I’m not sure which one of those guys was your friend but I am assuming it was the white guy because he was the better boxer. He used a bunch of different guards throughout that fight but it looked to me like he defaulted to a binoculars type guard which worked really well for him. He had some top notch slipping though which I do not have so it may not work as well for me. That was a good fight though. Thanks for sharing that video.
I would defer completely to Sento’s advice on bareknuckle work. I default to straight punches when forced to throw bareknuckle punches for real, but feel more comfortable hitting the bag the way I’ve described, probably for the reasons Sento suggested - a lifetime of throwing punches with gloves and wraps leading to vulnerabilities in the kinetic chain. I have no formal training for bareknuckle, or indeed any time under my belt of training/coaching for RMAs. There’s no doubt who’s advice you should take on the subject.
[quote]Loftearmen wrote:
Sentoguy: A lot of what you said to do were things that I used to do in karate but that my last muay thai coach told me to stop doing because they were bad habits. It didn’t make sense to me to change them but I trusted him which maybe I shouldn’t have. 1-2-rt kick and 1-2-1-lft kick were how I threw those combos when I started at that school.
There is a lot of info here for me to try and implement. Thank yall for all of your input.[/quote]
There are in all honesty pros and cons to both methods, but IMO the method that I described and that you used to utilize (if done correctly) comes out ahead for most people.
The method your coaches subscribe to:
Pros-the fact that you are loading up your rear leg as you throw your lead hand strike (or loading up your lead leg as you are throwing your rear hand strike) and throwing your kick from that loaded position means a more powerful kick. If you have sufficiently conditioned your shins to the point where you can kick through baseball bats and not feel it this is fairly safe and indeed even a partially (or even fully) blocked kick will be a quote unpleasant experience for your opponent. Also, if you have the necessary flexibility and can vary the level of the kick (so you can throw it low, to the body, or to the head), then it’s more likely that you’ll eventually land a solid power kick.
Cons-due to the fact that you are alternating sides a good fighter will see the kick coming and at least partially block it unless you are very fast or their technique is off and they try to reach down to catch it like some wrestlers are fond of doing for example (in which case a high kick may KO them). Even if you have conditioned your body all it takes is landing the kick wrong on the point of a bent knee lower forearm of someone who has conditioned their limbs for blocking purposes and you could wind up with a broken leg. Or should your opponent just slightly change the range so you wind up landing with the top of your foot rather than your shin the chances of injury go up significantly. As a result this method of kicking is less likely to result in a consistent clean strike on the chosen target.
The method that I am fond of/you originally used:
Pros-since you are throwing a punch to the opponent’s head that is also precisely placed so as to blind the opponent of your lower body the likelihood that the opponent’s attention and guard will be occupied dealing with your punch and this not defending your subsequent kick goes up significantly. Most “striking rhythm” goes “left, right, left, right, left…” Or vice versa, so when you throw in a “left, right, left, right, right” it throws off a lot of people’s defensive timing (which is the key to landing shots on people that are faster than you). All of this results in a much higher likelihood of you landing a solid kick on your target without it getting blocked, or put more succinctly a higher degree of accuracy (which is the ultimate goal in striking) and a greater chance of catching your opponent unprepared for the strike. As Sugar Ray Robinson used to always say, “it’s the shot that you don’t see coming that really hurts you.”
Cons-throwing the kick in this manner definitely does take some of the power off compared to throwing it from a loaded position and launching straight into it. But, since you’ve got size, strength, and power in spades I highly doubt that the little you will lose in this department won’t be made up for with the increased accuracy and deception. Personally I’ll take a 50% power kick that lands exactly on target that my opponent didn’t see coming over a 100% power kick that lands on their shin/knee/elbow/forearm that they did see coming and were able to brace themselves for any day.
In the end the name of the game is ultimately effectiveness, so again, both methods can work. Also, often times coaches simply regurgitate what was taught to them or what worked for them without ever really questioning whether it’s really the best way that things could be done or whether it’s best for another individual. People also tend to get caught up in a “stylistic” mindset instead of a strategic mindset. So I’m sure your coaches had the best of intentions when they switched you over to the “alternating” method.
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
[quote]Loftearmen wrote:
I’m not sure which one of those guys was your friend but I am assuming it was the white guy because he was the better boxer. He used a bunch of different guards throughout that fight but it looked to me like he defaulted to a binoculars type guard which worked really well for him. He had some top notch slipping though which I do not have so it may not work as well for me. That was a good fight though. Thanks for sharing that video.[/quote]
Oh yea, sorry, my buddy is the white guy. And yes, that’s kind of the default, even though he does use the shell quite a bit too. But like you said, he’s great at slipping, so he can use that. For guys just starting out, the binoculars-type guard is the best (in my opinion). Learn to always keep your hands up, and you can always switch out of it. But if you never learn it, you’ll never last long enough to become proficient at other guards.
I forgot to mention, he also stresses hand training and grip work, like the old “buckets of rice” trick. Says its integral to having his hands be able to withstand the blows and not break. [/quote]
As in punching the buckets of rice (like the Shaolin Monks and other old school Martial Artists used to do, I.e. “Iron Palm” training) or the old “hand conditioning drills” that athletes such as baseball players do to maintain muscular balance? If it’s the former that’s interesting as I always felt that hitting the bag did a decent job of that (but have practiced punching hard surfaces like brick walls before, not hard mind you but as hard as Incomfortably could), especially if the stuffing in the bag has settled to the bottom, thus allowing you several different levels of hardness at different points on the bag.
If it’s the later than I absolutely agree, especially with all of the clenching of the fists and grip work than many bareknuckle punchers engage in. Personally though I prefer band extensions (Ironmind’s “Expand Your Hand Bands” are great) for this purpose as I never felt rice provided enough resistance (at least not after having done it for a little while).
BJJ Class
Coach brought in a guy for me to roll with who was about 6’3" 290lbs and a purple belt. He was pretty much impossible to deal with when rolling. I still had a strength advantage but I couldn’t completely power him around because his techniques were solid. It forced me to slow down and wait for an opportunity to attack/roll/change positions. It was a great learning experience. He said he would come back and roll with me every couple weeks.
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Bag work/shadow boxing between sets and then 10 min straight after lifting.
More shadow boxing: - YouTube
Bare Knuckle bag work: - YouTube
Setting up leg kicks on the heavy bag: - YouTube
My bag work got a little sloppy. I was just trying to see how hard I could comfortably hit the bag with bare knuckles which wound up being around 75%. I could have gone harder than that but I was nervous about it and didn’t want to push it. In time I will get better I am sure. The combos video is me rifling through all the different punch/kick combos Sentoguy and I went over. I throw one soft and one with a little power behind it for each combo. Some of them felt a little awkward so I just need to drill them more. Nice session overall I’d say
Yeah, the switch kick generally feels a little awkward when you first start throwing it in, and it would also be acceptable to throw just a regular lead leg round kick, but that kick isn’t going to have much power in it and thus isn’t a great technique with which to “close the door” at the end of a combo. If you were going to do that I would follow up the kick with a hand technique like a right cross over the opponent’s lead hand. By switching the stance you place the left leg in the rear position this giving you more distance from which to build momentum before impact, thus significantly increasing the power of your left round kick.
Also, just switching after you throw the right is ok, but doing so presents a “dead space”/gap in your offense and gives your opponent an opportunity to counter, reposition themselves in preparation of the kick (which a good opponent will see coming as soon as you switch your feet), or even just enough time to block the incoming kick. If however you throw your jab (which actually ends up being your straight left once you switch stance) just before or at the same time you switch, then the opponent is forced to deal with the punch coming at their face and your chances of landing the left kick go up significantly. Also, since the left kick targets the right side of the body/liver the left switch kick can be a devastating shot, especially if the opponent doesn’t see it coming because they are busy dealing with your left hand, even worse if their defensive action raises their elbows and thus spreads their ribs.
This simultaneous jab and switch step can take a while till it feels comfortable or till you get the coordination down, but once you do it’s a great skill to work into your sparring. Also if you mix up the “alternating” and “repeating” patterns while you are sparring you can really keep your opponent’s off guard defensively and mess with their defensive rhythm/timing.
A couple other pointers on your bareknuckle bag work:
-try to end your combinations with your lead hand (even if finishing with a kick throwing your lead hand as the kick is coming down will fill a gap in your offense and make you harder to follow back “out the door”). Finishing with the rear hand can leave you too square to the target and generally is more difficult to clear from
-in the same vein, you want to use offensive skills/firepower while “penetrating” the opponent’s defensive perimeter, and you also want to use firepower while clearing out of your opponent’s offensive perimeter (lots of fighters practice the former but neglect the later, try to implement both and you should get caught less often with counter strikes at the ends of your combos).
Keep up the good work. 
[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
A couple other pointers on your bareknuckle bag work:
-try to end your combinations with your lead hand (even if finishing with a kick throwing your lead hand as the kick is coming down will fill a gap in your offense and make you harder to follow back “out the door”). Finishing with the rear hand can leave you too square to the target and generally is more difficult to clear from
-in the same vein, you want to use offensive skills/firepower while “penetrating” the opponent’s defensive perimeter, and you also want to use firepower while clearing out of your opponent’s offensive perimeter (lots of fighters practice the former but neglect the later, try to implement both and you should get caught less often with counter strikes at the ends of your combos).
Keep up the good work. :-)[/quote]
Thanks for all the pointers, Sentoguy. Once again, you have proven to be a valuable resource and it is very much appreciated. So Friday, when I am doing my shadow boxing and bag work, I will focus on getting in, throwing my combos and exiting with a lead hand strike as I open up the distance again.
I am doing BJJ tonight so no striking drills.
BJJ Class
Went over some gi chokes and scissor chokes. Some of them were really cool and pretty easy to pull off. I rolled with coach for about 20 minutes and couldn’t pull off any of the chokes he taught in class because he’s always able to keep me in his guard. I need to practice breaking the guard and stopping people from regaining the guard.
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Saturday
Went to class and open mat at the Marcelo Garcia school. It was awesome. I rolled with around 10 guys and learned a ton. Some of them were pretty good, some of them weren’t as good but I still learned some things from them. I ripped all the skin off my feet on their mat so I will have to take rolling easy for a bit. I tapped my coach, Pat, in a no gi scissor choke which was pretty cool. 1 because I tapped my coach (although I am roughly twice his weight) and 2 because it was the first time I tapped someone with something other than an Americana. I did get a few guys with the Americana though.
Sunday
My feet were killing me. Every step is painful so I just did some squats barefoot because shoes rub the scabs and called it a day.
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(Burnt out, need a little r&r) I was already tired before squatting because I had planted a bunch of trees and done some projects around the house right before training.
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[quote]Loftearmen wrote:
Saturday
Went to class and open mat at the Marcelo Garcia school. It was awesome. I rolled with around 10 guys and learned a ton. Some of them were pretty good, some of them weren’t as good but I still learned some things from them. I ripped all the skin off my feet on their mat so I will have to take rolling easy for a bit. I tapped my coach, Pat, in a no gi scissor choke which was pretty cool. 1 because I tapped my coach (although I am roughly twice his weight) and 2 because it was the first time I tapped someone with something other than an Americana. I did get a few guys with the Americana though.
Sunday
My feet were killing me. Every step is painful so I just did some squats barefoot because shoes rub the scabs and called it a day.
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(Burnt out, need a little r&r) I was already tired before squatting because I had planted a bunch of trees and done some projects around the house right before training.[/quote]
Nice (about catching your coach in the scissors choke). How did you set it up?
Regarding ripping up your feet, been there done that, no fun. For years I would go back and forth between wearing wrestling shoes/Vibram’s Five Fingers/sneakers/combat boots (if we were working on cement or in the swamps) and being barefoot while grappling for this reason (still do it to some extent, but spend most of my time barefoot while teaching/participating in regular classes these days). I feel the use of wrestling shoes/five fingers gives you some safe wiggle room to learn how to properly use your feet while grappling without ripping them up while you work out the kinks. You can always take them off periodically or later down the road if you are going to compete, but you can’t go back in time and undo mat burn to them which can hinder your other training if you push it too hard. For this reason I allow my students to wear wrestling shoes or five fingers while they train if they want to, maybe your coach feels the same way, maybe he doesn’t, but if he does it’s an option.
[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
[quote]Loftearmen wrote:
Saturday
Went to class and open mat at the Marcelo Garcia school. It was awesome. I rolled with around 10 guys and learned a ton. Some of them were pretty good, some of them weren’t as good but I still learned some things from them. I ripped all the skin off my feet on their mat so I will have to take rolling easy for a bit. I tapped my coach, Pat, in a no gi scissor choke which was pretty cool. 1 because I tapped my coach (although I am roughly twice his weight) and 2 because it was the first time I tapped someone with something other than an Americana. I did get a few guys with the Americana though.
Sunday
My feet were killing me. Every step is painful so I just did some squats barefoot because shoes rub the scabs and called it a day.
Front Squat
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Squat
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(Burnt out, need a little r&r) I was already tired before squatting because I had planted a bunch of trees and done some projects around the house right before training.[/quote]
Nice (about catching your coach in the scissors choke). How did you set it up?
Regarding ripping up your feet, been there done that, no fun. For years I would go back and forth between wearing wrestling shoes/Vibram’s Five Fingers/sneakers/combat boots (if we were working on cement or in the swamps) and being barefoot while grappling for this reason (still do it to some extent, but spend most of my time barefoot while teaching/participating in regular classes these days). I feel the use of wrestling shoes/five fingers gives you some safe wiggle room to learn how to properly use your feet while grappling without ripping them up while you work out the kinks. You can always take them off periodically or later down the road if you are going to compete, but you can’t go back in time and undo mat burn to them which can hinder your other training if you push it too hard. For this reason I allow my students to wear wrestling shoes or five fingers while they train if they want to, maybe your coach feels the same way, maybe he doesn’t, but if he does it’s an option.[/quote]
My coach had me in his half guard, I reached my left arm behind his head and rested on my elbow with a heavy shoulder across his face, then I reached with my right hand and made a gable grip behind his head and really put my weight on his face so that I could slip my right leg out of his half guard. Once I had my leg out, I tucked my elbows in towards my stomach and slowly circled to the outside until the choke was tight. He had his hands between my arm and his throat so he said that it was as much a neck crank as it was a choke but that didn’t seem to stop him from tapping. That’s also why I circled out slowly instead of just sitting out. With my weight advantage I could have easily broken a person’s neck in that position if I wasn’t careful about it.
I never thought of wearing vibrams! That’s a great idea, I’ll talk to my coach about it. Thanks for that.
Ah, ok when you said scissor choke I was thinking leg scissor choke. I can see how you could call that choke you did a scissor choke though. Finishing it from your knees like you did can work, especially for someone as big and strong as yourself, but can also definitely result in a neck crank effect. Congrats for catching it.
Here is a nice video of Rob Kahn demoing that choke and talking about the finer points of maintaining control and getting to the optimal position to finish it from. Enjoy.
Awesome, thanks for that video Sento
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I did a little shadow boxing between sets but was pretty inhibited by my feet. I got some good endurance and conditioning work in though.
Tonight:
BJJ Class
[quote]Loftearmen wrote:
Awesome, thanks for that video Sento[/quote]
My pleasure.
Also, I know you said you’ve got the Americana a number of times, but if you want any pointers on executing that lock, extensions or combinations off of it, or set ups let me know. That is one lock that IMO we LSM guys do as well if not better than anyone else out there and a lock that I can confidently say I have to the point of “unconscious competence” (where it’s so natural to me at this point that I no longer have to consciously think about it but instead can just “flow”).