So over the last year or so I've been almost exclusively focused on the development of my kickboxing/standup. I'd traditionally always done a bit to keep my hand in (whilst focusing on a grappling approach to mma) but nothing to really advance it since when I was regularly into Muay Thai. Coming back to it now and really looking at developing it, I've hit upon certain frustrations that I'm only now beginning to see my way out of. Long story short: I've realised that all my issues came from attempting to pour myself into the cup of striking orthodoxy from whichever art I was currently training. More specifically I realised that these days I'd been adopting a pretty rigid adherence to a squared off, taller, Thai boxing 'wall' style of stance, footwork and strategy which, while working ok left me feeling immobile and I just felt lack luster, sluggish and a little 'off'. After working a lot and going back to the drawing board I've found that blading off my stance more and sitting into my legs a little deeper I'm far more mobile and my movements are much more natural and fluid. It's also helped facilitate a much more aggressive and proactive striking approach where I'm creating angles far easier and setting up kicks and crosses off the jab a lot. All in all I feel like I'm expressing my natural striking disposition far better. Obviously I'm not saying I've become some striking guru now. I still need loads of work (as the hilarious but accurate slogan of KSW says 'we need more practice') but simply sharing an example of where I've applied the concept of accepting what is useful, rejecting what is useless (to me) and adding what is specifically my own OR when you empty your cup it's a good idea to pour what you had somewhere safe because you might want to take a swig or two later down the road Has anyone else had similar experiences? Does anyone have an opinion on balancing self expression, existing skills, learning a discipline and improving your ability?
Yeah I'm the same. I can do an imitation of Miay Thai well enough, but I get hit more than I like. When I'm using JKD kickboxing I get hit a lot less, although the energy expended in simply moving in and out and off center is heftier.
Yeah I agree there is more energy expenditure in that you are moving more but it's mitigated against by the fact I'm landing more and not getting caught as much. Also it's a good, incentive to up my conditioning!
The other thing to consider as a practitioner of Muay Thai in the West is that the orthodox structures were developed for the game as it's played in Thailand. In the West you'll often experience fighting with people who punch more than would be deemed "correct" by Muay Thai purists. Therefore a modified stance makes some sense.
Yeah I think that's very true from a sport specific perspective. I suppose my overall point is that regardless of the orthodoxy (whether it's art, region or instructor based) you have to evaluate its merits against your own inclinations and how it feels to your body (although your point about context is interesting and totally valid). I always felt a tall, squared stance felt quite relaxed and fantastic for launching kicks and defending kicks (the traditional sports context you I mentioned) but left me really immobile and reactionary and was totally at odds with my natural inclination to throw in high volume with lots of in-out and circular movement and essentially pressure fight. Ideally I'd like to develop a personal striking style that functions across all relevant contexts. I think getting in tune with how your body feels and how it wants to move is really pivotal within that. Have you experienced anything similar with how CLF and CSW striking approaches gel/clash with your own predispositions?
Not really, I'm very much the product of my training. However I do strive to understand what I do at a conceptual level, which usually leads me to understand why they want me to do it that way. It also allows me the mental flexibility to adapt it if the context changes.
Everyone moves differently, has different preferences for range and such. A lot of that is body type, but personality comes into it as well. That's why I feel a set of principles is superior to a set of techniques, and students should have the freedom to express themselves within the boundaries of those principles. Cookie-cutter approaches to technical orthodoxy always suit the minority of students. Cool OP, by the way
I don't have the fitness or reflexes to play and in/out movement game. So I tend to try and stay in the pocket, "occupy space" (a new idea I'm playing with when sparring) and pressure. These days, having cross trained a fair bit, I'm a bit of an ugly chimera. Not quick or mobile enough for TKD, not tough or solid enough for Thai, too front on to protect against side kicks well, too side on to defend leg kicks well. Hah.
Yes! I agree. Learning principles is massively important. I think technique should be taught against the backdrop of its underlying principles at all times. Ultimately techniques then serve as an embodiment of principle and any personal interpretations of that technique should be fine as long as it adheres to that fundamental foundation. Lol. I'm really struggling with not being the stand up fighter I was in my 20s but I'm still putting out good work... Hopefully my technical choices and fight style will continue to adapt to and mitigate against my advancing decrepitude :/
Absolutely. A fighting system should be coherent, and the principles explicit in all techniques, even in knowing when and how to break those principles. An instructor needs to be aware of the hierarchy of principles in order to know how much leeway a student can get away with in their expression (of course, this should be demonstrated live, rather than handed down as dogma). It seems crazy to me that some martial artists spend years trying to deduce and infer a set of principles from a syllabus of disparate techniques.
I saw an good video the other day which speaks to the point you just made about judging leeway as a coach (I'll not find it again as it was found during one of those 3am abyssal descents into the endless nebula of YouTube martial arts videos that we are all guilty of from time to time) but it was a boxing coach talking about rules as being a straight line which guides the fighters progression but that he expects his fighters to walk it in a zig zag. His job is to regulate the margins and make sure they don't walk too far off course. Paraphrasing obviously but I liked the analogy. It's tricky because in certain instances there just are superior ways of achieving things regarding specific techniques. But more often than not that's because they are the most efficient manifestation of the underlying principles. That doesn't render other interpretations invalid though I suppose as long as they aren't technically a deficient. I guess the key is in spotting the difference, having the difference pointed out to you or understanding the consessions and limitation of how you are choosing to do things.
That's were heuristic learning comes into play: if you're doing this against resisting opponents then it should become obvious. Different people of similar general skill level will still be able to get away with techniques that you can't though, and vice-versa. Everyone has different aptitudes and attitudes.
I completely agree but be careful, you'll elicit an aliveness diatribe from me... And I'm sure there's enough of those floating around the net. Exactly. And some of those things we might have to drop or modify or otherwise refine as we progress.
The even bigger problem is being in a completely closed MA ecosystem, where everybody is expected to follow dogmatic movement patterns. Even if you employ heuristic learning, the sample size of different technical approaches is too small to draw universal principles from. As a student, I'd agree. As an instructor, I'd say you have to be a step ahead of everything your students are doing. You could argue that this is a double-edged sword, as you dedicate training time to becoming a completist, rather than specialising in your own most successful tactics. I think it eventually becomes an advantage though, as you have a larger pool of tactics with which to respond to different opponents.
Cross training for the win. I think this is the biggest reason to train with new people: whether that's people at different gyms or different arts altogether. For example BJJ is amazing but wrestling is also amazing and submission wrestlers grapple in very interesting and different ways to the mean BJJ practitioner. Thai boxing coach is amazing but but freestyle karateka with good boxing are also very very good. They're just different. I think taking a universal approach to each area of specialism as in it's all standup, it's all clinch it's all ground etc and funding a way to unify those as a wholeistic package that works in all the contexts you care about is the most beneficial and open minded way to view your development. I think the process should remain the same, no? What I mean is that in sparring/playing/drilling/working [insert appropriate monikor for how you view you live resistance work here] with your students you might for example have a 100% success rate defending a takedown using a few different context appropriate responses but find they don't work as well against someone with a more mechanically efficient, technical shot or who sets up the shot better and you might find you need to either totally change your expression of the fundamental principles which were guiding your defence, simply tweak your existing responses or fundamentally re-evaluate your driving principles?
Although I don't cross-train, I always take up the opportunity to spar people from other arts, and most of my students have some kind of background in other arts. I can see cross-training as putting a lot more emphasis on the student being able to guide their own development, as you are back to trying to infer, or discover, your own tactical principles. Nothing wrong with that, but it is more than a lifetime's work. I saw an interview with an MMA fighter a month or two ago where he was saying it can be confusing when your MT coach and your boxing coach give contradictory advice and corrections, for example. How do you find it? You also have to consider how context affects tactical principles; rule sets being an obvious example. If your weapon and empty hand techniques are interchangeable, then you will not move the same as someone who only trains for empty hand, as the risk/reward calculation is different. Ah, yes. When you said "drop", I thought you meant dropping a viable technique because it doesn't suit your game plan, or you find it difficult to perform. You can't do that if you're expected to teach others how to apply it.
I see what you mean. I'd consider sparring and exchanging with other practitioners crosstraining. Ultimately you are still experiencing another approach, which is the key really. Yeah it used to bug me somewhat at one Thai gym where I felt I was being forced to adopt specific technical habits which didn't always sit and on occassion in my experience negetively impacted my skills. One particular example was being told to throw a knee in a fashion which felt incredibly unnatural and completely robbed me of all my power (my knee is one of my strongest weapons). The technical corrections also jarred with both previous and subsequent instruction from other coaches. The way I throw it now generates pretty huge force (i once unfortunately caused a fracture in my pad holders skull/face when the Thai pad rose up from their body and hit them in the mouth from a knee) so im happy to keep my old habit and be in an environment where I'm encouraged to do it that way. Mostly though the coaching between striking approaches have gelled well added perspective to each other. I'm allowed freedom to use pretty much what I want as long as it isn't stupid and is technically sound... Essentially exactly what we talked about. All bad habits are a work in progress and get ironed out through sparring anyway. Like today I was reminded why I should keep my head movement tighter when kicks are in play... Nothing like a foot/shin to the face to impart that one. Oh I gotcha. No I just meant adapting to whatever deficiencies you locate when exposing your technique to pressure. I think as a coach you might not always use a certain technique and that's fine as long as you know it well enough to impart it in exacting detail, delineate it's strengths and weaknesses and aid someone else to utilise it for themselves. Most competitive judoka only use a small selection of their throws in comp but they can show and talk about all of them in technical detail.
