Loose Hands
March 13, 2008 by nopstar
The other day I was training with my new training partner Dean, and I was mentioning how it really bothered me that my boxing was getting so loose.
There was a period where I had injured my right foot from repeatedly kicking elbows with the same part of my instep. It got so bad that a few of my toes would go numb every now and then. Occasionally it act’s up, but for the most part it’s ok.
During that time I didn’t want to kick with that foot, I walked away from Muay Thai for about 6 months. I spent that time boxing. Some of you will scoff but I think Boxing is far more difficult then Muay Thai. Let’s just say Muay Thai is a little more forgiving if two of your limbs are lacking… you’ve got six others who can back you up.
Boxing is incredibly difficult and precise. Long story short at the end of my 6 months I really saw a difference. My punches were far crisper; I didn’t have to expend as much effort to get my punches to pop. In the end it’s all technique and body mechanics. The sad fact is, that literally 2 weeks after I stopped boxing I could feel my hands become loose.
I’d really like to spend some time boxing again; it’s embarrassing to watch me box. It’s like I never boxed at all. If any of you get an opportunity to spend sometime boxing, I would encourage you to do so.
i totally understand where your comming from
same here..i thought “if im decent at muay thai, boxing class should be no problem” but once i started, i was lookin like a toatl NEWB, barely able to put together a nice display of combos -_- i need to work on my hands…
daaaaaaang, this little boy/girl has some HANDS!
box sparring helps me if nothing else to maintain composure and combat gunshyness…I often find if i can at least hang with the speed and legnthy combinations from people who eat breathe and sleep boxing, in a muay thai stance and keeping a respectful and realistic eye to detail by still standing as i would in muay thai and avoiding dropping levels fragrantly, I find myself much more assertive and sentiant as I execute techniques in Muay Thai.
I owe a tremendous amount of credit to my itty bitty progress in muay thai to the boxing team at my gym.
PS: I get the most pounding headaches from hard box sparring.
Just my thoughts.
Oh my fucking god. FUCK that kid!!! That pisses me off so bad. He’s better than I’ll ever be before he has Pube #1.
OH MY GOD!!!,,,,,This kid is freakin’ amazin’. I’m still pickin’ up my jaw from the ground. I need to work on my boxing….for real!
this kid is nasty as well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHEY8NGtuD0
My gym is technically a MMA gym, so they offer muay thai as well as boxing. Im always scared I’m going to develop a habit of bobbing or ducking too much from boxing and eventually eat a knee/shin when Im muay thai sparring.
Anyone else have this fear, or are you confident you can turn that reaction off when you want to?
That kid is great.You can see the concentration and focus even at that young age. You’ll not even when the kid does bob and roll out it’s not more than one head length which is a good rule for Thai boxers as well if you bob or weave don’t make it deeper that one head length. Any lower and you run a bad risk of getting easily kicked in the face. Head movement does work even in Muay Thai. It’s a common complaint the Thai Boxers tend to be too stiff and upright by virtue of the ranges they fight in but boxing can and should be trained imo in those ranges and sometimes exclusivley.
A good example of this being used in a kickboxing situation is with Daniel Dawson’s last appearance on Shootboxing. It really confused and screwed up the range on his opponents. Dawson was at the time also preparing to fight Daniel Geale for an IBO title in boxing.
Boxing (along with Muay Thai) should be kept tight. Flailing limbs don’t make for a very aesthetic or effective offense. I really like the art of pugilism- I feel that the amount of accurate/powerful punches one can deliver makes a big difference in a Muay Thai bout.
I’m with Rocky saying that sparring with pure boxers makes one appreciate the skills more.
i couldn’t agree with you more nop, on this post. i was trained by an international boxer for a year and a half before i switched to muay thai. it is “incredibly difficult and precise” but let me add: *efficient* — you often use the same motion of the same core muscle groups to punch and to weave. its so elegant! i still squirm when i’m training my hands at my current muay thai gym… and feel like going NO NO NO!!! the current kru stresses more on kicking and i sincerely doubt if he’s ever tasted real boxing. that said, the reason i switched is because i came to realize quickly how abusive boxing is relative to muay thai, for lack of a better word. Coming home punch drunk every day couldn’t have been a good idea.
THAT KID HAS MORE SKILLZ THAN MOST MEN
I agree with that the pounding on the head, Souvik
That kid is not bad with pads, although slipping punches when your pad holder is that much taller than you is not all that difficult not to mention what a large target the mitts are for his little hands, but i’ll give it to him as far as pads go, sparring and fighting on the other hand is totally different…
I agree that Boxing is somewhat difficult, but when it comes to fights, using just on hands is not as hard as defending from 8 limbs, especially when you whole body is vulnerable as opposed to boxing where as you just guard head and torso. I’ll take MT over Boxing in the ring and on the street.
Oh, I just watched the video that was posted on the page(Earlier post was talking about the video yknocka posted). All the partiality aside those kids are pretty impressive and the fact that they are barely in elem.school is Sood Yod! good job dek dek.
That kid would use my nuts as a speedbag… holy hell!
[...] [via MyMuayThai] [...]
I’m sorry, I just can’t get over that kid. Anyone even bothering to attempt to pick apart his technique at that age is being ridiculous. First of all, imagine if you extrapolated the size of those gloves to your frame: you’d be training with like 48oz gloves. But his speed is frickin’ amazing, his technique is pretty much flawless, and he doesn’t seem to get tired…at all. Second, I STILL can’t slip punches, not even if Bunkerd yells, “Ok Slayer, here comes a punch – please slip it!!” So, that kid’s ability to slip and weave is pretty damn good. Third, the kid can’t be any older than 6 or 7. At age 6, my biggest talent was determining what was cooler: Thundercats or Voltron (it’s Thundercats, by the way).
So, don’t take anything away from that little fucker; he rips. I’m secretly hoping he’s a midget or something so I can at least partially justify why his boxing skills are so much better than mine. Ain’t gonna happen: I suck, he rules, end of story.
i know what you mean. it came to a point in my training as well my partners that our boxing was taking a backseat to our thai boxing training. while we did still train hands it was very minimal at best. boxing gives you better foot work and a better sense for what your opponent is going to do. thats where i think some dutch kickboxers capitalized adding a solid boxing regimen to their arsenal.
One of the Kruu’s where I train has the sickest boxing mixed with some pretty awesome thai and that’s only because he made a point of training that way. A lot of guys spend too much time working kicks that they forget about not just the hands but knees and elbows. If you’re gonna spend some time improving your boxing you are going to have to work on your footwork alot more than usual because “thai” guys who have experience will constantly attack your legs. That’s why head movement isn’t that important when you are being kicked in the thighs. Make sure you move in with short combos and move out, because your stance will be too wide to shield and your body weight will be too centered to get any speed and power on those kicks.
Kote Lor Loi, I agree wit ya….I find the comparison between Muay Thai and Boxing pretty amusing.
I don’t think learnng Boxing is harder than learning Muay thai. Muay Thai fighters have to worry about 8 limbs to the boxer’s 2. We have to learn way more weapons, techniques, combinations, we have to worry about body conditioning, and more.
I’ll pick a Nak Muay over a Boxer anyday…Chris already broke it down in details but I’ll only use 2 words……”LOW KICKS”.
I have to disagree with boxing being more difficult than muay thai, rather I’d say some guys are just more well rounded. The muay thai fighters with serious hands tend to be very effective, just because you train muay thai doesnt mean you have to neglect your hands, some styles just choose to do so. Punches are part of muay thai, the only thing boxing is adding is bobbing and weaving and a different stance (though some switch back and fourth in Muay Thai).
I think boxing is harder for some people because your worrying about one thing (your hands), so your trainer is really going to get on you if your not doing it right, whereas some muay thai trainers will let it slide if your not punching correctly.
So basically to master muay thai it is more difficult and precise in my opinion, but is not as essential depending on what level your competing at, whereas boxing because only one weapon is being trained boxers tend to become better with that one weapon. So if you have been working on punches, kicks, elbows, knees, and clinching equally, its harder to hang in just boxing with guys who have been practicing hands 5 times more than you.
While the kid in the video is clearly skilled, my friend who works in post-production assure me that the intermittent punching drills in the video are actually sped up artificially.
When you are boxing without the use of leg techniques, it is probably the best way in my opinion to work reactions, tightness of the guard and movement speed, as you have to be aware of the quickest weapons on the body, the hands. Amazing video and blog by the way, let me know if you would like to exchange links!
Ive never left a comment here before, but since i got a mention i thought it would be rude not too, cheers dude!
That kid in the video has some skills. Kinda reminds me of a kid at the gym i used to train at, hes a little older, but i could watch him on the pads all day – his kicks were beautifull, it pains me to say it, but i only hope that one day i can become as good as this 10 year old!!
Your friend in post-production assures you? Did he have anything to do with the video?
“Your friend in post-production assures you? Did he have anything to do with the video?”
Nope, but he says he can tell by looking at it (i.e her pony tail dances behind her when she is punching at what looks like faster than normal frequency than you might see at normal speed.) I did not offer my original comment as a hard and fast proof, only as anecdotal evidence. It could very well be a genuine video, and an amazing one indeed, or it could be fake.
“her pony tail dances behind…. ” That’s a boy…his name or should I say nickname is BAM BAM…I read most of the comments on the video str8 from youtube and his father was commenting on it and a few people were sayin the same thing ur sayin. I have watched the vid over and over I even paid attention to the people in the background (especially 50 seconds into the vid) and it looks clean to me. but since ur post production friend “assures” u….which means he’s 100% sure then I guess I could be wrong.
“but since ur post production friend “assures” u….which means he’s 100% sure then I guess I could be wrong.”
Since his father was commenting on it it means it is 100% true because no parent has ever tried living vicariously through his child, so I guess I could be wrong.
Anyway, all of this is beside the point and moot. All I was trying to say is that it looked fake to my friend – my friend who spends everyday working with, and manipulating to various effect, digital video. It could be a true video or it could be a falsehood; I never meant to prove one way or the other, but rather, to make note of what one expert on the subject had to say. One expert does not a proof make, but his opinion is based on observation and experience and he is certainly allowed to have an opinion.
lol….ooops…It looks like Ezrie caught feelings.
#1 all I said was that his father was commentin’ on wut other people were saying about the video being fake…Not once did I even mention what his comments were so why would u even mention ur bit about “parents living vicariously though their child”. I wasn’t protecting the father…as I don’t kno him I was merely sayin that a lotta other people were saying the same thing u were sayin..so that got me thinking.
#2 I said I watched the vid a few times and to “ME”..the video “LOOKS” clean..but since ur friend who has more experience in the matter(because of his post production background) than I do said it was false then I “COULD” be wrong. I was merely sayin that an expert would probably kno better than me
U took wut I said as an attack, it wasn’t. Chill out, buddy…..lol
TheBlackKnight….I second everythin you wrote.
Spydaman:
I admit it, I caught the feelings. I was always told I was a hot head. I am gonna go meditate now.
“I am gonna go meditate now.”….Funny!….lol.
F^ck this sh!t. i quit muay thai and am gonna start bocce ball. this kid just makes me feel OLD! my whole day was perfect after practice until i saw this vid. thanks a lot thighmaster!
Punching is important,western Boxing utilizes the hands to the maximal potential of both power and precision. Cool vid, but i wanna see him fight when he is old enough.
Or he can learn the other weapons and go fight in thailand lol
Or could he could go on in boxing never be a champion and still make 30X what he ever will in Muay Thai. I love how this kid has inspired accusations (with assurances minus proof of course)of being a fake and how he should do Muay Thai.
Learning boxing is harder. The ones here that don’t think so didn’t learn much about boxing.
WOW amazing. Can we not be so anal about everything. It was a joke(notice the lol at the end) which was said because someone said that they wanted to see him grow up and fight where as in muay thai he will be able to fight earlier. Aparently we need more buddhism and meditation posts
No we just need less posts that paint with a broad brush about things you don’t comprehend as well as you imagine.
Good one