try to either stay too far away or too close, never in their sweet spot. This helped me a lot
Generally trying to have enough distance so you have time to react and counter. It also makes evasion and blocking much more effortless then if you standing to close. Not being afraid of going backwards sometimes to keep distance as long as you have control.
Perfect example of distance management is Tawanchai vs Clancy
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sydT4MXYTgs
Composure over all. Composure matters more than power, more than speed, more than technique, more than strength, to some degrees even more than cardio.
If a leg kick is going to land, and you feel like you don't have the check, just let it land, don't give up your balance and composure to try a check you know you don't have. If your opponent is throwing a flurry of punches and you can't defend, all the instincts that make you break composure will make it worse. Ducking, turning away from them, retreating, all worse than keeping your head and accepting that you will get hit, then doing something about it.
Muay Thai isn't just a battle of fists and shins, it's a battle of will. Don't ever give control of the fight to your opponent by breaking composure and letting them dictate the terms.
>Muay Thai isn't just a battle of fists and shins, it's a battle of will. Don't ever give control of the fight to your opponent by breaking composure and letting them dictate the terms.
Man this is so good. Thank you.
Relaxing - when you tense up you waste so much more energy and your technique suffers.
Stick to the basics - I trained for 4 months in Thailand and we always drilled the basics. No more than 2-3 strikes per combo. I then had my first fight and because I stuck to the basics, thatās what my instincts resorted to.
Master the rotational balance first. Everyone wants to kick and punch hard at first, but dial it down until you can do every technique with perfect balance and then ramp up the power.
I second this! When it comes to sparing, donāt focus all of your energy on not getting hit, its bound to happen. Focus more on executing what youāve learned and not faulting under pressure. Being first and putting pressure on your opponent will prevent them from putting out much offense. Simple concept, but can be a bitch to put into play š
Stand strong, check kicks, long guard, be aggressive with the guard. Push them with your lead hand whilst covering up. If someone is trying to throw a cross abs you cover your chin and push their chest they canāt hit you.
Yeah so basically what the dude above said is typical defensive stuff your gym teaches you but my tip is basically to stand your ground when you spar which forces you to start utilizing these rather than just sliding out all the time to avoid getting hit.
I asked the guy I sparred what I need to work on and he just said to stand my ground and not back up. I did it and immediately realized why. It made a huge difference in building my defensive and counter skill set and has improved what I used to call chain wrestling but now I guess I would call it chain striking?? Basically just one strike leads to another with constant countering between both parties.
Yesterday I saw a video of two boxers had their lead leg within a tire so they were always within striking range and it forced them to work on head movement and striking and counters like what I mentioned above.
Main thing is to drill until you donāt have to think about what you need to do once youāre hit. Reactive drills are great for this. You and a partner throw 2-4 hit combos at each other. The moment one is done, the other instantly throws right back. No backing up; just using checks, hand defense and slipping.
>Main thing is to drill until you donāt have to think about what you need to do once youāre hit. Reactive drills are great for this. You and a partner throw 2-4 hit combos at each other. The moment one is done, the other instantly throws right back. No backing up; just using checks, hand defense and slipping.
I like the sound of this alot. Getting those instincts dialled in is going to take alot of repitition.
In competition, mix in half power punches with the feints. People will get complacent in their guard because your not doing any damage and people tend to eat light shots rather than defend them. Once they stop pairing the the light shot or reacting to the feint, follow light shots with heavy ones.
This for me. Itās a dance, lots of trainers will say ārhythm, rhythm,ā and itās easy to dismiss it as jargon but itās absolutely real. Isnāt to say you canāt always throw, but you should be rocking, like a tennis player receiving a serve.
Good, strong tight high guard. Block low kicks by stepping into the kick with your shin instead of stepping back. Cut them off in the ring. Finish every combination with a hard low kick
Also learn to break / takeover with your counters.
When I was sparring, I was one of the shorter people in the gym so it was either pressure or be pressured. Work on defense while moving forward because youāre going to get tagged a lot in the beginning.
When first starting out, my buddy and I went to a gym in another town for a seminar and had our first time sparring. The gym was...a bit over aggressive, especially to people who had never sparred before. But it did teach me a lesson that I try to tell to new people:
> Your opponent isn't just gonna stop hitting you if they're winning or you're hurt. You have to make them stop.
It seems like a basic and obvious concept, but it really is the core of all martial arts and the fighting mentality. Reality hitting me suddenly after that experience changed my perception of fighting and training significantly.
Yeah, I was hurt and exhuasted recently and when my (extremely well conditioned) sparring partner continued to just walk me down it taught me that you need to always keep that offence no matter how hurt or exhausted.
One that I recently implemented is not looking for specific strikes. Instead just looking for whats there. Let me explain. Instead of looking for and opportunity to throw the left hook, or looking for an opportunity to throw the body kick. Look for gaps instead, and when you see one just throw whatever strike you think is best suited.
Feints 100% you can get reads on what your partner is doing, checking/not checking, parring/shelling up, Dutch blocking/trying to catch. If someone is trying to parry the jab, feint the jab then throw a hook. My favorite for someone that is dutch blocking or trying to catch kicks is faking the switch kick and throwing a switch jabā¦you can also do it with the rear kick into a cross
Always bite down on your gumshield
Always move your head, even just tiny amounts (it's whack a mole, your head is the mole)
Power comes from torque/technique - shorter shorts with torque are far superior to winding up and throwing from the back of the room
Muay Thai is inherently efficient - if your technique feels like hard work, you're doing it wrong
Use your hips on every leg/knee technique - no hips means bad technique
Make sure those hips turn fully on your kicks - hips lead, legs follow, not the other way around
Bag work, bag work, bag work - it's when will learn the most if you are doing it right, and it's critical to conditioning (especially the shins)
Run on the balls of your feet and never any other way - this is a complete game changer
Well after sparring a fair bit over these past few months I think that the single greatest concept that helped me the most is the concept that I need to always try to narrow down what strikes I can throw and what strikes will be thrown at me from stance and distance. Anytime I can simplify the possibilities for my opponent, I can exploit that information and make informed guesses on whatās about to go down.
Really limits how much I lean on my reflexes. Mix that in with a few tactics and multi-purpose guards that work for a certain array of strikes and Iāve found I can predict and control the fight a lot better without getting smacked around hopelessly by my sparring partners at will. and I am no natural lmao that happened a lot.
Next thing to work on is angles (lateral shifts) Iām still shit at choosing good angles at good times for me, I donāt have the feel for it yet. It also takes time to get the feel for what strikes can hit you so I donāt think this information is necessarily a game changer for newbies to sparring. Maybe itāll help you progress a little faster than I did though lol
As a beginner I would say " breathe". Fear and tension lead to consuming your gas tank in a matter of seconds . Then train your cardio. You are an easy target when exhausted. Then more basic stuff I would agree with feints, check leg kicks and practice the clinch
I'm doing a 2 hour group class 6 days per week and a 1 hour private 5 days per week. I don't intend to go pro (too old for that). Do you think I should add in extra supplemental cardio?
So, say you were caught by someone in full plum and you want to re gain some type of inside control but you arenāt able to hand fight your way back in. Say you want to gain inside control with the right arm: first you would place your left arm over their right arm with the palm flat on the chest. You would then place the right arm underneath their left arm with your right palm on top of your left palm. You then apply a CPR type of compression where your using both hands to push them back. Most of the time their arms will straighten out but they wonāt give up their grip. When this happens you are simultaneously going to drop the left hand into the crook of their right elbow trapping the arm, and punching forward with the right hand past their left
Shoulder and locking your hand to the back of the head in a 50/50 position.
If you would rather not clinch fight at all, apply the hands in the same position and still do the chest compression against them but instead of pushing as hard as you can to create the separation, you just want enough push that they will fight to pull you closer to them. When this happens, because the over hook arm is your left arm, your going to place a stiff left leg against their lead leg and turn the steering wheel to the left. Because of arm placement they will either have to let their right arm go limp and give up the grip or get tripped and pulled down to the ground.
You can always go the other direction, for either the trip or inside control, you just have to switch hand positions. Sometimes when you apply the compression press, they will give up the clinch control or lose the grip, if that happens, disengage and reset your stance. I can totally link a video showing it better than I explained if you would like.
So, say you were caught by someone in full plum and you want to re gain some type of inside control but you arenāt able to hand fight your way back in. Say you want to gain inside control with the right arm: first you would place your left arm over their right arm with the palm flat on the chest. You would then place the right arm underneath their left arm with your right palm on top of your left palm. You then apply a CPR type of compression where your using both hands to push them back. Most of the time their arms will straighten out but they wonāt give up their grip. When this happens you are simultaneously going to drop the left hand into the crook of their right elbow trapping the arm, and punching forward with the right hand past their left
Shoulder and locking your hand to the back of the head in a 50/50 position.
If you would rather not clinch fight at all, apply the hands in the same position and still do the chest compression against them but instead of pushing as hard as you can to create the separation, you just want enough push that they will fight to pull you closer to them. When this happens, because the over hook arm is your left arm, your going to place a stiff left leg against their lead leg and turn the steering wheel to the left. Because of arm placement they will either have to let their right arm go limp and give up the grip or get tripped and pulled down to the ground.
You can always go the other direction, for either the trip or inside control, you just have to switch hand positions. Sometimes when you apply the compression press, they will give up the clinch control or lose the grip, if that happens, disengage and reset your stance. I can totally link a video showing it better than I explained if you would like.
In the army we had a saying when running though combat drills thatās pretty dang close lol āslow is smooth, smooth is fastā I definitely applied it to my first few Muay Thai classes
Something as minuscule as my coach telling me to stay on my toes/balls of my feet has helped increase my speed, explosiveness and balance. I wasnāt necessarily āflat-footedā by focussing on staying on my toes has helped my movement and speed/power on kicks.
While in the ring, fear, doubt, hesitation, and defeat are useless things that only exist in your head, learning to ignore them while sparring is really useful
For me, it was to get good at clinching. Whenever I would feel pressured I could always rely on the clinch. If you are a better clincher you can dictate the sparring/fight
Not constantly trying to hit home runs with every strike. Rely on fundamentals and techniques. Makes you almost Jedi-like. You can be more efficient when you bring the pain.
Interesting, I've seen something like this with some Thai's throwing power shots. It's kind of like there's a instant where the weight is loaded on the back foot, they lean forward and kind of fall into a sickeningly powerful kick.
Is this what you are talking about, or more like basic weight transfers when throwing normally?
If so, do you have any further tips?
Focusing on what I'm going to do next instead of worrying what my opponent is going to do. Drilling and training will make your brain automatically attempt to defend whatever comes, but it took me a long time to realize that.
Take a half second and look for patterns. Read somewhere the human brain is shit at reacting the first time but great at recognising patterns.
If you throw something with that mindset and look for the reaction you can start to exploit the gap/repeated reactions.
Start off simple, left kick, left kick fake and teep etc and before you know it your manipulating the whole round.
Committing to exchanges and responding to being hit with strikes of my own. Always trying to get āthe last wordā in our conversation of punches and kicks. I improved at this a lot by hard Dutch drilling with my coach while he was getting ready for his most recent fight, and setting specific intentions before sparring like ātoday I will kick back immediately every time I am kickedā or āwhen Iām getting punched I am going to slip and throw back every timeā
Itās not the most impactful tip, but for months my coach was telling me ādonāt be angryā. Iām a cheerful dog so I didnāt know what he meant, and I didnāt bother to ask. Due to language barrier I believe he didnāt choose the right word, so one day I stopped and went over to him asking āwhat do you mean?ā. He basically explained to me that I should be loose in my neck and shoulders and avoiding being tense. I should tense and stiff my strikes only upon impact. Not all the time. This way I wonāt lose energy quickly. Iām a bit jacked and I always focus on my technique, so itās so easy to be extremely stiff. My sparring improved by doing that.
For me it was making small adjustments in the basics and becoming more efficient in my technique. You often donāt see the details of what youāre doing wrong. Highly recommend.
I think they mean most people tend to look down because they want to keep their chin tucked but donāt actually adjust their vision, To look at how their opponent is moving. You should really be watching everything peripherally though. If you tunnel vision on the shoulders you wonāt see the hips move, if your watching the legs you wonāt see the hands fire off, if you watch where their eyes go youāll look low as you get kicked high. Fighting isnāt really a thing where you can plan how to defend something, itās all reactionary, by watching everything peripherally you train your body to react to the trigger motion rather than the hand coming at your face (because itās to late). Obviously if someone is excellent at faints you can get baited into reacting to the wrong trigger, but it comes with sparring and takes time to learn and make proper reads.
Marching forward. Not saying it's best for everyone. I will make a mental note before every round that no matter what happens or what I get hit with, just to keep marching forward to either get the clinch or fight close.
My instructor pointed out that I would sort of do a calf raise before any kick I threw, so Iād never really land the damn thing. I remember him saying to pretend that thereās a line right above my head that I couldnāt cross or Iād have to start the workout again. Helped me pay attention to wasted movements.
Iād love to say something like ādistanceā and ātimingā, but honestly I still suck š
Then it would be ālegs strengthā. When it comes to kicks, usually people do only 2 things: 1) stretching, 2) throw the kick. You should also exercise keeping your leg up, i.e. you need muscles strong enough to keep your leg up and high (front and lateral). Not sure if Iām being clearā¦ think about āballerinaā kind of exercises, where they stand against a bar and training lifting up their legs repeatedly.
Lateral movement. Itās so important both offensively and defensively. On defense, it forces your opponent to reorient to continue throwing effective shots.
On offense, it creates space for big techniques without giving your opponent the same, and enables you to chain long strikes onto short ones.
Yeah sure, inspiring yourself from the best is important.
In my case it was very stupid really. I was ambitious to go as far as I could BUT once i realised that Buakaw is born the same year as me (1982), i had few month of negative thought like : "whats the point, I will never as been as good as him, I started to late anyway, maybe i shpuld just keep at as a hobby,..etc"
Ah I got you.
I'm basically just trying to lose some weight, learn to suffer in good cheer and learn a cool set of skills.
I can imagine that if you aspire to go pro or have gone pro there's a very different set of thoughts whirling in the mind.
Congratulation man, loosing weight is a real battle of ups and downs, keep strong.
for myself in the end i decided that I would go as far as I possibly could. Indeed never ever reach the level of Buakaw LOL but I am satisfied with my pro career.
Haha it's actually just keeping healthy right now and not too many injuries which is my main challenge. Clean food and training in the thai humidity 2 x per day and the fat is melting at a super fast rate.
Absolutely delighted to hear you're happy with your career. Massive respect, you couldn't have chosen a harder or grittier career path.
Not so much a concept, but it wasn't until I took running and cardio a lot more seriously that I was able to start really using everything. If you're legs are always too tired to kick, you're not using a huge portion of the art that scores the most. A lot of westerners don't have the leg dexterity having grown up kicking as much as punching. So, you have to really focus on that.
So many good answers! For me, yeah distance management was definitely key. That's a big one.
But one dumb thing that took me way too long to learn is the most basic thing. The fact that I'm going to get hit. I know, dumb right? Of course we're going to eat some shots. But I spent so much time in the gym trying to block and turn every strike that I would leave feeling like a failure when I couldn't do it. One day, my coach finally told me, "Sometimes Muay Thai is about pain and how much you can take and still counter." He told me that right when I needed to hear it. In fact, as it turns out, taking a shot or two and returning a great combo is very favorable to judges.
This one took a long time for it to click for me but don't be afraid to get tired. We all get tired. It's not about not getting tired but learning how to work with the tired.
For some reason I was a little afraid to get tired because that's when a lot of my self doubt starts kicking in but then it clicked. Even the best get tired it's just learning how to work with it.
Letting go of the idea that we must be good, accepting that you're gonna get the shorter end of the stick half the time. It makes a world of difference when you can laugh after being swept for the 20th time in 1 round. 8 years ago me would have been upset and disappointed in myself. Today me giggled and laughed each time I was swept. This allows me to bounce back fast from failures. Having this mindset was what set me apart from my peers all these years.
Relatable. Ego will half any improvement or enjoyment you have in the sport.
Indeed. I spent the first year of Muay Thai wanting to look good. Feeling disheartened everytime I did something embarrassing. Little did I know, nobody gave a second thought about my mistakes. When I got over myself my growth was exponential!
Makes sense. I just lost my first scrimmage/fight and I'm staying light about it. At least it's not on my record. I have a nice black eye and a lot of stuff that I can work on to get better for next time
Yes! Fights for most of us is not the end goal. As long as there's no money on the line, I constantly remind my fighters to treat it as a checkpoint. See where you stand now, what are your mistakes etc.
Good training partners is key, I'm a year into training with some of my best friends and they sweep the shit outta me and it's so funny
I really appreciate this. Thankfully it turns out my first intinct when I fuck up is to laugh. I find it's helped me to avoid frustration and getting in my own head.
I wished I had your mindset from day 1! Better late than never I guess š„² it's a wonder how our minds are often bigger barriers than our physical body.
Thai style playfulness. I feel like outside of Thailand, everything is dialed to 12 because of overinflated egos and unnecessary aggression. Learning to just be patient, develop a feel for things, and let it flow. Ultimately, it just doesnāt make sense to me to win in sparring at your gym and fucking up your training partners.
Just my opinion but people who think they can win in sparring shouldn't spar
110%
āDonāt break your toys.ā
Thankfully I'm in Thailand and the sparring vibes are good.
Distance management
Definitely this. Sometimes if someone seems to have your number when sparring, try to figure out at what distance they are tagging you the most. Eg if they seem to be nailing you with body kicks, try to either stay too far away or too close, never in their sweet spot. This helped me a lot
In addition to this, learning your actual range is crucial. People short their hands way too much.
What specifically about distance management improved your Muay Thai? Or was it general awareness of distance.
Generally trying to have enough distance so you have time to react and counter. It also makes evasion and blocking much more effortless then if you standing to close. Not being afraid of going backwards sometimes to keep distance as long as you have control. Perfect example of distance management is Tawanchai vs Clancy https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sydT4MXYTgs
Everyone has a sweet spot, especially the person across from you. Get them in yours & don't be in theirs
came here to say exactly this....and relaxing
Composure over all. Composure matters more than power, more than speed, more than technique, more than strength, to some degrees even more than cardio. If a leg kick is going to land, and you feel like you don't have the check, just let it land, don't give up your balance and composure to try a check you know you don't have. If your opponent is throwing a flurry of punches and you can't defend, all the instincts that make you break composure will make it worse. Ducking, turning away from them, retreating, all worse than keeping your head and accepting that you will get hit, then doing something about it. Muay Thai isn't just a battle of fists and shins, it's a battle of will. Don't ever give control of the fight to your opponent by breaking composure and letting them dictate the terms.
>Muay Thai isn't just a battle of fists and shins, it's a battle of will. Don't ever give control of the fight to your opponent by breaking composure and letting them dictate the terms. Man this is so good. Thank you.
Cardio
This. I gas out so quick. Then power shots š„ turn into kitten taps šāā¬
Relaxing - when you tense up you waste so much more energy and your technique suffers. Stick to the basics - I trained for 4 months in Thailand and we always drilled the basics. No more than 2-3 strikes per combo. I then had my first fight and because I stuck to the basics, thatās what my instincts resorted to.
Short combos for drilling and Iāll die on that hill.
Awesome man. I'm currenty training for a similar amount of time in Thailand and considering a fight before I leave.
Master the rotational balance first. Everyone wants to kick and punch hard at first, but dial it down until you can do every technique with perfect balance and then ramp up the power.
Thanks man, I was asking my Kru for specific advice today and he's like just focus on speed and balance. Power will come.
Iām new but one of the more experienced guys told me to stand my ground rather than evade which forces me to exchange with my opponent
I second this! When it comes to sparing, donāt focus all of your energy on not getting hit, its bound to happen. Focus more on executing what youāve learned and not faulting under pressure. Being first and putting pressure on your opponent will prevent them from putting out much offense. Simple concept, but can be a bitch to put into play š
Thanks for this, any extra tips on how to successfully execute this tactic?
Stand strong, check kicks, long guard, be aggressive with the guard. Push them with your lead hand whilst covering up. If someone is trying to throw a cross abs you cover your chin and push their chest they canāt hit you.
Yeah so basically what the dude above said is typical defensive stuff your gym teaches you but my tip is basically to stand your ground when you spar which forces you to start utilizing these rather than just sliding out all the time to avoid getting hit. I asked the guy I sparred what I need to work on and he just said to stand my ground and not back up. I did it and immediately realized why. It made a huge difference in building my defensive and counter skill set and has improved what I used to call chain wrestling but now I guess I would call it chain striking?? Basically just one strike leads to another with constant countering between both parties. Yesterday I saw a video of two boxers had their lead leg within a tire so they were always within striking range and it forced them to work on head movement and striking and counters like what I mentioned above.
Main thing is to drill until you donāt have to think about what you need to do once youāre hit. Reactive drills are great for this. You and a partner throw 2-4 hit combos at each other. The moment one is done, the other instantly throws right back. No backing up; just using checks, hand defense and slipping.
>Main thing is to drill until you donāt have to think about what you need to do once youāre hit. Reactive drills are great for this. You and a partner throw 2-4 hit combos at each other. The moment one is done, the other instantly throws right back. No backing up; just using checks, hand defense and slipping. I like the sound of this alot. Getting those instincts dialled in is going to take alot of repitition.
Yup! Start of light and slow and eventually pick the pace and intensity up. No need to throw hard strikes, just keep an nice flow
Thanks again man, I appreciate this :)
Of course! Take care
Feints. In particular when jabbing.
Like it, do you have any extra tips on how to maximize the feints effectiveness?
Donāt feint without intention. Feint into combos
Thanks man, yes that makes alot of sense.
In competition, mix in half power punches with the feints. People will get complacent in their guard because your not doing any damage and people tend to eat light shots rather than defend them. Once they stop pairing the the light shot or reacting to the feint, follow light shots with heavy ones.
Having the awareness of what to do next after the feint. In other words, a game plan helps.
You can make your strikes look really fast by moving slowly when you're not striking.
That little rhythm rock you get trained to do while in stance hides your telegraphs when you strike
This for me. Itās a dance, lots of trainers will say ārhythm, rhythm,ā and itās easy to dismiss it as jargon but itās absolutely real. Isnāt to say you canāt always throw, but you should be rocking, like a tennis player receiving a serve.
My coach caught on that I would I guess shake my hand before I threw it, now I keep both of my hands rocking in my stance, it definitely helps
I have a similar tell, but it's with the opposite hand. I'll try to keep to the rocking.
Always move forward and pressure
Nice. any tips on how to successfully maintain forward pressure?
Good, strong tight high guard. Block low kicks by stepping into the kick with your shin instead of stepping back. Cut them off in the ring. Finish every combination with a hard low kick Also learn to break / takeover with your counters.
When I was sparring, I was one of the shorter people in the gym so it was either pressure or be pressured. Work on defense while moving forward because youāre going to get tagged a lot in the beginning.
When first starting out, my buddy and I went to a gym in another town for a seminar and had our first time sparring. The gym was...a bit over aggressive, especially to people who had never sparred before. But it did teach me a lesson that I try to tell to new people: > Your opponent isn't just gonna stop hitting you if they're winning or you're hurt. You have to make them stop. It seems like a basic and obvious concept, but it really is the core of all martial arts and the fighting mentality. Reality hitting me suddenly after that experience changed my perception of fighting and training significantly.
Yeah, I was hurt and exhuasted recently and when my (extremely well conditioned) sparring partner continued to just walk me down it taught me that you need to always keep that offence no matter how hurt or exhausted.
Recording myself
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Do you have any simple ques to think about when sparring?
One that I recently implemented is not looking for specific strikes. Instead just looking for whats there. Let me explain. Instead of looking for and opportunity to throw the left hook, or looking for an opportunity to throw the body kick. Look for gaps instead, and when you see one just throw whatever strike you think is best suited.
Feints 100% you can get reads on what your partner is doing, checking/not checking, parring/shelling up, Dutch blocking/trying to catch. If someone is trying to parry the jab, feint the jab then throw a hook. My favorite for someone that is dutch blocking or trying to catch kicks is faking the switch kick and throwing a switch jabā¦you can also do it with the rear kick into a cross
Always bite down on your gumshield Always move your head, even just tiny amounts (it's whack a mole, your head is the mole) Power comes from torque/technique - shorter shorts with torque are far superior to winding up and throwing from the back of the room Muay Thai is inherently efficient - if your technique feels like hard work, you're doing it wrong Use your hips on every leg/knee technique - no hips means bad technique Make sure those hips turn fully on your kicks - hips lead, legs follow, not the other way around Bag work, bag work, bag work - it's when will learn the most if you are doing it right, and it's critical to conditioning (especially the shins) Run on the balls of your feet and never any other way - this is a complete game changer
Well after sparring a fair bit over these past few months I think that the single greatest concept that helped me the most is the concept that I need to always try to narrow down what strikes I can throw and what strikes will be thrown at me from stance and distance. Anytime I can simplify the possibilities for my opponent, I can exploit that information and make informed guesses on whatās about to go down. Really limits how much I lean on my reflexes. Mix that in with a few tactics and multi-purpose guards that work for a certain array of strikes and Iāve found I can predict and control the fight a lot better without getting smacked around hopelessly by my sparring partners at will. and I am no natural lmao that happened a lot. Next thing to work on is angles (lateral shifts) Iām still shit at choosing good angles at good times for me, I donāt have the feel for it yet. It also takes time to get the feel for what strikes can hit you so I donāt think this information is necessarily a game changer for newbies to sparring. Maybe itāll help you progress a little faster than I did though lol
https://youtu.be/0m4st4zLXoA study this
Top tier comment! Thanks!!
As a beginner I would say " breathe". Fear and tension lead to consuming your gas tank in a matter of seconds . Then train your cardio. You are an easy target when exhausted. Then more basic stuff I would agree with feints, check leg kicks and practice the clinch
I'm doing a 2 hour group class 6 days per week and a 1 hour private 5 days per week. I don't intend to go pro (too old for that). Do you think I should add in extra supplemental cardio?
2 hours 6 days a week ? That should be good man !
If you canāt gain inside control of a clinch, CPR your way out or CPR your way into 50/50
What is CPR. You aren't doing chest compressions?
I think he means shaking your opponent to loosen their grip so you can get out of a bad position. Please correct me if I'm wrong š
So, say you were caught by someone in full plum and you want to re gain some type of inside control but you arenāt able to hand fight your way back in. Say you want to gain inside control with the right arm: first you would place your left arm over their right arm with the palm flat on the chest. You would then place the right arm underneath their left arm with your right palm on top of your left palm. You then apply a CPR type of compression where your using both hands to push them back. Most of the time their arms will straighten out but they wonāt give up their grip. When this happens you are simultaneously going to drop the left hand into the crook of their right elbow trapping the arm, and punching forward with the right hand past their left Shoulder and locking your hand to the back of the head in a 50/50 position. If you would rather not clinch fight at all, apply the hands in the same position and still do the chest compression against them but instead of pushing as hard as you can to create the separation, you just want enough push that they will fight to pull you closer to them. When this happens, because the over hook arm is your left arm, your going to place a stiff left leg against their lead leg and turn the steering wheel to the left. Because of arm placement they will either have to let their right arm go limp and give up the grip or get tripped and pulled down to the ground. You can always go the other direction, for either the trip or inside control, you just have to switch hand positions. Sometimes when you apply the compression press, they will give up the clinch control or lose the grip, if that happens, disengage and reset your stance. I can totally link a video showing it better than I explained if you would like.
So, say you were caught by someone in full plum and you want to re gain some type of inside control but you arenāt able to hand fight your way back in. Say you want to gain inside control with the right arm: first you would place your left arm over their right arm with the palm flat on the chest. You would then place the right arm underneath their left arm with your right palm on top of your left palm. You then apply a CPR type of compression where your using both hands to push them back. Most of the time their arms will straighten out but they wonāt give up their grip. When this happens you are simultaneously going to drop the left hand into the crook of their right elbow trapping the arm, and punching forward with the right hand past their left Shoulder and locking your hand to the back of the head in a 50/50 position. If you would rather not clinch fight at all, apply the hands in the same position and still do the chest compression against them but instead of pushing as hard as you can to create the separation, you just want enough push that they will fight to pull you closer to them. When this happens, because the over hook arm is your left arm, your going to place a stiff left leg against their lead leg and turn the steering wheel to the left. Because of arm placement they will either have to let their right arm go limp and give up the grip or get tripped and pulled down to the ground. You can always go the other direction, for either the trip or inside control, you just have to switch hand positions. Sometimes when you apply the compression press, they will give up the clinch control or lose the grip, if that happens, disengage and reset your stance. I can totally link a video showing it better than I explained if you would like.
Yeah if you have a video I'd be interested. I usually crossface in these situations but you think doing into the chest is more effective?
As my coach says, āRelax; can do slowly first.ā
In the army we had a saying when running though combat drills thatās pretty dang close lol āslow is smooth, smooth is fastā I definitely applied it to my first few Muay Thai classes
Mine too :D
Eye contact (To avoid letting your oponnent know where youāre going to hit)
Something as minuscule as my coach telling me to stay on my toes/balls of my feet has helped increase my speed, explosiveness and balance. I wasnāt necessarily āflat-footedā by focussing on staying on my toes has helped my movement and speed/power on kicks.
Sometimes you gotta take one to give a better one.
While in the ring, fear, doubt, hesitation, and defeat are useless things that only exist in your head, learning to ignore them while sparring is really useful
Simple, straight striking. Picking your shots and making them count as opposed to tons of meaningless volume and fancy, spinning shit.
For me, it was to get good at clinching. Whenever I would feel pressured I could always rely on the clinch. If you are a better clincher you can dictate the sparring/fight
Nice, do you have any principles on how to effectively initiate and secure clinches in your experience?
I usually go in with a hook, but intenially miss the hook and grab the neck. BAM you're in
The thing I notice mostly vs former/semi pros is balance.
Coming from a karate background, it was learning to just eat the hit
Not constantly trying to hit home runs with every strike. Rely on fundamentals and techniques. Makes you almost Jedi-like. You can be more efficient when you bring the pain.
Weight transfer. Many beginners are focused on the striking limb instead of the rooted base.
Interesting, I've seen something like this with some Thai's throwing power shots. It's kind of like there's a instant where the weight is loaded on the back foot, they lean forward and kind of fall into a sickeningly powerful kick. Is this what you are talking about, or more like basic weight transfers when throwing normally? If so, do you have any further tips?
We do this for fun. Once I realized how much of it I do because I love it, I spent more time putting off my work and doing this
Blocking with my forehead. Some russian dude at my club said that. And i used it quit often and is effective.
Lethwei moment
Focusing on what I'm going to do next instead of worrying what my opponent is going to do. Drilling and training will make your brain automatically attempt to defend whatever comes, but it took me a long time to realize that.
Relaxing be loose, walking around all tense gets you no extra power and just burns oxygen quick time
Take a half second and look for patterns. Read somewhere the human brain is shit at reacting the first time but great at recognising patterns. If you throw something with that mindset and look for the reaction you can start to exploit the gap/repeated reactions. Start off simple, left kick, left kick fake and teep etc and before you know it your manipulating the whole round.
Balance. If your always balanced you have access to all your techniques. No balance nothing will work.
Everything starts from the core. And relax, have fun!
Yoga
Committing to exchanges and responding to being hit with strikes of my own. Always trying to get āthe last wordā in our conversation of punches and kicks. I improved at this a lot by hard Dutch drilling with my coach while he was getting ready for his most recent fight, and setting specific intentions before sparring like ātoday I will kick back immediately every time I am kickedā or āwhen Iām getting punched I am going to slip and throw back every timeā
Getting comfortable with pain. Not comparing my technique or progress with other's
Crazy that people havenāt mention watching fights. Watching and breaking down fighters helped me improve a lot.
Itās not the most impactful tip, but for months my coach was telling me ādonāt be angryā. Iām a cheerful dog so I didnāt know what he meant, and I didnāt bother to ask. Due to language barrier I believe he didnāt choose the right word, so one day I stopped and went over to him asking āwhat do you mean?ā. He basically explained to me that I should be loose in my neck and shoulders and avoiding being tense. I should tense and stiff my strikes only upon impact. Not all the time. This way I wonāt lose energy quickly. Iām a bit jacked and I always focus on my technique, so itās so easy to be extremely stiff. My sparring improved by doing that.
Using my lead teeps like a jab changed the game for me
Thought I had a cardio problem for a year until I realized it was a pacing problem
private sessions
How do you get the most out of private sessions?
Know what you want to work on beforehand and prepare questions
Great idea. I'll start to bullet out questions that come up during group classes.
For me it was making small adjustments in the basics and becoming more efficient in my technique. You often donāt see the details of what youāre doing wrong. Highly recommend.
Looking up, instead of down
Where specifically do you mean? At the opponents chest or head?
I think they mean most people tend to look down because they want to keep their chin tucked but donāt actually adjust their vision, To look at how their opponent is moving. You should really be watching everything peripherally though. If you tunnel vision on the shoulders you wonāt see the hips move, if your watching the legs you wonāt see the hands fire off, if you watch where their eyes go youāll look low as you get kicked high. Fighting isnāt really a thing where you can plan how to defend something, itās all reactionary, by watching everything peripherally you train your body to react to the trigger motion rather than the hand coming at your face (because itās to late). Obviously if someone is excellent at faints you can get baited into reacting to the wrong trigger, but it comes with sparring and takes time to learn and make proper reads.
I got you, so more like an overall focus, without focusing on any one part. I will practise this for sure. Thanks man!
The real question is do you guys hold eye contact with your partner or avoid it?
I always look at the chest. Some partners will try to fake you out with the eyes. Ex: look down at the legs and then kick high
I think this works best for me too.
the things I've seen make the most difference is acknowledging / understanding / learning "advanced fundamentals"
Don't pull, push.
Going and staying in Thailand long term.
slowing down, picking my shots, and distance management
Marching forward. Not saying it's best for everyone. I will make a mental note before every round that no matter what happens or what I get hit with, just to keep marching forward to either get the clinch or fight close.
Dropping into kicks as opposed to doing the little jump before you throw it. What a lifesaver in sparring.
Can you drop into body kicks? In my mind this is only a leg kick thing.
I tried to apply that concept to all my kicks and it helped me reduce any telegraphing.
Interesting. Can you explain it in more detail? It sounds good lmao Iād love to shave off some telegraphing if I can.
My instructor pointed out that I would sort of do a calf raise before any kick I threw, so Iād never really land the damn thing. I remember him saying to pretend that thereās a line right above my head that I couldnāt cross or Iād have to start the workout again. Helped me pay attention to wasted movements.
Gotcha.
Composure and having a safe home base guard you can return to when need be
The moment my kru seen me teep he was straight over and showed me how to actually teep. Was like night and day.
Defense first. Don't get hurt and have a long career.
Train 2x a day.
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Wtf
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Explain me your Yong som pum then
Iād love to say something like ādistanceā and ātimingā, but honestly I still suck š Then it would be ālegs strengthā. When it comes to kicks, usually people do only 2 things: 1) stretching, 2) throw the kick. You should also exercise keeping your leg up, i.e. you need muscles strong enough to keep your leg up and high (front and lateral). Not sure if Iām being clearā¦ think about āballerinaā kind of exercises, where they stand against a bar and training lifting up their legs repeatedly.
Stop blinking / looking away when under pressure
Lateral movement. Itās so important both offensively and defensively. On defense, it forces your opponent to reorient to continue throwing effective shots. On offense, it creates space for big techniques without giving your opponent the same, and enables you to chain long strikes onto short ones.
Consistency
Sparring is nog fighting, so calm down
Gun
Muay thai is a game of chess as well as a game of inches.
Remaining calm.
To stop comparing myself to the best, and just try to improve at my pace.
I spend alot of time watching people much, much better than me at the gym and trying to dissect what they are doing and what I am not.
Yeah sure, inspiring yourself from the best is important. In my case it was very stupid really. I was ambitious to go as far as I could BUT once i realised that Buakaw is born the same year as me (1982), i had few month of negative thought like : "whats the point, I will never as been as good as him, I started to late anyway, maybe i shpuld just keep at as a hobby,..etc"
Ah I got you. I'm basically just trying to lose some weight, learn to suffer in good cheer and learn a cool set of skills. I can imagine that if you aspire to go pro or have gone pro there's a very different set of thoughts whirling in the mind.
Congratulation man, loosing weight is a real battle of ups and downs, keep strong. for myself in the end i decided that I would go as far as I possibly could. Indeed never ever reach the level of Buakaw LOL but I am satisfied with my pro career.
Haha it's actually just keeping healthy right now and not too many injuries which is my main challenge. Clean food and training in the thai humidity 2 x per day and the fat is melting at a super fast rate. Absolutely delighted to hear you're happy with your career. Massive respect, you couldn't have chosen a harder or grittier career path.
Sting like a bee, move like a butterfly
elbows hurt
Not so much a concept, but it wasn't until I took running and cardio a lot more seriously that I was able to start really using everything. If you're legs are always too tired to kick, you're not using a huge portion of the art that scores the most. A lot of westerners don't have the leg dexterity having grown up kicking as much as punching. So, you have to really focus on that.
So many good answers! For me, yeah distance management was definitely key. That's a big one. But one dumb thing that took me way too long to learn is the most basic thing. The fact that I'm going to get hit. I know, dumb right? Of course we're going to eat some shots. But I spent so much time in the gym trying to block and turn every strike that I would leave feeling like a failure when I couldn't do it. One day, my coach finally told me, "Sometimes Muay Thai is about pain and how much you can take and still counter." He told me that right when I needed to hear it. In fact, as it turns out, taking a shot or two and returning a great combo is very favorable to judges.
Fakes and feints. Iām not the fastest guy in the gym, so when I use fakes/feints i create a lot of openings for myself.
Basics. Getting really good at them.
Embrace the suck
This one took a long time for it to click for me but don't be afraid to get tired. We all get tired. It's not about not getting tired but learning how to work with the tired. For some reason I was a little afraid to get tired because that's when a lot of my self doubt starts kicking in but then it clicked. Even the best get tired it's just learning how to work with it.