What is Your Favorite Technique?

[Tyler Byers]

6 hours ago, Coach James Poidog said:

The time spent trying to recover the balance is time away from countering and attacking. It just gives him so much momentum to keep steamrolling who ever hes playing with.

I love this. It's something that isn't thought about nearly as much as it should be. People don't realize how long it takes to set things up when you are off your base or recover from overextending. It mentally flusters people and they can't keep up once you start finding the gaps. I don't think people realize how much time/efficiency is lost with a lot of their strikes due to the angle or from "having fat" on their technique. That's actually a lot of what I like about this Muay Lertit style I started doing. Everything is built around never losing your balance so you can always be prepared to counter with short shots, flow through even if you miss with your intended strike (turning a missed uppercut/hook into an elbow, missed knee into a kick, etc.), and interrupting your target and knocking them off base so you create openings. I still really suck at it and am adapting (or re-adapting since it is similar to my original style), but you can 100% see how easy it would be to absolutely steamroll people once you are comfortable with it. It aint pretty, but I'll be goddamned if it isn't effective lol. 

[Jeremy Stewart]

17 hours ago, Tyler Byers said:

This is something I feel more people should be teaching in general. I haven't been training that long, but haven't seen hardly any coaches talking about fight theory or strategy (what queues to look for when an opponent is about to use a specific technique, or how to manage fighters with different styles) with their fighters the way I think they should. It's largely left to the fighter to kind of figure out alone later down the road. 

I use pad holding as an aid to teaching visual cues. Everyone should learn pad holding, I reckon. At some stage that is.

[Tyler Byers]

29 minutes ago, Jeremy Stewart said:

I use pad holding as an aid to teaching visual cues. Everyone should learn pad holding, I reckon. At some stage that is.

I completely agree. I didn't realize how important/helpful it is until I started learning to hold pads with my last Thai trainer. I used to go to a gym in the US that had us all holding pads for each other (only one coach for the gym unfortunately). I had really mixed feelings about that. The biggest problem was that no one really knew how to hold pads nor did it consistently. The coach would show people and try to make corrections where he could, but no one really understood why they were holding pads a certain way or how to watch whomever was striking. No one moved their feet, people didn't know how to catch shots, no one could mix in different strikes, etc. It was kind of a mess. I'm not very good at holding pads imo and people were blown away when I would hold freestyle. I usually ended up grabbing one of two younger kids (they were siblings) and had them hold for me because even though I couldn't use any power, they were very creative in deciding on combos for me to try. They gave my brain a workout at least. We always did pre-set combos like jab, cross, hook, knee, hook, kick. Good for a big group like that, but not really good as an individual fighter who has their own style. 

Freestyling pads will teach you the "tells" and what to look for when someone attacks. Super important for progression, especially if you are going to fight. 

[Coach James Poidog]

4 hours ago, Jeremy Stewart said:

I use pad holding as an aid to teaching visual cues. Everyone should learn pad holding, I reckon. At some stage that is.

This is big to me. You have to teach them the how and why though, like Tyler said. Once you do, its not long before they get good at it and only a little longer than that til the benefits of it manifests in their drilling and sparring. I usually start by pairing an experienced person with a beginner. The experienced one holds first and gives reasons for why they do what they do, then the beginner gets to hold for the experienced. Can be a lesson in patience for the experienced student.  

[Tyler Byers]

12 hours ago, Coach James Poidog said:

This is big to me. You have to teach them the how and why though, like Tyler said. Once you do, its not long before they get good at it and only a little longer than that til the benefits of it manifests in their drilling and sparring. I usually start by pairing an experienced person with a beginner. The experienced one holds first and gives reasons for why they do what they do, then the beginner gets to hold for the experienced. Can be a lesson in patience for the experienced student.  

This is actually exactly what happened with the two kids I would work with. They started getting really good at sparring with other kids their size. For me it was a good opportunity to pass knowledge on a little bit and learn how to be a better teacher. I don't know if either kid will ever fight (they were like 12 and 14 which is pretty young to fight in WA), but you could see they had been bit by the bug. Their dad was really supportive and they were competitive with each other so I'm hoping they continued after I moved back to BKK. 

Experienced students can be get frustrated but they also need to remember that they can use those opportunities to work very specific parts of their skill set when they are working with a beginner. For example, if you want to work on your lead hook, it can be more difficult while sparring or working with someone who is your same level. When you have someone new, you can auto-pilot a little bit while hyper focusing on blocking or moving to set up the shot or look for an opening in their guard. 

[Jeremy Stewart]

18 hours ago, Coach James Poidog said:

This is big to me. You have to teach them the how and why though, like Tyler said. Once you do, its not long before they get good at it and only a little longer than that til the benefits of it manifests in their drilling and sparring. I usually start by pairing an experienced person with a beginner. The experienced one holds first and gives reasons for why they do what they do, then the beginner gets to hold for the experienced. Can be a lesson in patience for the experienced student.  

For sure. I just can't be, monkey see, monkey do. Everything has to have an explanation. 

[Xestaro]

My experience from another martial art where I was more advanced than I am in Muay Thai is that it can actually be quite useful to train with beginners because they sometimes give you problems that your more experienced partners just don't give you.

Stuff like: Have you ever seen someone experienced throw this kind of attack from THIS weird angle?