At my school, like many others teach Muay Thai as the choice of striking. There’s nothing more devastating then the Thai clinch with some well executed leg kicks. The one thing I’ve noticed about Thai boxers is that their hands need some work. I personally feel more attention is directed towards the usage of kicks, knees, and elbows. A lot of the padwork involved freestyle work, which involves everything, hands, elbows, kicks but not much slipping and ducking.
That’s me geared up for battle
Boxing Will Supplement Muay Thai
Six months into my MMA training, I learned that a person close to my family actually teaches boxing right in his garage. I ended up training with him for a couple of months where I’ve learned a ton of boxing technique. He knew I was MMA training but he didn’t know much about the sport, but he stuck with teaching me boxing fundamentals. He polished up all of my punches, worked on my footwork, did tons of bag work, did a lot of sparring and conditioned me.
Putting It All Together
The fact my boxing coach didn’t really know MMA it was up to me to put it all together. One thing I really learned to perfect is the art of counter punching, which I constantly punish my sparring partners with. Boxing dramatically increased my punching power because the improved technique and my footwork was a lot better. One of the most valuable things I’ve learned from boxing is slipping punches. With 5 oz gloves you can’t expect them small gloves to guard you, so slipping was more effective.
Like I said, some thing I learned from boxing don’t work for MMA because you have kicks. So at this point I was experimenting which things worked and what didn’t.
I would recommend any aspiring fighter to take up some boxing classes. My gym finally acquired a boxing coach, though I look forward to get back to my boxing training with my original coach.
May 26th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
Have you watched the Fight Girls episodes? A lot of fights were won by hands when they fought the Thai girls because the Thai women weren’t used to someone trying to box them (or out slug them). It was difficult for a Thai female to figure out what to do. Another great post.
May 26th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
Scott,
I never heard of this show (I have basic cable), so I found a site that had some of their episodes. Definitely saw what you meant. I may need to get directTV or something to watch this show. Thanks for the comment.