Tag Archives | footwork

Building a Solid Muay Thai Defence (diary entry)

August 18, 2023 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
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17.08.2023 The first of new course of Muay Thai lessons for my teenage client. Next lesson we should also be joined by a sibling. Tonight’s class focused on building a strong foundation and that means good movement and defence. After a warm-up of dynamic stretching and muscle activation followed by specific sequence of poses, we looked at stance, guard and footwork. I wanted my client familiar with range and to become comfortable with the Thai narrow stance. We place the […]

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Muay Thai Movement (diary entry)

June 21, 2023 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
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21.06.2023 The tenth and final hour of my client’s third course on Muay Thai brought us onto the all-important topic of movement. We covered eight directional footwork patterns and applied to them attacking from the outside, countering the teep and using them in the clinch. Training was covered through drilling, focus mitt work, Thai pad work and sparring. Combinations covered: Jab, cross, pivot, low switch-kick Cross, pivot, lead hook, round kick to the body Both of the above combined into […]

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Armbar from Turtle & More Boxing Footwork (diary entry)

October 6, 2022 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
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05.10.2022 As the title for this diary entry indicates, I covered submission grappling for my junior client and boxing for my senior client. In submission grappling we looked at the armbar attack in more detail. We began with a simple means for turning over a turtle position and ensuring the right hook was acquired first when going for back-mount. We also briefly covered the rear naked choke again. Moving onto the armbar attack, we covered backward rolling and forward rolling […]

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Catch & Shoot (diary entry)

September 21, 2022 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
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20.09.2022 Hour six of my client’s current boxing course brought us on catch and shoot drills. After a warm-up of revisions on pendulum footwork and coordination drills, slipping and working pivots on hooks and straights, we moved onto the new drills. A strong principle running through these Cuban boxing inspired techniques is the use of the back-foot. When it comes to catching punches the back-foot pivots. It pivots out on rear arm blocks and lead hooks and lead uppercuts, and […]

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Improving Speed & Timing (diary entry)

September 11, 2022 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
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10.09.2022 I was booked to teach a one-off private lesson for a client, focusing on boxing and kickboxing. His mandate was to help him improve engaging. We looked at footwork to better improve timing and speed as well as maintaining a strong guard defence. My client suffers from a few medical conditions limit him in certain ways. We worked together to get around these restrictions. After some muscle activation exercises, we got into some ladder drills in better improve coordination […]

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Footwork Speed (diary entry)

August 31, 2022 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
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30.08.2022 My client’s fourth hour of his current boxing course focused on swifter footwork. After a warm-up of dynamic stretching, muscle activation exercises and agility work on the ladder, we went through a series of two minute rounds inspired by Cuban boxing training methods. Round 1 – Forward and backward footwork at speed between two points. Switch to southpaw at the halfway time mark. This can be done as basic speed development drill with each advance or retreating length timed […]

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Back Foot Pivot (diary entry)

August 24, 2022 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
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24.08.2022 Hour three of my client’s current course on boxing moved us into looking at defensive footwork, layered into effective striking combinations. Tonight, more than usual, I emphasised the use of the back foot pivot. This allows for faster lead hooks and efficient slipping. We began with simple backward and forward footwork, using the ankles to keep movements light and fluid. We then added the pivot-circling out movement. These sequences came off the jab and the cross, depending on which was […]

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Building up Boxing Defence (diary entry)

August 18, 2022 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
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17.08.2022 Following the two sessions of 12 filmed rounds of training, my client and I decided to give the basics a complete review. As one of my old teacher’s used to say, you are never beyond basics. This is something that has been continually reinforced throughout my own education in martial arts. At present, I am going back to the base of the base arts I teach starting with boxing and starting with a client who has had the longest […]

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Muay Thai Clinch Course Begins (diary entry)

September 21, 2021 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
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21.09.21 Monday night’s lesson saw my client couple begin their course in the clinch for Muay Thai. We thought it best to start at the beginning as one of the two clients has not covered this area before and no one is above basics anyway, including yours truly. So, after a warm-up geared towards aspects of grappling as well as strikes I introduced the main knee strikes. These were performed as line work and also as muscle activation exercises. This […]

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Combination 2 partner work (diary entry)

February 23, 2021 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
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22.02.21 Hour four of my client’s second course on stand-up striking combinations continued her and her lockdown partner’s work on transferring shadow boxing to focus mitts. We looked at combination two, which is short and deals with chasing an opponent off landing a powerful head kick at its climax. Her lockdown partner is doing well with his recovery, but we adapted the head kick to a calf kick. This combination also introduces the same side cross and kick dynamic. The […]

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Hide it with the Feet? (diary entry)

February 9, 2021 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
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08.02.21 Monday night’s second lesson saw the resumption of my work with the Athena School of Karate adult and advanced student lessons. We are covering the rhythm and flow stand-up striking combination work. Tonight we focused on combinations five and six. These are relatively short, especially combination six, and use footwork to set up opponents. Combination five uses switch-hitting and a shuffle to chain together different punches and eventually set up for a powerful rear kick to the body. Combination […]

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Footwork! (diary entry)

January 20, 2021 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
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17.01.21 I was booked for teacher consultancy on footwork development for stand-up fighting. We went through a pattern of basic footwork exercises, layered them with punching combinations and then moved onto footwork conditioning exercises. Key things to remember include retaining a balanced stance (Never place more than 50% of your weight on the front foot, preferrably less), back heel should always be raised and front heel should be just off at all times, most Western Boxing stances (with the exception […]

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Efficient Inside Combinations & Lateral Footwork (diary entry)

November 2, 2020 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]

31.10.20 Saturday morning’s lesson brought my client up to the 8.5 hour point of his 10 hour course on Western Boxing for Martial Art Cross Training. This morning’s very technical lesson covered putting together two combinations that coordinated footwork and head movement with punches, creating tactics that work well within the to and fro of a fight. We began with the step-jab and step-back-cross, eventually blending them with the pendulum step. Next we brought in slip left/lead hook and slip […]

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Making Basics Better (diary entry)

October 22, 2020 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
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21.10.20 Wednesday night continued my client’s current work in footwork and fluidity. This is a regular theme at present amongst my stand-up fighting clients with some variations. After warming up, we looked at punching in isolation. The idea was to promote flow and check recovery. Straight punches, uppercuts and hooks were trained as two-punch combinations. First we isolated them as a constant flow then as sharp two-punch combinations and finally we transferred the sharp two-punch combination to my client’s heavy […]

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Movement and Southpaw Fighting (diary entry)

October 20, 2020 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
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19.10.20 My second Monday night lesson saw the beginning of a 10 hour Muay Thai for Martial Arts Cross Training course with a new client. This client has been training for 15 years in Muay Thai and that includes in-ring fight experience. It was a new challenge for me and I enjoyed being able to introduce new concepts to an individual with firm knowledge on the art. After a warm-up of skipping my client went through some basic combinations before […]

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Peek-a-Boo Revision (diary entry)

September 30, 2020 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
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29.09.20 Tuesday night’s first lesson saw my client focus on the peek-a-boo style of boxing. It was a good opportunity to unpick, deconstruct and rebuild form, creating stronger habits. The lesson was divided up into an outline of using pendulum footwork, angled footwork, slipping, pullbacks and ducking before isolating and combining these through six rounds, finishing on a six-part seventh round of technique/speed/power development. The objective of the lesson was to drill moving into range using the pendulum step, slip/jab […]

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