The hardest part of boxing is not the punches - it’s everything else. Defense, footwork, evasion, angles, combinations, timing, conditioning, etc.
Plus people think punching is natural but its not… Trust me everything about boxing is hard. I teach boxing all the time and people are never natural ever. They’re always terrible… every time. And stay terrible until like 6 months of diligent training where people become a little less terrible lol.
I want to stress a few things here as someone that has practice all sorts of martial arts including Karate and Boxing…
Firstly, there are many techniques in boxing. Just because it seems like there is only punching with both hands, everything from combinations to body movement and defense, footwork etc. There are actually lots of techniques. However, just because a martial art has lots of techniques does not make it complicated. The most complicated sport I’ve done in all my years of Judo or Boxing or Kung Fu or Karate etc is Kendo. Kendo has the least amount of techniques of any and probably all martial arts. There are only 4 strikes in all of Kendo. Men, Kote, Do, and a technique you dont even hardly use until WAYYYYY later called Tsuki. Kendo is hands down the hardest martial art I’ve ever done and has the least amount of techniques. The reason is because they are perfecting 4 techniques, and the pursuit of this is insanely hard.
Secondly, throwing a kick properly is very difficult. I’m personally terrible at kicks even though my dad ran the kickboxing club before it became a boxing club. That said, throwing a PROPER Punch (and this needs exclamations and *****) is not easy or intuitive. People spend lifetimes perfecting technique. Its not easy. I feel like you don’t have proper perspective on this yet in the same way as you probably apply this mentality to your Karate. Something you should examine more.
Just my two cents.
I concede I judged too easily in that comment. I was only looking from the outside.
Why do I get this feeling that Emanuelb might be the biggest troll in this thread? Like he might legitamitely be a world class fighter/martial artist. He might be a real life Baki Hanma or Ryu or some shit.
Eh if he is trolling it is masterful
Using english as a second language excuse too.
Hmmm.
Nah, i have run into so many kung fu and karate fanatics who say boxing and muay thai are weak compared to karate or wing chun
@MIRACLEARROW
Well said
Punching (specifically with knuckles) isn’t particularly easy. And there’s several ways of punching on top of it all depending on what kind of impact you want. I agree that the less number of techniques, the harder the whole thing becomes. Especially if it is competitive. Multi-hit punches (one movement, three or four impacts) would have been the next thing I’d have been learning had I stayed, and that stuff definitely confused the heck out of me (“Wait there’s more!!!???”) when I was on the receiving end, and also it was difficult to practise.
Also wondering about importance in the number of techniques, yes traditional arts have lots of techniques (the style I learned had more than 1000+ forms). However, your normal practitioner will not learn all of them (or even 25 % of them), and is taught stuff he is interested in, or seems to be weak at. Some times the forms taught are selected by the body build and so on. So even when you think there’s lots of techniques, that’s not necessarily so. You’ll end up selecting those that work with you. Most of the 1000 forms we had were modified forms for different personality people with different body builds to get similar end results.
Yes, boxing reduces the number of techniques more, but you also get to practise every single one of them more. On what it comes to the flashy stuff seen in traditional arts, I see them as a way of surprising the opponent with something he doesn’t have immediate answer or reaction to due to unfamiliarity of the movement. Since this stuff tends to give up on defense, they are to be used very sparingly, or only when you already know you are better than your opponent. That’s how people just stand and consequentially get knocked out by L-kick (the one hand stand Capoeira kick) even in MMA rings.
The boxers say it’s the punches that you don’t see that KO you.
From my experience, a lot of traditional schools never stick with what they consider the basics when they start to train application or sparring.
@Wasted
Agree also on that. The disconnect between the forms and pair training and what was used in actual sparring and matches was the reason that pushed the then 22 year-old-know-it-all me out of TKD.
Well, it’s very difficult to match up forms and sparring in TKD when the sparring rules omit so much.
You’re not going to be doing much blocking or deflecting since high punches aren’t allowed.
TKD takes all its hand work straight from Shotokan anyway.
TKD kicks with muay thai defense is just a combination to strong
Combine that with really good wrestling
You are set for drunk assholes trying to test you
We get it but how many drunk assholes are we all being tested by on a regular basis lol.
Shit you are married so I dunno how often you going out to the bars with wifey. For me personally we’re pretty low key. And if I do happen to go out to watch fights, it happen to be out with like 4 or 5 martial arts people anyways. So no one is starting shit with us lol.
Point being, train for betterment. Don’t train to try and have a bigger dick than some drunk idiot during a 1 percent off chance you might scrap lol. That in mind, having a nice toolset is great.
I train to be a better athlete and to improve
All i am saying if you bring self defense as your reason for training and you say no contact karate is better than boxing. You must have never been in a fight
Agreed. Last night some of us sparred with a Muay Thai practitioner during practice and he outright jabbed me in the face after blocking my roundhouse. Of course that was my bad, but I was just shook because it seemed no one went over the do’s and not to do’s. Personally, because of my strength, I’m prohibited from doing head kicks.
So, since we got lots of practitioners here, how often/how many hours a week are you guys sparring?
I feel like full contact sparring is the biggest way to improve your skills.
Personally I’m getting about 4-5 hours of sparring per week. Our friday classes are very difficult team canada drills but no sparring.
[I actually got some good rolls in today. Using more of my weight and leverage… Lvl’in up YATTA YATTA!
regarding full contact sparring, some interesting oppinions:
Quoting a former WEC champion: “You don’t need to get hit in the head to become a better fighter”
I do quite a lot of sparring but then I rarely get hit anyway. I think it is actually better to spar only to keep your reactions fresh and to maintain a steady “progression”. though this is purely from a freestyle mixed martial arts fighting perspective. I think it’s good to scale down and spar as much as possible within a given style, controlled sparring is best; landing firm but not heavy
I think a lot of people tend to not know how to intellectualize their movements so they end up hitting hard all the time when sparring
My club’s sparring team captain holds practices twice a week (Tuesday and Thursday) after main practice. Tuesdays, we focus on learning new techniques while refining poomsae/forms, and Thursdays are for sparring. This past Thursday, I was more aggressive when sparring but my cardio still needs work. After three rounds, I was winded in my fourth fight.
meh take it with a grain of salt. varner was a muay thai/kickboxer. they arent know on defensiveness…same goes with robbie lawler. these are dudes who dont know how to not get hit 3000x in a fight in general.
you got people like floyd whos whole career is the art of head hunting and hes been fine.
The problem with varner and lawler was their lack of defense
Positional and situational drilling is imperative to improve no doubt
Full contact sparring is dumb as shit.
What you want is a feel of a fight without ever getting worn: you want your drills to stick. That is why you drill shots a thousand times even though you never shoot because you are the sprawler
As sparring goes you are working on being technical and applying your drills while adapting to a situation
Rolling is great and you get to practice
I always like starting standing. Or working from bottom
Knee wrestling is dumb
I always hate that guy who jumps at the handshake and stands up
That guy is a dick and will try to hurt you then apologize. Fuck him tie him up and scramble and defend, frustrate
With muay thai and boxing i always keep my hands up because fatso and dude who still listens to eminem will head hunt you.
You hit then back as hard as they hit you to show then you won’t take their bs
A good sparring partner brings you up a level or is a guy who you can work with
A bad one is a dude who thinks it is a fight
Usually they will get dropped by a good liver blow or body shot and step out.
Whether it be wreckless headhunter or guy bouncing your head off the mat to break full guard because he saw faber do it once.
Those are the guys you want to hit with an 80% shot to the liver and see them freeze
Or for when it is bjj, i like to get them in tight cradles and just wear them out by scrambling then just crushing their spirits with a leg ride and a spladle.
Spladle is the ultimate cradle