Outsider's Point of View (diary entry)

29.10.18 Tonight’s junior Boxing lesson looked at improving fluidity of footwork and the 11 punch combination. The senior lesson focused on outside fighting for Boxing and Muay Thai. The junior lesson continued with the peek-a-boo style. We worked more on coordinating upper body movement (slipping, ducking, bobbing and weaving) with footwork. I used a restrictive training device to get my client up on his toes for five minutes and then looked at marked improvements afterwards in his performance. We also revised the 11 punch combination, paying particular attention to dropping levels for the hook to the body. Training was done first with mirror footwork then on the focus mitts and finally a round of sparring. My client was advised to add to his regular home fitness training, a round of restricted footwork, a round of normal footwork, a round of restricted punching, a round of normal punching and then a round of freestyle shadow boxing. My senior lesson continued on our theme of stand-up fighting. Recently we have been doing a lot of work fighting out of the pocket, including cornering, fighting out of the corner and dirty boxing. Tonight it was time to look at things from the “outsider’s point of view”. Outside fighting, especially in Western Boxing, is the most celebrated part of modern fighting. This is where arguments for artistry and science are made. When I think of great outside fighters, I start my journey with Daniel Mendoza and then I jump a hundred years to Jim Corbett, Willie Pep, Ray Robinsion, Muhammad Ali and Ray Leonard. Today we have Vasyl Lomachenko. These men were excellent at moving around opponents, drawing and hitting on the move. We worked on a series of drawing combinations, using the L-step and the V-step. The plan was to create a false pattern and then change the tempo for the opponent. Then we looked at using the teep and the jab to keep our nak muay opponents at bay. Footwork here needs to be tighter due to the nature of Muay Thai’s fighting range. All of the above was trained using mirror footwork. The lesson finished with the following 1 round Western Boxing specific sparring – long-range versus a crowder 1 round Muay Thai specific sparring – long range versus clincher 1 round Western Boxing free-sparring 1 round Muay Thai free-sparring 1 round pad-work reinforcing all of tonight’s tactics Above photo from Sneak Punch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtU_aX7wLdk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmyTY1V8FYA&t=302s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NMcp3n0IQg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGdVMyI3uck https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nac0qnuqGDQ