From Western Boxing to Thai Boxing Footwork (diary entry)

16.07.14 Tonight’s lesson - the fourth in my client’s Muay Thai for martial arts cross-training series - looked at revising all material taught and focused on creating more flow. We warmed up with a more detailed review of footwork. My client has already completed a course in basic self-protection and a course in Western Boxing for marital arts cross-training. Where possible, I try to build on strong similarities between the arts and these 10 lesson courses are not designed to teach a pure form of any art. Rather the rough basics are covered in order for my student to bring his training back to his self-defence base and path. This is very much in line with CCMA’s philosophy of putting the individual at the heart of training and not an artificial concept of art. However, we are at a stage where it is necessary for the client to detach from what he has learned in the previous courses in order to immerse himself in the new material. Footwork, of course, is both literally and figuratively at the base of standing movement. It influences stance, and is dictated by environment and conditions. Although Western Boxing and Muay Thai have a history of cross-pollination in the 20th century, particularly with the Dutch, and both complement each other very well, there are certain fundamental differences. Obviously these differences are influenced by the different rule-sets and choice of body weapons. Western Boxing allows for a more side-on and wider stance than Muay Thai. In some respects it shares similarities with European fencing, which is completely side-on and has a relatively long stance to enable better ground coverage in order to reach a target using the leading hand. Western Boxing, of course, changes stance and needs to bring the rear hand into play, so more angulation is necessary than it would be in the mainstream sport of fencing. However, like the modern European fencer, the Western Boxer tries to minimize his target area by turning his rear shoulder away. The Thai Boxer adopts a shallower and more square-on stance. The shorter foot positions allow for better defence against leg kicks. Many American style Kickboxers have suffered from using the wider more side-on stance used by Western Boxers, Karateka and Taekwondoka when faced with a seasoned Thai Boxer who unleashes the unforgiving leg kicks. The squarer shoulder position allows for better clinching and use of the elbows. Of course, under scrutiny the Thai Boxer sacrifices a wider target area up top and less stability down below. Our footwork exercises today weren’t the agility drill type. The client did more on-spot positioning, getting used to the rocking motion that is pretty unique to Muay Thai and its related arts. He turned to face the various different angles of the compass. We then went onto advancing and retreating footwork, building on it using the jab and switching stance midway. This was followed by sideways movement and the v-step, which we covered more when we got to the clinch. Staying with punches, I took him onto the focus mitts with a few basic combinations and defence-work, including bobbing and weaving. I made the point of explaining how the Thai Boxer must be wary of rolling too low with this evasive manoeuvre due to the danger from upward knee strikes. Then I brought in the kicks, blending the two ranges immediately. This was followed shin-blocks and how this motion can flow into a cross punch and also kicks. It was then time to review the slashing, horizontal, uppercut and downward elbow strikes when shadow boxing and against the Thai focus mitts. This was then blended back into clinch range. From here we incorporated knee strikes and went back over footwork, such as the aforementioned v-step and the side-rocking motion for sideways knees. This was then put under pressure with some clinch-only sparring. Photograph by Charlotte Von Bulow-Quirk Photography. Copyright Charlotte Von Bulow-Quirk/Jamie Clubb. No unauthorized use of this picture permitted. This is part of a series to be selected for Jamie Clubb's upcoming book, "Mordred's Victory" published by Ex-L-Ence Publishing

As a point of interest, the martial arts historian R.W. Smith maintained in his “Western Boxing and World Wrestling” that the roots of Western Boxing came from German fencing. I am not sure which type of German fencing he meant. Certainly the very early pugilism of the 1700s – at least before Daniel Mendoza introduced better footwork and defensive moves – had the stoic toe-to-toe style of fighting embraced by German Academic Fencing. However, the use of the backsword, which, along with the cudgel, was a part of the art of Western Boxing in the 1700s would bear some similarities to the way the cross punch in lined up.

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