Random recent Fights for Zach...input on vids inside wanted!

[AdamKralic]

Thanks again.

The extended front hand guard? It's to catch/pass round houses. Since he went to that? I've not seen a single round house hit him in maybe 50 fights. Now granted he's fighting kids. Kids are easily dissuaded. They see him knock a few of their roundhouses down or aside...they get frustrated quickly. You can also use it against people that hold a side kick at belly level. Push down on their ankle/calf...leap to a hammerfist to their head.

We do practice circle movement a lot. We also have practiced 2 step angle blitzes a lot. At home since he was a green belt. We need to get back to those against the girl in those practices. We were using circles and angles against EVERYONE taller than Zach. WERE. Buuuut...for the past month or so we were prepping for a tourney where they were very strict about matching to height. So why not feature Zach's side? It's strong.

I have liked ALL the advice in this thread a lot. I really do appreciate it. REally. Zach is the "big fish" in HIS pond...but I've seen MUCH bigger fish out there in the ocean.

[AdamKralic]

 

If he misses the side kick, then spinning to a spin back or spin hook would be a good follow up. They are also good defensive kicks against round kicks. I don't recommend using a spinning kick offensively, unless its part of a combination. Generally, a spinning kick as your first kick has a lot of telegraph to it.

Hmmm. So a slide side into a spin back hook...we did work that last night. It looked smoother than some other combos we tried.

If he can pull it off "on tape" next time against her I'll post it. He's got a speed advantage on her...the movement, angles and setting up a second kick at a different level are all smart.

His regular class is on Monday. Team class is Sunday. I kind of wish that order was flopped.

[hammer]

Ok, I saw one back leg kick in what I've seen, a back leg round that seemed to work for him. You might have him concentrate on that more.

He does a lot of front leg fighting, like Bill Wallace used to do. But Wallace had 3 kicks, and your boy has only one...a side kick. If someone figures out how to move at an angle to those repeating kicks, they are going to be inside him, and he will get scored on, especially with the way he holds his hands. Or, someone might just knock his kick to the side, throw him off balance a bit, and then be all over him. See if you can get him to work on some spinning back kicks, or spinning hook kicks as something to add to the lead leg kick.

Now, just some thoughts on the style of sparring, in general. I don't like how the light contact sparring allows the evolution of these pawing attacks that are allowed to score with a touch to the head. I think your son is also developing a very bad defensive habit in how he holds his guard with his hands. Someone with a quick sliding front leg side kick is going to go under that straight arm every time. I thought the girl he was sparring had a better guard position with her hands, and that allowed her to stop his attacks and counter better, because he is just feeding her targets.

Your son has some good skills to build on for these point sparring tourneys. He has that lead side kick down, so I wouldn't have him focus on that too much. Let him use it as his warmup, so that he keeps that skill down, but have him use it to set up the spin kicks, or the back leg kick combinations, and build from there.

I hope this helps, and best of luck as you and your son continue!

These are all nice comments...especially the one about the light contact sparring. In our tournament we emphasize, as a goal, no-contact with colored belts and at most light contact between BBs. We do not, however, usually score points based on just hanging a kick or punch out there. As a matter of fact, in our recent ref clinic, the head ref said he didn't score a point because the punch thrown was a reach and that it would not have scored if it were executed full contact.

Nice job from the OPs son, good speed and he can adapt and execute additional techniques when needed. Biggest additional piece of advice I can give is to pay more attention to blocking...can't always rely on one's attack to get there first, and IRL tagging an opponent isn't going do help much if you take a kick to the midsection in the process.

[wayneshin]

Well done to Zach he was the better fighter in that fight.

The one thing i noticed is that in both videos both karateka are doing a lot of kicks. 99% of the bouts i've seen/coached/been in had an equal amount of hand strikes to kicks. As there are very few bouts i've seen fought like what was in the videos.

IMHO The fights seemed a little TKD for me.

Really comes down to the tournament circuit. In Australia you will have seen most WKF style (AKF) and some NAS. WKF style is also huge in Europe but in the US they have a number of different National circuits and once you get outside USA-NKF (which is WKF) that multi kicking/jumping backfist style seems to become far more prominent. Obviously we have a preference for what we are used to.

[maisweh]

seems like most of these people dont know the circuit and are trying to adapt their style to your son. its naska, where kicks are 2 points and theres a spead.

1) lack of blitzing

2) the kid in the red pants was stupid slow and was just putting her hand or her leg out to touch. not sure how the kids fight anymore, but the adults bang. does your kid have any adults he looks up to as a fighter? he should try to be more like the fighter he looks up to. i know its hard to do in NASKA since almost everyone just twirls batons and screams and does flips, though lol

anyway, searched of ross levine, jack felton, cass sigmon... try to fight like them, equal amounts of hands and feet.

[maisweh]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9HZ1-UVne8

this ^^^^

this can negate her front leg kick.

[AdamKralic]

seems like most of these people dont know the circuit and are trying to adapt their style to your son. its naska, where kicks are 2 points and theres a spead.

1) lack of blitzing

2) the kid in the red pants was stupid slow and was just putting her hand or her leg out to touch. not sure how the kids fight anymore, but the adults bang. does your kid have any adults he looks up to as a fighter? he should try to be more like the fighter he looks up to. i know its hard to do in NASKA since almost everyone just twirls batons and screams and does flips, though lol

anyway, searched of ross levine, jack felton, cass sigmon... try to fight like them, equal amounts of hands and feet.

We've watched Ross Levine. Doing his drills made Zach's D side sweet. Like I said earlier...I was happy with the practice. She is 17 and a 2nd degree black belt...he is 12 and a brown belt. She never came back to the team practices after that day btw. (I did not post the fight where he beat her...he connected really hard to her head in that one.) If someone told me Zach could fight for the world championship in a week but has to fight her for it? I'd be super pumped. Zach can beat her due to her total lack of speed and the fact that in big tournaments...3/4 of what she got points for in the practice would not count. And...She cannot kick at HIS head level...he CAN hit hers.

I also do not like her guard for NASKA style tourneys. You do not want the techniques that in your face.

Ask to people we look up to...he likes some of that UFC stuff. Jon Jones, Chuck Liddel, Shogun Rua...that kinda stuff. We are working on Chuck's spin back kick. (has more reach and seems easier to connect with than spin back hook) I tend to like the wu shu stuff like Jet Li.

Thanks for the Ross link. We will go over that as Zach likes Ross' style to start with so that always helps.

[maisweh]

well, being yall are sport karate peeps, make sure yall watch Glory 13 his saturday! i think its on spike. Raymond daniels will be fighting, he won his last fight by a SWEET spinning hook kick knockout.