Kong Falls Dead from Empire State Building

Training
21

[quote]Robert A wrote:

[quote]LondonBoxer123 wrote:
I have never seen that tree pose before. I watched the video, and it looks interesting. Has it had a measurable benefit on your training? It’s obviously a balance and strength thing, but has it had more specific benefits with particular techniques, points of movement etc? Is it something that outlives its usefulness once someone is past the beginner phase, or is it something that you continue to use, despite your considerable experience and prowess?

If it’s effective then it looks like a good way of getting a bit more work in at the end of a session, or before hand as part of a warm up, or for the younger lads as a bit of a competition. I’d be interested to know more. [/quote]

At the end of the day, it’s just standing on one leg. I doubt anyone at your level would find it to be magic, but if you are coming back from a lower body injury one legged balance can be tits.

For guys with you or humble’s experience it is more in the recovery/relaxation end.

I have seen great results in children, and people who lack proprioception to a degree. If standing on one leg with balance is difficult, than moving around and avoiding the strikes thrown with bad intentions is going to be a tall order. I think the OP is in that category.

Regards,

Robert A [/quote]

Thanks for the reply Robert, appreciated as always. I actually tried it myself and found that once I got into the position, I was able to hold it pretty comfortably. I wonder (assuming it’s not done around sharp edges) whether there would be any added benefit to doing it (or something similar) with the eyes shut? I want to try it with some of the kids when I see them next. Trouble is, there was a lot of hopping and swearing, as well as some less than elegant tugging on my ankle to get it into position. I reckon it would have looked like a cheap seaside re-enactment of Monty Python’s greatest hits to any passing stranger.

22

I did a parkour class last year and we’d constantly do it with our eyes closed. Basically, balancing is a function of your vestibular system; your eyes just assist it. Take your eyes away and it becomes a PURE vestibular exercise.

23

[quote]nighthawkz wrote:

I did a parkour class last year and we’d constantly do it with our eyes closed. Basically, balancing is a function of your vestibular system; your eyes just assist it. Take your eyes away and it becomes a PURE vestibular exercise.[/quote]

Thanks for the info. Couple of questions, if and when you have a second: How efficient is it to train? Have you noticed any crossover to your fighting? Always interesting to learn new stuff that might be of benefit.

24

Yes! and besides myself, you people have been enriching each other and anyone else surfing this site who ever ran into my sort of situation, there must be a few around. so, great thanks!

I will get into reading the Dempsey the next time I can clear a chance to actually read and properly absorb and interpret. And the video.

I still have one lesson with my block I already paid for, I actually want to see if I can make some use of it. i want to see if He can spend that time on more defensive skills. He already has taught bobbing and weaving, and using that to set up hooks and uppercuts, maybe it just didn’t come out in videos posted.

25

[quote] humble wrote:

Ok, that gives a little background.

My ‘humble’ opinion, yet honest one?

1.Lose your friends number. He’s not a boxer, no fucking way.

  1. Walk into a pure boxer gym and suck it up and feel the discomfort of being way out of your league.

  2. Assess how you feel after that first session in a place where guys want to eat the padding on mitts and bags with their teeth if they could. Straight out bad asses who know how to box and look like the pads and bags they hit have feelings that are being hurt. Really step back and look at yourself in the third person and think, ‘Is this guy cut out to act, feel, behave, rage, exert energy, train, commit, cop the pain day in and day out?’ Sorry, once a week will get you no where. You need to be doing it at least every second day, preferably ever day.

Once you make an honest appraisal, decide and move forward either to boxing or in another direction.

The guy is playing with your nuts. I spend 6 months with a guy on constant drilling of feet placement, foot work, weight transfer etc. Guy finally starts to show some proper movement and someone tickles his balls elsewhere and he leaves. LOL. He now looks like rat shit again, but hey, his friends think he is a machine on facebook lmao.

Don’t be that guy.

This saying I have repeated about 4 times this week on various subjects. "Dig in one place and you will eventually hit water, quench your thirst and quench others. Dig a little here or there, move on and dig elsewhere and again and again and all you will do is dirty your hands and die of thirst.

Digging in this metaphor doesn’t mean you go to the beach and start digging. That’s just dumb. Staying with that trainer is that similitude. So when you dig, dig in the proper place, with the right tools and keep at it relentlessly… if you want it that bad.[/quote]

An AMAZING post. Thank you.

OP, I have watched your videos and all I can tell you from my observation as a humble JKD and Kickboxing guy is the following:
You have no hip involvement whatsoever. As one of my teachers once stated: “The punch starts in your ankle and ends in your oponents face” You on the other hand mostly involve the upper body. That might be the reason (together with your footwork) why you are always attacking out of reach. Talking about your footwork:
There is too much of what we called in my club “happy feet”. You are bouncing waaay too much on your toes and wasting energy. Too many unnecesary steps! When you set up your punches you often make a little “jump” to get in range. This is a highly telegraphic movement. Avoid it.
I think you could eliminate a lot of your footwork problems by bending your knees a little bit more. (I dont know if a slight dip in the knees is essential in boxing, but in kickboxing it is). Ah and by the way. Think of your movement as “3D”. You are literally walking in straight lines towards your coach! Try to circle arround your opponent and trap him in the corners.

The next problem is the lack of relaxiation in your guard. A tense muscle is a slow muscle.

Try to purposefully think of your hands as “spaghetti”. Yep, your arms are nicely relaxed “al dente” spaghettis. Now throw them out without making a fist during the end of the “punch”. Notice how they are moving faster. The next step is to integrate the hips. Assume your stance and really think about how the hips, and your weightshift affect your punches. Try that for a while and see how it works. Once you got the groove figured out make a fist as soon as you make contact (remember you are still shadow boxing! Visualize the opponent). Your wrist will “snap” if you do it one hundred percent right. To develop the snap you can try to catch a tennis ball that one of your training partners is letting fall on arm’s reach in front of you.
Catch it and bring it back into your guard. That’s the way I was taught how to punch as a child

How to fix the “fear of contact” problem when in range:
Do your combos with a partner who is actually trying to punch you.
Let’s take look at an example.
Your partner’s duty is to go for a 3 (Jab-Cross-Lead Hook)

So that means you have to pulll your guard up and TAKE the punches. First from the front and then from the side by moving your hands, torso and lifting your shoulder girdle.
As soon as you advance and learn how to take, you will later on involve trapping, bobbing and weaving into these drills, as well as positioning yourself.

Anyways. I am a mediocre boxer but a great sh*t talker, if any of the things written here are wrong, feel free to tear me apart.

26

yes, thank you quiet for your response. In proper defense of my coach actually, he does state I still need work at relaxing and loosening up. He even reminds me when doing drills without gloves on to not make the fist until contact. Even to wiggle my fingers at times, that helps relax. He does believe in bouncing frontwards and back, as has been criticized in another thread. He even has had me on a truck tire shifting weight forwards for a jab and hauling back for a straight right. this is part of his belief in getting into a rhythm, although another thread criticized that as well.

27

Look like you came here for advice and everyone is telling you your coach is a bum, but you continue to defend him. Makes sense.

28

You look like a white guy who just started boxing. Crappy movement, little understanding of how to generate power, and awkward footwork. But hey, you’re a beginner. So it’s expected.

From what I saw of your coach, he doesn’t seem particularly ill-informed. I don’t like the idea of jabbing then stepping back and throwing a 1-2… it’s kind of a stupid combo that will get you hit - but his movement and form and all seemed ok. I don’t like judging coaches without at least seeing more than a two-minute snippet.

Your problems probably stem more from training occasionally once a week than anything else.

Think about it like this - if, when you were 17 years old, you only drove once a week - if you could fit it in - for about an hour, how long would it take to become a competent driver?

You must devote more time to the practice or you will not be proficient.

29

hey kong,

i’d like you to try something if the experts(not me)agree.

what I see when I watch your video is a southpaw being incorrectly coached as an orthodox.

I say this because I am southpaw and see your feet setting for a second as a southpaw before they move back to ‘unnatural’(for you)as you seek to fit in with your coach’s training.

if humble and the other fighters have time to re-examine your footage they may concur.

not to be disrespectful to your efforts but it is hard to be as poorly footed as what you showed.you should be(rightly)being dominated due to speed,defence and experience issues but imo not because you are stepping in with both feet or punching with both hands.

i think you may be being coached against your natural strengths.

30

I am naturally left handed, and dating back in my journal to around this time last year i was I think largely working as such.

I ran into the club doorman who set me up with my recent coach, this doorman said that if I throw a ball with my right (I do), I should make the right my straight power shot. Thus i changed.

Does anyone think I should switch back? thanks for mentioning it.

31

hey mate,

sounds like we might be onto something.

if you start stepping and jabbing with what feels natural,the difference will be night and day.

see below link that I found very helpful.this is something you could adopt before you have too many habits ingrained.it is also something you could set up at home to give you access to that daily focus that the other guys referred to.

if the link doesn’t work,search ‘boxings rack’ on youtube.

cheers,

32

[quote]DeadKong wrote:
I am naturally left handed, and dating back in my journal to around this time last year i was I think largely working as such.

I ran into the club doorman who set me up with my recent coach, this doorman said that if I throw a ball with my right (I do), I should make the right my straight power shot. Thus i changed.

Does anyone think I should switch back? thanks for mentioning it.[/quote]

A- HA!

And this is why your footwork looks like you’re a monkey with down syndrome after too much vodka.

Not everyone is cut from the same cloth, and you are one of the oddball who confuse the hell out of everyone else.

I’m similar - I write righty, throw righty, cut with scissors righty, jerkoff righty, you name it.

But, if you bring me to the batting cages, I hit lefty. And I golf lefty. I play hockey lefty. And, not shockingly, I box lefty.

You should literally switch ASAP. That garbage about switching lefties to orthodox stance died off a long time ago, and it’s honestly nothing but an advantage in the ring.

33

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
a monkey with down syndrome after too much vodka.
[/quote]

Bourbon, usually bourbon.

Sometimes Scotch.

The vodka is mostly for making a bloody mary.

And I don’t have Trisomy 21…I’m just not that good at thinking.

Regards,

Robert A

34

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:

[quote]DeadKong wrote:
I am naturally left handed, and dating back in my journal to around this time last year i was I think largely working as such.

I ran into the club doorman who set me up with my recent coach, this doorman said that if I throw a ball with my right (I do), I should make the right my straight power shot. Thus i changed.

Does anyone think I should switch back? thanks for mentioning it.[/quote]

A- HA!

And this is why your footwork looks like you’re a monkey with down syndrome after too much vodka.

Not everyone is cut from the same cloth, and you are one of the oddball who confuse the hell out of everyone else.

I’m similar - I write righty, throw righty, cut with scissors righty, jerkoff righty, you name it.

But, if you bring me to the batting cages, I hit lefty. And I golf lefty. I play hockey lefty. And, not shockingly, I box lefty.

You should literally switch ASAP. That garbage about switching lefties to orthodox stance died off a long time ago, and it’s honestly nothing but an advantage in the ring. [/quote]

Switching may help, or it may not. I would go ahead and give it a shot.

I will not that De La Hoya who, aside from crossdressing, had a lot of success was a leftie who fought orthodox.

Plenty of people are more “comfortable” and less “akward” strong side forward. So this might not solve all your problems. Please note that fencers keep their strong/sword side forward, and they don’t have bad footwork.

How has training been?

Do you have Dempsey’s book?

Have you done the drills I outlined?

Regards,

Robert A

35

[quote]Robert A wrote:

How has training been?

Do you have Dempsey’s book?

Have you done the drills I outlined?

Regards,

Robert A[/quote]

I have been reading the Dempsey book, in detail. I am just before hooks, and I want to get down pat with falling step shots and whirling shoulders, as well as more shuffling around in stance, southpaw now, before I try to advance. I sort of dismantled myself to take steps forward.

I have been keeping my journal in 035, I don’t want to whore up this thread too much, I will continue there and sparingly post here. I have the sense I am getting a good jolt with it, it is just that the base feet of my heavy bag stand with anchor plates either directly inhibit some of the footwork, or I anticipate they will. Because I am having to reset after each shot, I am not anywhere near the intensity level that I was, so instead of doing maybe 3 rounds on the bag I make it 6, and it still seems to take less out of me.

Sorry, I know I should, I tried tree pose once and realized I am so far a novice, and haven’t taken another shot. Actually, tomorrow is off, so i will not ruin recovery making another go.

Thanks all posts, and for following up.

36

Kong,

Lots of good advice so far.

From watching your videos I would agree with those who have stated that you need to go back and develop your foundation. Sparring is a crucial aspect of training and skill development, but it should not be engaged in until you have actually developed some skills to use in it. Here are two of my instructors’ instructors (both of whom I have had the honor to train with), Joe Lewis and Bill Wallace talking about skill development. Joe lists the order in which skills should be taught in order for fighters to develop confidence and proficiency in their techniques:

In case you didn’t catch the order it’s:

  1. Technique skills
  2. Hitting skills
  3. Defensive skills
  4. Defensive sparring
  5. Defensive counter sparring
  6. Sparring (this could be full blown freestyle sparring or more limited sparring, like only jabs but either fighter can throw whenever they want)

My advice is to start this process with just the jab.
-Learn how to throw it in the air (and how to properly move with it), even if you have to go painfully slow at first but correct, that is better than fast but wrong.
-Start hitting things, but make sure you are doing it right
-Learn how to defend against the jab
-Learn to apply your defensive skills against the jab in a sparring context
-Learn how to counter off of your defensive skills against the jab in a sparring context
-Spar freestyle but only using the jab

Then repeat the same thing with the straight right, then the left hook, then the right uppercut, and so on. Yes, this will take a while, but when you are done you will have developed at least decent level skills utilizing and defending punches. At that point you can obviously continue repeating this process or move on to more advanced strategic drills/development.

Next piece of advice would be to really work on your basic footwork. I mean just “step slide” forwards, backwards, straight to the left, and straight to the left. Do this over and over until you feel in balance the whole time, you never cross your feet, and you always wind up in your fighting position (not a narrower stance, not a wider one, not more bladed or more square, the same every time). Once you’ve got that down practice your angular footwork (forwards to the right, forwards to the left, backwards to the right, and backwards to the left), circular/arching footwork, and finally your pivoting footwork (turn “in” on your lead foot, turn “out” on your lead foot, pivot “back” on rear foot).

Footwork/mobility is one of the most crucial aspects of striking/boxing, and to be quite honest yours needs A LOT of work. You have to do your basic footwork until it becomes second nature and you actually feel uncomfortable when you are not in the right position. At that point if you want to start playing around with “shuffle step” or “spring step” footwork you can try, but until then it will only hinder your development as a fighter.

Third is that you need to fix your defensive position. Your chin is way up in the air, your hands are down most of the time (this can work for advanced fighters or those who are very naturally gifted with speed, but for a beginner like yourself it’s a recipe to get hit a lot), you lean your upper body backwards (again I think this will largely be fixed by following the above progression for developing your techniques) which disconnects your upper body from your lower body and removes your true power (thus you become an arm puncher). You also have a very bad habit of habit of dropping your left hand when you throw your right hand. Your hands should always come back to your chin at the completion of your punches (unless of course your are immediately throwing the same hand again).

37

Hmm, video didn’t work, let’s try again.

38

As always, thanks for responses of late, I am sure this thread could be of use to many others like me.

As I pore over the ideas of what to do next, I wonder if I should put a bit more stress back onto pure lifting, as footwork and shadow boxing for the near term won’t actually work my muscles.

39

[quote]DeadKong wrote:
As always, thanks for responses of late, I am sure this thread could be of use to many others like me.

As I pore over the ideas of what to do next, I wonder if I should put a bit more stress back onto pure lifting, as footwork and shadow boxing for the near term won’t actually work my muscles.[/quote]

In your case, in which you have a very hard time with relaxation and not using too much muscle, I don’t think that focusing on lifting is going to be a great idea. Instead just put more time and energy into training your fundamentals.

Try this simple workout that is footwork, punching technique skills and punching hitting skills focused and tell me that you feel like going to the gym afterwards or would want to try this when you are sore from heavy lifting:

  1. Footwork “clock drill”- 25 repetitions of
    -forwards then back to center
    -backwards then back to center
    -left then back to center
    -right then back to center
    -diagonal forwards to the right then back to center
    -diagonal backwards to the right then back to center
    -diagonal forwards to the left then back to center
    -diagonal backwards to the left then back to center
    -pivot “in” on front foot then back to center
    -pivot “out” on front foot then back to center
    -circle right then back to center
    -circle left then back to center

You should strive to keep moving through the whole flow and do your best to try to complete all 25 reps of this flow stopping as little as possible (with the caveat that your focus should be on striving to stay in balance the whole time, not crossing your feet, and maintaining your fighting position including keeping your hands up, chin down and slight bend in your knees the whole time).

  1. Perform 20 more repetitions of the same footwork sequence as above but this time throw a “1, 2, 3, 4” combination (with as perfect form as you can meaning that at least one hand is always on the side of your chin/face, both when not punching) every time you step in a given direction (not when you return to center though).

  2. If you can find a partner to hold pads then perform 10 more repetitions of the same drill as above, but this time you’ll actually be hitting the pads instead of just practicing the punches in the air (make sure your pad holder watches you to make sure you are "re-covering/bringing your hands back to your chin/head after you punch with them and of course try to hold yourself responsible for doing this as well).

All in all that’s 55 repetitions of footwork in each direction, 240 reps of each punch thrown in the air, and 120 reps of each punch thrown on the pads

If you don’t have a partner to hold pads for you then on a heavy bag do:
-50 jabs
-50 straight rights
-50 left hooks
-50 right uppercuts (to the body if you don’t have an uppercut bag)
-50 jab, straight rights
-50 jab, straight right, left hooks
-50 jab, straight right, left hook, right uppercuts

Again, tell me that you would want to do this workout when you are sore or that you would want to go lift afterwards

40

As usual, thanks for the advice.

I thought that if I was going to have to back down from bag work for a while, i might take up the exercise slack with weights, that was the idea.

So, I took a quick look at the routine you wrote out, might I hold approximately 150g skipping rope handle weights in my hands as I do this? Same idea there.

So i will probably kick into this soon, this coming week, especially if someone else concurs. How many times a week should I be at it? Should I continue with skipping rope work twice a week as I am? I was thinking of doing a leg day by itself once a week as I have been, should that stay?