Speed kills... the other guy in the world of muay thai

"The stronger swordsman does not necessarily win. It is speed! Speed of hand, speed of mind."

That's one of my favorite lines from one of my favorite stories, The Count of Monte Cristo. It is a common belief that power and size go hand in hand. Well that's bad news for a guy like me. See, I'm  5 foot six, a hundred and forty-something pounds - a self professed little guy.  I'm certainly not big, and I don't want to be big. I never had big muscles. In fact, growing up I had the metabolism of a squirrel. I tried bulking up, but my body just burned off every type of protein muscle-max weight gain product I could blow my allowance on. When I started training muay thai, I was hoping that this high impact martial art would get me yolked.

Nope.

But us little guys have a strength that a lot of the bigger guys disregard - speed. I think speed is a defense mechanism that you develop when you're being chased by bullies as a little kid. When that speed is used for fight instead of flight, bullies become a non-issue

I've noticed that during the course of their training a lot of western muay thai and MMA practitioners tend to develop the mind set that the more weight one can push the harder one can strike. Not necessarily so. Strength gives you the ability to move mass, but does it enable you to cause more damage to that mass than a person 2/3 your size?

When it comes to striking, speed is king. Developing the ability to throw with explosive speed can give a person a small as myself the ability to generate devastating power. Its simple bio-mechanics, nothing mystical. When you understand that the faster you can throw a strike in a smaller period of time, and get your body into it, your opponent is in a world of hurt.

Here's a couple quick tips to help you develop explosive power with your strikes:

1. Basic physics - your mass x acceleration = force. Don't throw punches with your arm, throw it with your body. Drive forward with your strikes, punch through your target.

2. Pivot in, pivot out - The pivot is one of the most important aspects of the muay thai round kick. If you throw a kick at 20mph, bring your leg back at 25mph, and bring it back with that pivot.

3. The faster you can pivot, the harder you can strike - this applies to elbows, round kicks, hooks.

4. Commit 100% to the strike at that moment, don't worry about counter strikes because if you're training right, you wouldn't depend on a one-shot knock out. You throw at least 3-5 in a single combo.

5. If you're like me you don't train muay thai for sport, but for protection. You can't get disqualified from a street fight, so when you strike you aim for soft targets, and you attack with everything behind it.

6. Most important tip ever! When you're learning a technique, throw it slow until you are comfortable with moving your body that way. Build the speed at your own pace, the power will increase as your speed increases. You aren't going to impress anyone firing off a half ass technique with no power.

Muay Thai Elbow Strikes Adapted for the Street, Still Useful in the Ring

The elbow strike in both muay thai and in MMA has been taught/trained as a close quarter strike, usually employed only in the clinch. I say, that's not entirely so. Adding drive to en elbow strike can not only be thrown from a longer distance, but can actually replace the heavy handed cross punch.

In the context of a street fight or close quarter combat situation (which is the main focus of my teaching) this driving elbow is a very important weapon in my arsenal. Here's my top 3 reasons why this technique is so important to know:

1. Power. The added force from your drive makes this elbow strike harder than a stationary round elbow by at least 70%

2. Dynamics. Unless your on the movie set, its a bad idea to believe that a single hit will end a fight. The driving elbow allows you to move while you strike, at an angle, moving you away from your opponent's center line. Since you drive in at an angle, you remain close enough to the bad guy to continue using elbows and knees while staying deep inside his range. Always throw multiple strikes (at least 3-5), then move and repeat.

3. For muay thai and MMA practitioners the drive elbow can help you blast through your opponent's cover, or at least the barrage will make him rethink how he needs to defend your upper body attacks. It's also a great technique to integrate in to combinations.

Here's a combo to try the next time you're in the gym:
Jab > Cross > Left Driving Elbow > Right Driving Elbow > Right Knee > Left Elbow
These strikes should force your partner to move backwards as you throw this combo. Note how your weight shifts as you strike with the driving elbows, and the last elbow should be thrown as you're coming down from the knee (no movement wasted). Let me know how it goes.



Tehcnorati - 2P6ZEU7EZD6E what a pain.

Benefit From Training Muay Thai Without Pads

If you subscribe to my YouTube channel you've probably already seen the above clip, what I don't mention in it is the importance of training without pads.

We can all agree that thai pad and focus mitt drills are vital to any muay thai or mma curriculum, but it does have a few drawbacks - including reinforced bad habits and a false sense on security in one's skills.

Striking pads is actually a very different sensation from hitting a real person. Aside from the actual impact, the entire interaction is entirely different when you strip away the pads, gloves, and other protective gear. I'm not saying that you go all-out on someone else. I suggest you learn to play with your combinations and get a feel for where the true targets lie. This is especially important for those of you who are learning close quarter combat (self defense) systems.

So, what do you really get out of this? Here's the truth: you can master any fighting system, but when it comes down to it: when you find yourself in a fighting situation in the street, your subconscious, reptilian brain is going to rely on a handful of strikes or combinations. All of those fancy, technical - fine motor skill - small joint locks are going to wash away with the adrenaline rush.

Repeated drills such as the one in the video can help you train your subconscious mind so that when its called upon, your animal brain won't freeze on you. It becomes a natural reaction. John Grissom, author of the combat blog, 1Urban Warrior and fellow Muay Thai Academy International alumni covers this topic extensively. Dave Grossman's book, On Killing also provides some interesting insights into the application of the fight or flight mechanism in combat.

Other variables including target selection, environment, and the unpredictability of your attacker all factor into the equation. And that only adds to the importance of training your subconscious mind. Oh boy, I'm gonna have to expand on this a little later.

Muay thai round kick redux

One of the first web videos I did was a demo of the old style muay thai round kick. Since then I've had a couple of people tell me that my technique looks nothing like the muay thai that they're learning." Well, that's because the widely popular modern form of muay thai has become bastardized by martial arts franchises like Master Toddy, Fairtex, and to an extent, the UFC. What's being taught is static-stand up ring style kickboxing. Like modern boxing, muay thai has been watered down over th years for the sake of the fighter's safety. It's the sport version of a nearly forgotten combat system. Yes, there's more than one branch in the muay thai family. Thanks to people like Tony Jaa, old style muay thai is gaining recognition.

I've been lucky enough to train the old combat forms of muay thai: the muay baron, the muay chao churd, the ledrit and boar bando systems for over 13 years. The differences between modern sport muay thai and old (military/combat) style muay thai are numerous. Take the round kick for instance. The video below shows a side by side comparison of the two kicks - modern and old style muay thai.

Old Style Muay Thai Clinch, Whoohoo!

The standard muay thai clinch simply isn't effective in a street/combat scenario. Once you grab onto your attacker his natural instinct will be to grab you - now you're wrestling with one (or more) opponents.

The ring style muay thai clinch serves two main purposes: 1. It gets you inside your opponent's strikes, providing an opportunity to score points (take down, or knees), and 2. it gives the winded fighter a short break. But in a street combat situation points don't count and your attackers certainly aren't going to tie up with you to catch a breather.

It's super important that you keep a hand free, and (more importantly) that you don't lose your ability to maintain visibility of your environment. The old style (ledrit, muay chao churt, muay baron) clinch allows you to control your opponent, use him as a shield from other attackers, and enables excellent visibility.

It's difficult to change old habits, and if you've been training to clinch up as soon as you get inside a one handed clinch is going to feel foreign (and maybe a little unrealistic). But if you give this technique a shot, I'm willing to bet, you'll soon realize that it opens up your striking & controlling options. Now you can throw elbows at different angles, knees, and even round kicks to your opponent's front and back. Try it out with a partner, you'll like it!

Watch video below. I provide technique and I touch on just a few of the options that open up. You won't learn this stuff at Fairtex.



Watch out for the man sandwich!