elbows_and_knees

it's not supposed to be stand and deliver anyway. Stances are transitional. 20-30 mins? are your thighs parallel to the ground, or is your stance higher?

IMPO bags that have a base suck. If possible, invest in a hanging bag.

I use both. When I enter punching and infighting range, I bring my hands in.

just get in there and do it. In time, it will come back to you.

That is only true in sayings. Realistically that is very wrong. your mind can tell your body whatever it wants, but it your body is incapable of doing it, then it will never happen.

the thing about speed is that regarding humans, differences in it are not that great. For a perfect example, look at oscar de la hoya and mike tyson. de la hoya is lightning quick. However, Tyson is much stronger and he is not so slow that he cannot touch you. Consequently, whom would you rather be hit by? Both can hit you, but one is WAY stronger. Most thai boxing today uses boxing footwork, and is VERY mobile. JKD uses kali and boxing footwork.... not a big difference between jkd and muay thai there.

that wouldn't surprise me. The original thais were originally immigrants from south china, weren't they? One theory of the history of muay thai is that is evolved from kung fu...with the loss of records though, this can't be proven.

you have to look at why they do what they do. Boxers don't always keep the hands close, but they do ALWAYS do it when they are in infighting range - which is what it is for. Which the hand outward, they would get clobbered in infighting range, as it is too easy to strike througn the holes. Now, look at a thai boxer. They don't do a lot of inrfighting with punches. their infighting is mainly elbows_and_knees. And those are usually performed from a clinch, so the method of defense is different. In boxing, you can't fight long from the clinch before they break it up. In thai, you can. Also, boxers don't kick. keeping the hands high keeps them in place to defend head kicks, if necessary. Some boxers will hold their hands high though - especially if they are fighting someone taller than them. with the hands low and close, it takes too long to parry a strike from someone punching downward on you - you'd get KOed quick. With the hands high, you are in a better position to parry.

here's an example of a circuit I have my guys run once a week: warmup: footwork and leg check drills - 5 mins jumping rope 4 mins x 2 rounds pushups - 30 squats - 50 circuit: shadow boxing Bodyweight exercises (varies each session) knees speed bag or double end bag abs kicks only on heavybag 1 punches only on heavybag2 each station is performed for a 2 min round with one min rest in between. we run the circuit twice. If time permits, we do pad drills afterward.

keep in mind that you are trying to train two different systems when talking about fight training - aerobic and anaerobic. fighting is mostly anaerobic, so that is the system that needs to be focused on. This is done via intense bagwork, sparring, sprinting, shadowboxing and balls to the wall bodyweight circuits. cardiovascular endurance can be achieved through running, jumping rope, etc. but should not have as great of a focus.

I've been told the japanese police train judo and hong kong police train shuai chiao. I'm not sure what type of striking they train.

It is. Actually, it's more of a martial arts venue - like mma. karate is their style, but they compete with their variation of karate that they call xma. Who cares?? That's just life. The same people have the same feeling about kung fu based on what they see jet li and jackie chan do. Either that, or they think it's all just completely fake based on what they are doing. Once again, who cares? That is a rule of the venue, that's all. In many american rules kickboxing venues, you must throw at least three kicks per round or you will lose points. Don't watch them... Personally, I would much rather have a good XMA exponent at my back in a fight than tma. Why? to be able to do what they do takes A LOT of hard work, training and determination. They have the proper mindset already. They do know some technique already. That combination is what you need. On top of which they have top notch conditioning. If the fight for some reason is prolonged (multiple opponents, for example) They will be better apt to continue on without fatiguing.

The forms actually don't prove that they don't have that grounding. If I remember correctly, on the XMA special, one of them stated that they don't do traditional forms in open tournaments because you simply cannot place with them. This being the case, you most likely would not see their forms if you only see competition training / footage of them. All competitors are that way to an extent. I compete in judo and thai boxing. From my longfist training, I can do a butterfly kick, tornado kick, etc. you will never see me compete with them though, and you will never see me teach them to anyone only interested in competition. Nor would I teach them chin na. Why? because those things are not applicable to what they are wanting to do.

Speaking as a soldier (commissioned officer), I'm going to disagree with you. In basic training we're taught some stuff just to beat the tar out of each other and get tough. Later on down the line, however, we're required to learn hand-to-hand techniques for the "just-in-case-for-whatever-reason-you-don't-have-a-gun-in-your-hand" scenario. Yes, the techniques are laughably silly if you have any previous martial arts training, but it still gets serious attention. Granted, unless you're special forces, it doesn't get continuous attention, but the one time course you take is still pretty intense (or at least, my course was pretty intensive). By the way, if you think our guys don't fight hand-to-hand anymore, think again. Read this: http://michaelyon.blogspot.com/2005/08/gates-of-fire.html If you don't want to read the whole thing, basically, some of our guys were stuck in a firefight in Mosul when they ran out of ammo. What happened? An Army CSM took it to the bad guys hand-to-hand and won. I'm guessing that will also depend on your job - my father was an E-9 in the navy. But he was a jet mechanic - he repaired fighter planes, so other than some basic boxing, he was never given any hand to hand. One of my training buddies is a retired SEAL. Even he says his hand to hand training was slight. They focused more on gun tactics, strategy and formation, etc. Now, if you are an infantryman, sure, I bet they receive more hand to hand as they are most likely to need it.

other countries are different. japan, korea and hong kong all have military and police forces with excellent hand to hand training.

Bingo.

There goes that assumption again. You are assuming that you will have time for a second kick. take someone like tyson who was great at getting inside anyway - do you think you could nail him with two kicks before he got in on you?

historically speaking, you would be correct. These days, we don't fight with spears, on horseback, etc. The things you learn in a "martial" art these days technically aren't martial anymore, especially in terms of most weapons learned. In a time of sheer desperation, however, these are techniques that can be used in warfare - you run out of bullets, are disarmed, are in cq range, etc.

No they won't - they will be parallel to eachother. your crossing hand is on the outside of his jab. It has to cross over the jab to hit his face. it doesn't mean reverse, but yes, it is a similar punch.

nah. you can also bolo and rabbit punch. let's not forget the haymaker. Also, the cross and overhand aren't the same punch...

what about kuk sool won and hwa rang do? I know tang soo do is related to them.

with a bent leg, it's much harder to kick out the knee. A leg kick can hurt, but may not be enough to stop the initial attack. That is a very big assumption.

we don't claim it to be, really. I can say the same for TMA - perfect example is the one I know who says "Boxers have no skill - they just stand there and slug eachother." the reverse happened to a friend of mine. He wrestled in high school and started training in longfist after he graduated. He got into a barfight and was unable to block or evade the guys punches using his longfist. He finally just double legged the guy, mounted him and started ground and pounding him. of course it does. Why wouldn't it?

you are actually both correct. it IS a straight line punch, but it DOES go over the opponent's punch. when you get into counter fighting, you learn how to apply that. It's all about making angles on your opponent. Think about focus mitts - when you are fed a jab, the mitt is directly in front of you.when you feed a cross, you are hitting the mitt on the opposite side of your body. Why do you think this is? Why do you not hit the mitt directly in front, as you do with a jab?

This is exactly correct. It's not exotic thugh - just correct alignment. When the fist is horizontal, you have an increased chance of striking your opponent's chin with the last two knuckles - and they are the weakest on the hand, and thus the easiest to break. When doing a vertical hook, you are hitting with the top two, minimizing the risk of a break. The problem with a roundhouse or hook punch is that you can't put much body weight behind the punch. Everything depends on how fast you accelerate your punching arm and fist and rotate your torso in a semi-circular direction as well the semi-circular withdrawing hand the follows a similar but opposite vector. For this reason, a stepping or lunge punch (oi zuki) or reverse punch (gyaku zuki) is more powerful when executed by one and the same person due to the biomechanical and physical force differentials involved. Also, I don't think the lack of power is due to the inability to get the body behind it - it's the narrow arc. A hook punch is a very small, close range strike. The wider version - the haymaker - is much more powerful because it has a wider arc with which to generate power.