23.04.14
Private Lesson
Tonight we held the session 2 of the CCMA boxing cross-training programme. Picking up from where we left off from the previous session, we continued with the jab. Last time we warmed up using some footwork agility drills that my client has continued along with skilling in his time between lessons. This time I focused on developing fast twitch muscle reflexes in my client’s stance-changing and dropping levels. My client is primarily a competitive long distance runner and the theory is that such athletes develop slow-twitch muscles. However, he is not unaware of sprint training and runs the track and hills too. My job was to make sure he got an even education in developing explosive power that would complement the techniques he has been learning with me.
Our warm-up exercise consisted of standing in a boxing stance, dropping low to touch the ground with the lead hand, shooting up, changing stance and changing back again to repeat. It was done slowly at first to ensure the hands remained in guard until the last moment and the non-touching hand remained in the same position.
Then we sped up the motion and also adjusted angles. This behaviour would later be carried over into more jab training. It works as a good muscle activation exercise too, with the fighter keeping a firm and straight posture throughout the exercise and engaging his quadriceps, gluteal muscles, hamstring tendons and the triceps surae in an accumulated sequence. This motion is good for the low jab, a lowline grappling attack, an evasive manouvre and Geoff Thompson even taught it as a method used by one of his old fellow doormen in his book "The Fence".
We then did some shadow boxing, revising the jab. Here we worked two ranges as well as forward and backward movement. This then continued onto the focus mitts. We varied the number of jabs and intervals to get very familiar with the technique. Then I introduced the low jab, which I had in mind when we did the first warm-up exercise. We then moved onto the cross. My client easily picked up this technique, having already covered the mechanics with the straight rear-hand strike in the self-defence course.
I touched on the subject of equipment adaptation that I have previously covered in a general lesson diary entry. This is in the form of training the slip/jab on a focus mitt. Many students struggle with the fact that they cannot hit the focus mitt they have been conditioned to use (the opposite side one). Some then conclude that the only way to train this motion is to slip with the pad and then use it as a target immediately afterwards. This creates a delay. Therefore, the best way to train it on the mitts is to use the same side mitt instead, allowing the technique to over-ride the slavish adherence to equipment rules. I also tested the evolution of a technique through natural selection. In this instance the client had only just learned the right cross. After slipping the jab, the client was told to follow up with a cross immediately. By a process of elimination he “invented” the overhand right.
We then put the low jab into a combination as well and worked it before doing some freestyle work. Here the client got to bring in in more footwork, varied ranges, varied combinations of punches, changed stance, varied speeds and dropped levels all just using the jab/cross combination.
Write-up of recent CCMA cross training workshop (diary entry) (clubbchimera.com)
Comments