MMA Stuff » Striking

The Plastercast

Jimmy — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 22:05:31 +0000

You can tell a lot about someone by their foot movement and positioning. Your feet directly correlates with your striking and punching power. Punching power starts from the feet and travels all the way through your body to the end of your fist. This was described in the video about the Anatomy of a Knockout.

There is a great two part video by Phil Wright about the proper boxing base. He calls it the plastercast, which allows you to throw punches and move correctly. So watch the video, then when you’re shadowboxing, training, or sparring check your feet. As a mixed martial artists, I feel you should always be evaluating your game, and constantly improving it, even if it sometimes requiring to get back to the basics.

The Plastercast – Part I

The Plastercast – Part II

Credit goes to Phil Wright (@revolutiongym) – Who owns Revolution Gym (UK)

Pyramid Kicks

Jimmy — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 00:36:58 +0000

Here is a great drill that we do in our Muay Thai classes. It really builds up endurance and helps you perfect your roundhouse kicks. We usually do these with thai pads and a partner where you just do a bunch of kicks in a pyramid count.

Pryamid Count? WTF?

It’s simple, start with either left or right leg.

Kick once, kick twice, kick three times, all the way up to 10, then back down. Then switch legs. So lets say we’re starting with our right leg. Throw one kick, then 2, then 3, then 4, all the way up to 10. Once you hit 10, you throw 9 kicks, then 8, then 7 back down to 1. This will really test your endurance.

Beware

It’s really hard to keep your kicks tight, I find myself getting sloppy in the middle of the drill but do your best to keep yourself tight. Every kick you throw you should be grabbing your head. So if you’re throwing a right kick, grab your head/ear with your left hand. That will block any counters. Your elbow you should be facing the opponent and bent at a 45. If your hands drop, you could get kicked in the head or hooked. Check out this video I found.

Also if you don’t have a partner but have a heavy bag available. Just do it on a heavy bag.

Set It Up With a Kick

Jimmy — Sun, 11 May 2008 16:57:07 +0000

Here’s a short post about something to think about when striking. An excellent way to get your hits in is the usage of punch/kick combos. The only way I can think of putting the usage of kicks and punches is, redirection. If you give your opponent a barrage of punches, they were most likely not be ready for the leg kick. Once you execute the leg kick, hands start to drop a little, then you can redirect back up top with punches.

The essence of what I’m saying is, if you throw punches, they’ll be worried about the punches. If you throw kicks, they’ll be worried about the kicks. Capitalize on this by throwing smooth punch kick combos. Maybe a jab cross jab, kick, all in one combo. If you throw your punch combo then pause, then throw a kick, it does you no good. Don’t give them any time to think, just keep the pressure on. Just something to think about.

Boxing and MMA

Jimmy — Wed, 07 May 2008 20:24:09 +0000

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.

Superman Punch

Jimmy — Mon, 05 May 2008 15:56:01 +0000

There’s no doubt that the Superman Punch is an extremely powerful striking technique. Not only is it powerful, it’s pretty flashy. I’ve never bothered to use it until recently because I thought it was just showing off and silly. Well I finally decided to try it out during sparring a few weeks ago and it is indeed effective is used properly.

Set That Shit Up

Like the video shows, if you open up with a superman punch you can get kicked. It is pivotal that you setup the Superman punch so you don’t get countered. The best scenario is setting up the superman punch with leg kicks. When getting a good amount of leg kicks on your opponent you’ll see their hands start to drop, so the probability of landing the punch is greater.

What I did a few weeks ago was set up the punch with a good punch/kick combination. I opened up with a jab, straight cross, jab, leg kick then superman punch. The goal was to “overload” the opponents defense so they’re defending high then low which will cut their reaction time.

Personally I feel that once you get the punch off, don’t keep trying to go for it just for the sake of showing off. Chances are your opponent will be ready for the next one. The best case scenario is executing it after a combo that causes the defender to be dazed

Chuck Lidell Punch 101

Jimmy — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 00:10:33 +0000

I found two interesting videos that show Chuck teaching some of his punching techniques. I wouldn’t recommend doing these in fight unless it really works out for you. You could try it when sparring for shits and giggles. If it works out for you, then that’s a different story.

Lidell Right Hook

I was always taught to throw my hooks tight to my body, but Chuck throws it totally different. From what I got from the video, he drops his right hand a little and hooks up at a small angle. Like a normal hook, it’s all in the hips and body.

Lidell Overhand

Seems to be effective for Chuck because it can get over the boxing guard. Like you should be doing with every punch, he explains to go right through the target, whether it be a pad or someone’s face.

I wouldn’t recommend throwing all of your punches like Chuck because the fact is you aren’t Chuck Lidell. These punches are extremely unorthodox and if not executed correctly can most likely hurt you due to counter punches. I just posted because it was interesting to see how Chuck punches. Can’t say that this is all bologna because Lidell stays knocking people out. Stick to the basics, master them, then experiment a little.

Camp Asia (Part 1) – Mitt Work

Jimmy — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 02:35:09 +0000

When I’m not at my MMA Gym I’m training with my buddy Ken. He’s half Thai and half Chinese and ironically he doesn’t train Muay Thai. He just trains traditional boxing at Chuck Liddell endorsed LA Boxing. In his backyard he has a “back house” where he has a few couches, some junk and a speed bag. Our training is nothing fancy and extremely primitive. We bought a pair of cheap curved mitts from Title Boxing and just recently acquired a medicine ball. The point is, we get a really good workout without weights or a heavy bag. We just used our imagination to come up with a solid workout.

On a normal day we start our session off with some shadow boxing or jump rope then we get right into mitt work. We do five-five minute rounds. Our workouts will vary though.

Round 1: Freestyle (Warming Up)
Just a nice warmup round throwing basic combinations, 1-2, 1-2-3, 2-3-2, so on and so forth.

Round 2: Freestyle + Sprawling/Push Ups
Basic combinations but Ken will yell for me to sprawl at the end of combos or whenever he feels like. Since he’s a boxer and doesn’t need to sprawl I tell him to do a couple of push ups. For example, 1-2-3-4 three push ups. or 1-2-3 SPRAWL!

Round 3: Pyramid Jabs
This was influenced by a kicking drill we do in Muay Thai where we kick with one leg once, then twice, then three times, all the way up to ten and back down. Instead of kicking we throw jabs and crosses. So you start out with 1-2 (one jab), 1-1-2 (two jabs), 1-1-1-2 (three jabs), 1-1-1-1-2(four jabs) all the way up to ten, and then back down. This drill is just to help build shoulder strength for the jab.

Round 4: Freestyle (again)
Same thing as first round

Round 5: Speed Round
This is where we just throw the 1-2-3-4-5-6 combo non stop for 5 minutes straight. This is where we build up our hand speed.

After that we switch, then once we both get our mitt work in we’ll do several different push ups, sit ups and plyometrics, which will be explained in Part II. During this whole time I focus on keeping my hands up, correctly executing my strikes, staying loose, and correctly moving my feet. Supplemental MMA Training can be real effective and cheap if you use a bit of imagination and find a buddy.

Camp Asia has enrollment open for the low price of 500 dollars a month. By the way, I didn’t have any part of the beer that’s littered around the camp.

Slipping Punches & Head Movement

Jimmy — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 20:03:03 +0000

The boxing guard isn’t as effective in mixed martial arts because of the significantly smaller gloves, so why not slip punches? Here’s a great video I found that illustrates some head movement to create some opportunities for some hits. With the nature of Muay Thai, I feel that slipping and weaving aren’t used as much as western boxing. Though not used in Muay Thai, it seems like a valuable skill to possess in MMA.