My Muay Thai Training Diary: When A Kick Is Not Just A Kick

Not just a platitude?

I like the articles, keep them coming!
I started training in mma 2.5 years ago and immediately took to the ground game. It took almost 2years before my striking became natural enough that i don’t have to think about technique really (except to keep my hands up!). I like having something to work towards so thats okay.

Nice piece mr Coffeen. Personally I always have way more problems with stringing together combo’s (weither it being punches, kicks or punches and kicks) but the only real problem I have with kicking is that I tend to focus too much on the kick itself instead of focusing on the timing of the kick. So for instance, I’ll throw a jab-straight-left hook to the body and will end with a right leg low kick but I sometimes forget to look at my distance or placement and will just throw that leg kick making it ineffective or even open to an easy counter or block.

What I wanted to ask you is why at point nine in your list do you ‘chop’ with you arm? Is it to get more momentum going in your kick and if so aren’t you afraid that you leave yourself open for a jab or hook?

love the articles Fraser muay Thai/kickboxing is how i made money when i was in sixth form glad too see this stuff on bloody elbow the biggest problem i always had was landing my foot when i wasn’t paying attention keep up the good work

Cool article , first one ive read so far. I acutally train muay thai on the southside of chicago , Glen Hudson muay thai academy…We are not too far from each other. Ive been trraining for like 5 years off/on and i think pounding out like 200 cut kicks at the end of class helped me just not worry so much about technique but worry about me dieing of exhaustion. effortless is the key here i believe

I didn’t really start to get power out of my kicks until I watched and cloned these two following videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YpCcJ2SnDs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIbsdOo8eGI&feature=related – feat. the late alex gong. A really nice guy by these videos.

Break it down bit by bit, do it slowly in front of the mirror. Work on discrete parts like just the balance, or just the arm positioning, or just the 45degree step and weight distribution. You’d be surprised at how easy it is once you do these types of things. In my case, it was because I was not angling off well and not quite getting the striking distance right

Nice article, sums up pretty much exactly how I progressed. I’d trained a little in the UK, but when I threw myself feet first into training in Thailand I learned I knew nothing. The trainers there were great though, and it seemed like with every single strike thrown, I’d learn another subtle little nuance to improve my technique. As someone who started training bjj and muy thai around the same time I think this same process can be applied to pretty much everything. If anything, I find that this may even apply more to my punching, especially with combinations

My sensei in Japan told me that the rule of thumb for kickboxers is it takes about three years to learn punches, and about five years to learn kicks. This assumes you’re practicing several times a week with very hard training. Seems about right to me. After a fighter’s pure offense plateaus, most of the incremental improvement to their game will probably come from areas like strategy, ring vision, and awareness of the opponent.

If you’ve had training in boxing already, then most of that knowledge can be directly transferred over into Japanese or Dutch style kickboxing, although it might make sense to de-emphasize some of the boxing-specific defenses and the close range body punching. It will probably take some adjustments to transfer your boxing punches into pure Muay Thai, since the scoring system is different. You might be instructed to use your knees and hips less, and rely more on your hamstrings, core muscles, and shoulders for power; this way you’ll always be prepared to throw strong kicks, knees, and can initiate the clinch from a good tall position. Techniques from traditional martial arts designed for bare handed striking (eg, no wraps, no gloves) generally do not transfer well into kickboxing; using kickboxing punches on a skull runs a very high risk of breaking your hand.

Kicks are easy to transfer within kickboxing styles (eg, Muay Thai, Dutch kickboxing, Japanese kickboxing, etc), but harder to transfer from Taekwondo or Shotokan karate into kickboxing. An example of inter-kickboxing knowledge transfer is a Muay Thai stylist who wants to compete in K-1 rules; they will probably need to learn faster kicks with quick recovery in order to avoid counter punches (eg, in Muay Thai a kick beats a punch, but in most other kickboxing styles it can go either way depending on the judge). As for other kicking styles, Taekwondo fighters will probably need to give up some of their blazing speed to emphasize balance and stance, Shotokan fighters will need to avoid keeping their shoulders square when kicking, and both stylists will need to learn a lot of techniques of punch defense while kicking.

I like the input from everyone else too very interesting keep it coming :)

Enjoying reading about your progress, Fraser. Firstly, thanks for including that Bruce Lee quote – it’s a true classic. I can identify with you here somewhat – I used to train Thai regularly and whilst my punches were fine (I’d developed them on a punching bag in the garage), my kicks felt horribly slow and I could never manage to put all the subtle actions in together. This was really irksome as I always thought roundhouse kicks performed correctly looked absolutely ace.

I eventually stopped training at the Thai club due to a move but my lack of kicking ability still annoyed me so much that I purchased a Wavemaster off eBay to carry on training. I read loads of articles and watched many Thai bouts including many of the previously mentioned Buakaw. Once I was able to train at my own pace and focus solely on kicking I fully realised the problems with my form and set about sorting it out. I started very slowly performing low kicks with proper technique and then then gradually the speed and power came from there. A year later and I’m kicking more powerfully and with better technique than ever. Good luck with it all and keep on posting the diary.