Monday, May 4, 2015

Cutting Weight, Healing Leg: Part 5 (Training Videos!)

So, some training videos. These are not scintillating videos of combat derring-do; even by (my) amateur standards, they're about working specific things when you are tired -- that last bit being a big implicit part of the whole point of Muay Thai training in general and fight training for sure, namely functioning at a high level when tired. 

No one but me--or maybe Tracy, my generous and cheerful sparring partner-- will want or need to watch all of these. But I'll break them down a little, as a useful exercise for myself and for anyone interested.

First: boxing with Tracy.


The instructions from Coach here are for Tracy to be putting constant pressure on me, and me to be focusing on movement and distance, throwing "straight punches" (jabs and crosses, no or few hooks, no upper-cuts, no body shots) and moving in and out of distance. This is because of Coach's (correct) diagnosis that I am basically a bad boxer, but that I'm reasonably tall and have good stamina, so a good strategy for me is to move, use my length for long punches and kicks, and not get caught up getting swiped by hooks and overhand punches close range.

In the video, both Tracy and I do medium-okay-not-so-great. He does better than me; he just keeps coming forward, he gets me in corners. I
- always go in one direction; I need to change directions and juke more
- expose my chin often, particularly when I pivot out on my left foot (you can see him catch me a couple times when I do this)
- don't do a terrible job, by my standards, of keeping a tight guard, but
- still don't do a good enough job. I just can't think about it enough: keep a tight guard. Keep a tight guard. Flick strike hard move; tight guard.

Next: neck wrestling. This is a weird foible of Muay Thai; there's no grappling like throwing each other to the ground, and no arm-bars/leg-locks all that, but there is the "clinch" which is this stand-up wrestling thing you see me and Tracy doing here. This is not at all how this would go down in a fight; in a fight you come together and someone does something (for example, as in my fight in October, "someone" might throw a knee or two and break your ribs) and then the ref will break it up or one of you will break out of it. So this is a drill to work those moments, where you do it for a sustained period,

We have no gloves or wraps on, which I find frustrating because these techniques are very different with gloves on, but if you work this for rounds-and-rounds with gear on people's faces, ears, and eyes get scratched-up, etc., which can range from annoying to really screwing things up. So.


What I notice in this video is
- if there were elbows allowed in my fight (there are not), I'd be unconscious in a clinch toot sweet, cuz I'm wide open to that;
- I need to base more. You can see it in my feet. It's all the ballet training stuff, still, in my body: my feet are just too much on one line. On a positive side, you can see that it is effective when I do base; even though Tracy is much larger and stronger than I am, I'm sometimes then able to pull him off his balance, which is good because in a really successful case you can trip, but more likely you can throw a knee or something.

Last video. Called: "Tracy is Tired."



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