shadow boxing faux pas

...or it's alternate title
which includes pad work.

this analysis started with the hook, watching folks retreat the body as the arm was journeying in. sort of
[if i may use a metaphor] walking the wrong way on an escalator, or shoving someone with your two arms whilst hopping backwards--what's the point, you want all your weight working for you. oh, and believe it or not, i've seen the shove and hop backward thingy--from an ex mate. never really quite understood it. it reminded me of the joke of the guy that says, "step over here" whilst backing up. uhm,
i'm coming...are you going to stand still.

just starting this, and knowing i should go to bed--figured you lot might have something to say if it
was engaging enough.
in short,
i've seen alot of physics vortex's. people moving away from the target when they shadow box...like sports boxers with a point objective [or tag]. and i've seen people get cozy into the pads during the old one/two [jab/cross] where they're actually moving away from the pad as they cross--to the the rythem [sp???]cadence they subtly turned into a tai bo cardio workout.

why bother to bring this up? because i worry it doesn't ingrain follow through but rather flashy contact.
i've taken to breaking the one/two cadence to where i'm only witnessing forward drive...before reseting
to repeat...it doesn't take much time. it's like the pause in strict power lifting. it's subtle but there. adding usually the first hit as a step in--so as not to detract from what it really is [namely intentful
hitting].

i've heard the neurology argument of shadow boxing--and the added benefit of watching one's form for week points [openings, etc]. i add this so the primary weak point is not 'weakness' as pulling away or stylizing, etc... sometimes i actually chose to accentuate slopy agressiveness--with chasing pad drills, so beginners don't get the wrong idea.

really going to sleep now. glad to be back.

hey good to have you back.



I've seen this a bit to. Some people do a lot of shadow boxing and don't actually hit the bag/pads all that much. They end up learning to stop short and pull back just as the punch or kick, elbow, knee, whatever, should be landing pull force with all their weight behind it...

If you take someone who has been over-doing the shadow boxing, and put them on a bag for the first time in a while, the first few punches will be the same... stopping short and just 'taps' on the bag. Not the first punch I'd like to throw 'for real' if I had to. Maybe not everyone has this habbit but I've seen it with myself and a few other people too.

Now I do find shadow boxing useful as a warm up, and good for checking form infront of a mirror. However, as you're suggesting, I agree that aggressive bag/pad work with an emphasis on weight transfer can't be overlooked.

hiya mate,
glad to be back. this phenom reeks over in d.c., where you will get street type haymaker power punchers but you'll also see the pretty fighters who really don't do much damage at all. they're having a good time in high school when flash and speed draws a crowd, but [in my limited examples] end up walking into a beating somewhere down the line--they get the girls early on though

i like shadow boxing slowly--to retrain myself. if i can't picture punching through something, sometimes i just go through the whole range the way a tradition mai thai kick is thrown full circle--to use an example but not a direct one. i punch slowly through to get my head around driving through. pulled punches--i admit, irk me. one of my biases [against me] comes from years of pulled contact in shotokan. i'm sure there was a time once--way back in okinawa, when it was all drills, makiwara, and nasty knots on heads, etc...but when i got there it was all erol flynn tag--not that it wasn't potentially violent and without injury, but the bad habits were well represented.

how's it in your neck of the woods?

The forum just wasn't the same without you!

Funny you ask... my new neck of the woods here is all completely new to me lol. Just moved here a month ago now. I start work next week ( lol) so soon after that I'll be able to get myself back on a training schedule and a gym

Back on the west coast though, in kickboxing, I'd see pretty much the same as you. I guess each gym in a way is like a microcosm of that area. There'd be a few guys with really fast hands that were pulling all their punches to do it with speed. Nothing illustrates that more than putting them on a heavy bag on ...well, you wouldn't even see the bag move when they punched!! I saw this tendency a lot more when I was doing Karate. It's the classic scenario where in a point system with sparring or matches, and the need to keep your guard up, punches are thrown and retracted very fast.

Good point you made about doing the shadow boxing slow, with a full extension. You won't worry about hyperextending and you'll train yourself to commit to the full range of motion.

Think I may try this in an effort to get back to basics next time I find myself palm striking door jams and wall corners lol.... I need to get a bag soon.

cheers !

DMB wrote///
Funny you ask... my new neck of the woods here is all completely new to me lol. Just moved here a month ago now. I start work next week ( lol) so soon after that I'll be able to get myself back on a training schedule and a gym

death and rebirth. nice place to be. it's all there for you to get right--leave the bad habits and such.
not unlike a new year's resolution/evolution/etc...

good luck. hit the ground running. i like new starts. i like new years and all

i used to be sad leaving it all behind. i thought it was work all over again. something changed/snapped.
now i think of it as a former life. a death, then a new life. it helps me not safe guard that 'safe' mentality of not wishing changes--when we all now life is nothing but changes. oh, if the honey moon period would just last forever, but alas

Just to throw into the mix: a good boxing trainer who I used to do a door with on concert square in Liverpool called Brin told me one night that only straights should be applied with forward momentum and that hooks and uppercuts should be used strictly as defensive tactics i.e. when you are still or moving backwards

thats in a boxing ring of course- so the lads you've seen might be displaying good sport boxing form but shite street form

if you focus on the differences there is a world of difference between the ring and the street

I tend to focus on the similarities and edit or adapt the stuff that isnt applicable...

look at it this way:
if you knew you were going to get 500 hundred opportunities to land punches over a 30 minute period with wraps and gloves on and that the "game" was to win by points scored simply by landing the shot on the proper target regardless of effect would you train and move differently than if the "game" was you only had a 5 second opening to land 3 shots with no hand protection on, you dont get points for "trying" , you can only win by maximum EFFECT generated on opponent ???

chalk and cheese really isnt it?


but they both begin with a "ch"

Richie wrote///

chalk and cheese really isnt it?


but they both begin with a "ch"



yeh--your right. one of my flaws is remembering that i only distinguish what skills
count under non sporting pressure. i've forgotten how to enjoy the chalk, erm, or
is it cheese. i like your take on taking the schematic and widdling away at what
doesn't convey. i generally put my money on a good boxer/thai boxer--so sometimes
i look at th em with a finer tooth comb...and those systems that barely make radar,
probably because i'm making another biased inner assessment

my 81 year old friend in the mountains was a boxer--we talked alot about themes
like this.

being a good boxer/thai boxer... yeah I put some stock in that too, however the skills dont always transmit and many physical skills pertinent to SP just arent there- on the door Ive seen good competive boxers hit people with good fast boxing form 5 or 6 times in the head FAST with next to zero effect, and I once tried to get a new doorman, a mate of mine, who was a good thai boxer to throw someone out whilst I walked with him (I could have done it myself, but I was head doorman on the club and wanted him to learn)- it was one of the funniest things Ive ever seen his hands where sort of dancing over this fellas body as his brain went into total "spaz out" mode trying to work out where to grab him to drag him out he just didnt have the mental software for dealing with "drag punter out fire exit jitsu" as many good sports guys simply dont have it for "shouty drunk twat face jitsu"

its not magic though, some guys trained in sport can do the "skills transfer" some guys cant

it was for my mate that the "A to B" drill on the control and restraint for doormen dvd was designed after that incident

back to technique, if the boxing doesnt have that lower centre of gravity/more commitment to each shot/stepping with shot/drive forward and follow through on strikes with "time on target" then its not goin to generate effect

think Heihachi from Tekken

Richie said///
his hands where sort of dancing over this fellas body as his brain went into total "spaz out" mode trying to work out where to grab him to drag him out he just didnt have the mental software for dealing with "drag punter out fire exit jitsu" as many good sports guys simply dont have it for "shouty drunk twat face jitsu"

ha ha ha--awesome

i know exactly what you mean...i'm starting to think the software has to be there to begin with...my first
TKD club had a handful of tough guys who'd been in fights to start with. that handful managed a balance
and made it into 'Ripley's believe it or not' for record number of trophies, yet several had life threatening experiences that went in their favor. there was a 'sub-teacher' who i never went to--who taught another type of 'dirty-TKD' class in another neighborhood. his name was 'jimmy'. he arrived to
class [the one i went to] drunk, and had loads of street in him. he taught all of the guys who did well
in their pressure tests. i'm sorry i never took him more seriously [burp] . for them
it was taking hard nuts and tweeking and stylizing their game of tag. there was always a handful of them that were disqualified for 'decking' someone, etc...

i did terribly with that club because i was more handy--and used feet as an afterthought...why i went TKD i'll never know.

and///
back to technique, if the boxing doesnt have that lower centre of gravity/more commitment to each shot/stepping with shot/drive forward and follow through on strikes with "time on target" then its not goin to generate effect

really good point...and part of what i didn't like about the american TKD, that insisted on standing straight up [not conducive to feeling that connection that comes from one's whole body lighting into
someone--unless you were very flexible and shot nothing but face-sidekicks...what most of this bunch
did].

as for the timed punch/kicks with forward physics...i did like that part of shotokan. in the end i took from
shotokan and went back to feeling like a sloppy boxer [how i started], focusing on putting my legs and back into everything--which was really nice for me because i was jap slapping before anyone ever told me what it was. it just feels so right

i did alot of shite things finding my way in teen fights that later i sort of brought back. one guy had hit me loads of times in the face--driving me back but not hurting me one iota. i [again, before i knew what it was called] hammer fisted him on the head with all out clumsy anger. and the fight was mine, and he managed to out run me. funny stuff, hindsight. i always remember that one because i didn't have so much as a bruise. all flurry and fluff

"flurry and fluff"- nice, that gets you a King point for good wordplay- hahaha!

yeah you can get this activity without action thing- if people have already got a mind for street stuff, they can take any contact martial art and shoehorn it in there I think... when I was first taught muay thai when I was 18 I thought it was pure street- I went right out and fought that way for years, only problem was busted knuckles, wasnt until I was 25 I considered it really at all deficient for the street- even though the guy teaching it me, Bob, explicitly described it as "sport"

but I liked fighting, before that I had tried using aikido, jujitsu even ninjitsu in scraps, so it was already in me to begin with

"flurry and fluff" activity is not action

that's cool,
i sort of had the reverse. if i tried to stylize, i fooked it all up and paid. if i just fought like when i
was about 14, i'd do well in sport and street--many a warning though from refs, occasionally making
me kick back into 1st gear and lose the point game. i never managed the balance. i often found not
using my feet at all brought it all together because that muscle memory was all real--if that makes
any sense. and i didn't feel like a ballerina see saw of jumps and 'hiyyyyyaaaahs'. i guess that's
another reason why i like those jake the muss clips. i get the simple stuff.

Richard Grannon wrote:

I tend to focus on the similarities and edit or adapt the stuff that isnt applicable...

i do the exact same. ive noticed im really good with in fighting. as soon as im in close its full fat violence. and that the "ring" style is now more tight and compact and footwork has got sharper for the "street". do you find this rich?

Richard Grannon wrote:

Just to throw into the mix: a good boxing trainer who I used to do a door with on concert square in Liverpool called Brin told me one night that only straights should be applied with forward momentum and that hooks and uppercuts should be used strictly as defensive tactics i.e. when you are still or moving backwards

thats in a boxing ring of course- so the lads you've seen might be displaying good sport boxing form but shite street form

if you focus on the differences there is a world of difference between the ring and the street

I tend to focus on the similarities and edit or adapt the stuff that isnt applicable...

look at it this way:
if you knew you were going to get 500 hundred opportunities to land punches over a 30 minute period with wraps and gloves on and that the "game" was to win by points scored simply by landing the shot on the proper target regardless of effect would you train and move differently than if the "game" was you only had a 5 second opening to land 3 shots with no hand protection on, you dont get points for "trying" , you can only win by maximum EFFECT generated on opponent ???

chalk and cheese really isnt it?


but they both begin with a "ch"

That's pretty much it in a nutshell isn't it?

a 'fluffy flurry' causing next to zero damage, as Russ said, vs a hard elbow to the chin? I'll take the elbow anyday and follow it up with a headlock/choke hold er sumthin

im sure i speak for a fair few he but i train the way i fight., when the pads are on its fast, hard and viscious hits. i think the saying "sweat more in training, bleed less on the street" is the perfect motto really. i think if you tit about in training your getting a shock when you need to rely on your "skills".

what you think guys?

peace.

darktim99 wrote:

im sure i speak for a fair few he but i train the way i fight., when the pads are on its fast, hard and viscious hits. i think the saying "sweat more in training, bleed less on the street" is the perfect motto really. i think if you tit about in training your getting a shock when you need to rely on your "skills".

what you think guys?

peace.

I'd agree...train hard - fight easy is better than train easy - fight hard

That's the other thing you can't do with shadow boxing, is focus in on a target and go for max aggression and speed, turning it on explosively. I'd say you need a bag or pads for that.