Hi people, I've been doing taekwondo for quite a while now, and since a few months I'm taking boxing classes next to it to complement my style a bit. Now does that give some difficulties (unsurpisingly I guess..) since my taekwondo stance and tactics are quite different from the boxing stance. I tend to keep my hands too low and my feet in a too vertical stance. Now am I not looking for comments like "boxing is way more effective, you should quit taekwondo" and the like, but I'd really like to know how I can effectively melt my boxing a bit into my taekwondo movements or how I can best train to overcome this problem. My stamina, agility and strength are good for the moment since I am used to hard training and fighting tournaments. Looking forward to your answers! Regards, Bas
Not that I am an expert or anything but combining the 2 styles would be done while training and not in competitions or promotions so I am a bit confused where your issues are. It seems rather easy for me to change my "walking stance" a bit to accomodate my boxing training. Though not a true TKD or Boxing stance, the hybrid allows me to sit on a punch or, launch an effective kick. The hands too low is probably a result of your TKD training. The easiest solution to this would be to go a few rounds with a boxing instructor or boxing opponent. Pain is a wonderful teacher but taking a few pokes to the nose will get your hands up.
Yeah I don't want to combine the two styles for competition purposes, just to feel like a more "complete" fighter I've been in sparring session with good boxers and they've beaten me up quite good, but still I tend to let my guard down when getting into a clinch and sometimes to block a punch.. The punches you get are indeed quite hurtful, but my taekwondo reflexes are just too strong to change just like that.
Not saying this will happen over night, and I am sure someone like Slipthejab may be better able to correct the problem. With my background, I had the opposite issue. I had my hands high and kept getting the midsection and ribs torn up from kicks. Since WTF doesn't do much punching, my hands have dropped as my elbows do the protecting. My hands are still "up" compared to most WTF practitioners but I can catch most head kicks thrown my way!
Yeah headkicks are nasty.. I've luckily never had one since I'm quite tall (6 ft 4") and my reflexes haven't failed me so far (in competition that is..).
LOL, I am the perfect height for your kicks then. @ 5'8" it ain't much of a stretch for you. A sparring partner of mine is 6' 2", 147 lbs, and 17 years old (3rd Dan who's trained in Korea). I have been hit, put only because his leg was stronger then my block.
O'k this is actually simple enough when you are planning on kicking someone you can change to your kicking stance and into your boxing stance when wanting to punch,. the trick is to work on your footwork through skipping and dancing as you shadow box or do bag work, this way your stance is never fixed anyway, in my opinion boxers have the fastest footwork because of there stance so this could be a starting point till you suss out your opponent. as far as keeping your hands up-this takes loads of re programming as you've taught yourself it wrong over the years-this can change but only with repetiton.
Ok I'm going to give you a rambling response... (one that may not even directly answer you question) I'd say a low guard is going to get you murdered in boxing right off. You've spent a long time drilling that low guard into your muscle memory. It's going to take a lot of time reprogramming that muscle memory to keep a higher guard. Another issue is that with boxing you have a lot of time spent slipping and weaving. Something that you don't really focus on in TKD. So upper body mobility is going to need some reprogramming as well. Much of this is going to depend on how often you train the boxing. Two nights a week (I'm guessing here) is going to mean it's a long time before you reprogram yourself. Boxing, despite what most people think, is a leg sport. Those without legs go out pretty fast. Footwork is the basis for all boxing. No footwork... means no position to throw punches from. Without footwork... you will never get in range to land a single punch let alone a combo. So hopefully you have a boxing instructor that is boring you to death with footwork. You should be going home with your feet hot from all the footwork. I mean that literally... you should be feeling most of the workout in you legs. The constant movment takes it toll... and it's really very different than what most people think they know about boxing. Boxers train a whole lot similar to football players (Soccer in the US) or Rugby players... in terms of coordination drills and footwork regimens. I really can't emphasize enough just how important footwork is. Many of the drills we do for boxing don't look anything like boxing. In fact they look more Cricket drills (God forbid) or like kids playing hopscotch. It's not until about an hour after our warmup drills that we even start throwing punches. Like my trainer always says... you can always tell 'hobby boxers' by the way they come in and start hitting on the heavy bags right off - but are glued in place and don't move their head. In boxing nothing will get you zapped faster than no head movement and bad footwork. Anyhow - I realize this is rambling... but in my opinion... if you want to study boxing... study boxing and work towards a level of proficiency... trying to pick up one or two boxing techniques to improve your TKD or to 'round out' your overall fight ability is probably not going to happen. Sorry but that's my honest opinion. Boxing takes too much time to become proficient in.. you need to drill repetitively until every response is not thought about... it just is. If you have a proficient level in TKD... that's good for what it is. If you wan't to get that same proficiency in boxing... then you need to devote the same amount of effort to learning boxing. It ain't called the sweetest science for nothing. You need to be doing footwork and slipping drills every single day. That's right... every single day. Two nights a week doesn't cut if for boxing. Every single fricken day bro.
Thanks a lot for the good replies slipthejab and cowzerp, I can take a lot out of it. Anyway, I unfortunately have to admit that I don't really have the time to devote that much time into boxing. I have pretty busy TKD schedule and to be honest, I'm only boxing once a week right now. I can train on the bag next to that but that kind of training won't be supervised. As for the footwork you emphasize on slipthejab, I think that's kinda good where I train. My legs are pretty strong from my taekwondo training, but even still I had burning quadriceps the day after my boxing training. I honestly hadn't expected that, since I too expected it to be just an upper-body sport. If I can only put this much time into it and train next to it for myself, is it even worth it proceeding or not?
Yeah any exposure to boxing will be good. You will get something out of it. But just be realistic what you expect to get out of it. I do realize that not everyone can afford to devote as much time to boxing as would be ideal to really develop their skill set. So if you only have limited time with a boxing coach... really make the most of it and just know that you'll get out what you put in. If nothing else it will be a good change up from your normal routine that should improve your bodys overall condition and give you a nice change of mind for a bit. Good luck.
Thanks. I do realize that I won't be a world champion if I only train once a week.. I just like the sport, it's really tactical and all that. I also consider moving on to something like muay thai one day so some extra training in punches will be good for me.
If I remember right there is a TKD practitioner that's got a handy mix of styles... Jurras(?) I think is the name... I believe he's gone MMA.
