Bareknuckle boxing for the street

Daniel debuts his video on how to punch with real power. Having first hand experience on the receiving end of his strikes, I can attest that his techniques work. Even smaller people who use his street methods of punching are no fun to fight with. I equate to being hit by a polar bear.

In this video Daniel shows how to punch via the two knuckle or three knuckle landing. He explains how to punch bare-knuckle using the three knuckle landing and why. He also covers the difference between each type of fist position.

Each strike has it's advantages, that's why I don't tell anyone not to use the two knuckle landing, because it does work. Just keep an open mind and try using the three knuckle landing or as Jack Dempsey called it "The Power Line".

Daniel is a walking encyclopedia on street fighting with the bona fides to back it up. It's a long video, but well worth the time as I guarantee you will learn something new.



And see if it doesn't increase your punching power for boxing or for street-fighting.

The Law of Impact, Street Fight vs Sport Fight

When it comes to accidents on the highway streets, the law of physics always favor the larger, heavier vehicles. Even though smaller compact vehicles are better on gas and can get you around town much easier.

But what these “Politically Correct” “Kumba Yah” type of vehicles seem to forget is that they can’t take too much impact especially when hit by a larger vehicle. It’s just the way it is, sorry. That’s why I drive a big powerful Dodge Truck with a Hemi Engine, it keeps me safe on the streets. And it’s the same way when it comes to striking someone in a vicious street- fight.

You better not have small weak, soft punches that are just meant to score points and look pretty moving fast. Or you’ll most likely find yourself laid out on the filthy ground wallowing in your own bloody self delusions, spitt’n teeth out. You need to have impact crushing, power generating fists that can hit with such brutal viciousness that it’s scarey to think what kind of damage you’ll cause to any fool who chooses to tangle with you.

You need to know what the majority of strikers don’t about how to generate maximum power in your punches. You need to be hitting like the fighters of old, legends like Dempsey, Marciano, Fitzsimmons, Choynski, Jeffries just to name a few. After all boxing was once upon a time taught for self protection, it was the martial art of the west.

Now it’s become a watered down version of it’s once powerful self, due to the way it’s being taught in the gyms across the country today. In WWI and WWII boxing was taught to the soldiers to teach them to have aggressive footwork and power in their fists but not to strike the enemy with but to use in bayonet trench fighting. That’s how important boxing was. It taught you how to prevail in a life and death situation.

Todays boxing only works well in the ring with a referee and with rules and let’s not forget boxing gloves. They tell you don’t hit with your barefists you’ll break your hands so you
don’t but you get into a streetfight and you end up with a broken nose, jaw or ribs, what a trade off! You're taught combinations that will win you the day in the ring but mess you up in a streetfight. You're taught rules that will make you a fair fighter and a sportsman but get your ass handed to you by some scum in the street who follows no rules, save one “the law of the jungle”.

Wake up! And pull your head out off your coaches ass and think for yourself for once. Fighting with rules and restraints, and using safety equipment is only going to get you hurt when reality hits you upside the jaw. So get some street smarts and learn to fight dirty using proven fighting methods that will teach you to be merciless to your enemy.

And be ready to answer the call of violence when it gives you a ring.

Daniel Sambrano

www.SuperHeroSystems.com

Change up your muay thai with the lost art of 'shifting'

Here's a post that Daniel drafted but hasn't posted yet. I've been busy with a move this week, and didn't have time to write a post from scratch. I went through this, added my own ideas & tips, so you're stuck with some really great advice, and a few of my snarky comments thrown in for good measure.
 
Definition: Changing foot position and stance in order to make your punches more powerful.

Shifting allows a fighter to remain in constant motion. You can attack, evade, and change leads while remaining rooted, centered, balanced and stable. You'll will be able to change sides and increase speed without sacrificing power. You be able to move faster without bobbing up and down. That bobbing is actually a drain of vital energy. You can change sides so that by the time your opponent realizes what has happened he has been hit many times.

Whether you're boxing, training MMA, or fighting muay thai, you can still switch sides easily and continue fighting without upsetting your  flow. It actually serves to confuse your opponent, throwing both his timing and balance off.

So, you want to throw strikes with significantly more power, eh? Shift your weight as you throw punches and elbows. Energy travels from the ground through every joint of the body and finally into the fists. If you're pivoting your hip while you strike, you're generating toque. If you're shifting your weight, which includes that whole 'mass x acceleration' bit, you're generating more force. If you add that torque to the drive and the shift you're got a little something called compound momentum. But I digress. I mean, what do a couple of muay thai instructors know about physics anyway? We'll save the compound momentum theory for another post.

By never having to re chamber or telegraph an attack, your punches come at you like a rattlesnake strike. Shifting is especially effective in a street fight, or multiple opponent situations, where continuous movement is an imperative. Also, think of this: in the ring, muay thai matches are a sort of gentleman's agreement. Both fighters square off and exchange blows back and forth. I don't care how conditioned I am, I hate getting hit. The less you get hit the odds f you winning and/or surviving go way up. If you shift or drive while you strike you move as you throw - meaning that after you've thrown that punch, you are not in the same place as you were when you started the technique.

Here's a litany of benefits that will improve your fighting abilities when you integrate shifting into your training regimen:

• Trains you to “hit off your move” with either fist, from any direction with power and stability
• Helps you develop “controlled aggression” in your power punching (another post for us to cover)
• Will confuse and frustrate opponents that know how to box or fight. Really effective in muay thai
• Allows you to hit from any position at any angle with either fist powerfully
• Shifting is a lost art that most have forgotten how to do or have never seen or heard of
• Teaches you to stay relaxed as you strike and move without telegraphing your intentions
• Brings your whole body weight explosively into your strikes as you fight
•  Teaches you to fight up close without worrying about what your opponent’s counter will be
•  Trains you to step with your punches instead of dancing around like a ballerina
•  Helps you become comfortable hitting while moving backwards, forward, laterally or diagonally without missing a beat

Shifting will make you a very dangerous fighter with no equal (at least at your gym).  It really will add a completely new dimension to your combinations and fight game. Combinations will flow more easily, and transitions from punches to knees to elbow to kicks will feel much more natural. Shifting trains you to become an ambidextrous fighter, which I cannot evangelize enough. You do not want to be a one-sided fighter.

I'll let Daniel's words send us off here. But as you read this, imagine a large, somewhat scary Hispanic man yelling at no one in particular, with an extra bit of emphasis in the 'And' that start each sentence. If you know Daniel, you understand.

"And finally if you’re not shifting, you’re not fighting as well as you could be, in other words your fighting sucks! And that will make you twice the fighter you are right now! So start shifting when you train; cause you don’t ever wanna meet a fighter who does."

How your brain impedes your muay thai training

In the process of learning muay thai the most difficult part for us Westerners is our natural inclination to over analyze everything. And if you're an American, forget about it. Our society is driven by instant gratification. I mean, isn't there a cheat code or cliffs notes? Anything?

Muay thai is inherently foreign to the Westerner. The techniques require you to purposely put your self off balance, and the ultra aggressive nature of the system goes against what society has taught us growing up. For example, think about your personal space and how uncomfortable it was for you the first time you did a clinching drill with a fellow student who you didn't really know.

The techniques, from round kicks to elbow strikes are made up of many moving parts all working in unison, and it takes a while to get comfortable with moving your body in that somewhat awkward way. For example, they say it takes 10,000 reps of the muay thai round kick before you get to the point where you can throw the kick without thinking about the technique.

It's very easy to get frustrated with yourself over the course of your training (it usually kicks in around the 3rd month in). But it's that over analyzing, trying to break down every component of a technique is what throws you off track. Ideally, you while training techniques, you're thinking about anything other than the technique that your practicing. If you find yourself getting frustrated with yourself, here's a couple pointers that I've found works:

1. Don't spend too much time focusing on a trouble spot. For example, you aren't pivoting on a round kick. Work on it but spending too much time on one issue will likely leave you neglecting the other parts of the technique.

2. Don't rush it! Throwing a crappy kick really fast will in no way clean up your technique. It's easier to throw poor technique quickly than clean technique slowly. Take your time, you aren't in a race.

3. Hitting bags and pads is fun, it feels good - but shadowing the technique is where you really make strides in cleaning up your form. Never neglect your shadow training.

4. This is the hardest part. Once you've practiced enough to where your body can physically throw a technique correctly (you understand the mechanics), then stop thinking about the technique while you're training. The ultimate goal is for you to be able to execute any muay thai strikes, whether it be kicks, knees, elbows, body movement - without thinking. It just becomes a natural part of how your body moves. Thinking, and over-thinking your technique will actually impede this. So think about anything else other than the technique - girls, work, school, does Taco Bell really use fake beef?

5. Step one in transitioning from muscle memory to subconscious reaction is to train thai pad drills where your partner calls out combinations at a pace that tires you out. And after you've reached the point of exhaustion, you keep going - s/he increases the intensity/complexity of the combos. Its meant to push you beyond the point where your brain cannot process the incoming orders, and its your reptilian brain & your body simply moving on instinct and muscle memory. That's where the real learning takes place.

Donnie-

The Confusion of Punching Naked

Every time I teach a new student the martial concepts and principles of fist fighting, they are very surprised at how much information they are given and how much power they are able to generate so quickly. But the students that are the most surprised are those that know how to box. Most have never heard or seen any of the techniques or concepts that I teach on fist fighting.

There are two reasons for this; first what I teach is almost 100 years old if not older, and has been forgotten, not taught or abandoned. Second, most fighters learn the sport of boxing in its modern form due to reason number one. One important thing I want you to consider is that bare knuckle boxing and modern boxing are two different animals. It’s like comparing apples and oranges, they are both fruit but they are different types of fruit. Both types of punching have different goals in mind; therefore have different ways of striking and finishing a fight. So trying to compare the two will just confuse and keep you in the dark, they are both separate and different entities.

Bare-knuckle boxing has been tried and tested in both combat and street-fighting and has stood the test of time. This is why I chose to teach the bare-knuckle form of fighting as opposed to the gloved modern form. It just makes more sense to teach a form of fighting that doesn’t use hand protection to defend itself from attack. Especially, since you won’t be walking around town with gloves on ready to fight. There are concepts and techniques from modern boxing I wouldn’t think of using in a street-fight to defend myself with. For example, I wouldn’t throw jabs or hooks to the head, also I wouldn’t come at my opponent like they do at the beginning of each round. I won’t dance around on my toes against my opponent or hold my hands in a typical boxers guard.

But then again in modern boxing I wouldn’t use many techniques or concepts of bare-knuckle boxing such as head butting, eye gouging, holding, hitting below the belt, rabbit punching, biting, tripping or throwing my opponent to the ground on his head, shoulder or neck. Although both styles of punching may seem similar on the surface, they are miles apart in their tactics, techniques and strategies when it comes to fighting. And those differences make each style both unique and important to pursue separately; that is until you can understand and appreciate each one. “The way you train is the way you will fight” is a saying that holds much truth in both styles of striking.

So if you are training for sport choose the modern form of boxing and if you are training for the self protection aspect choose the bare-knuckle version. I’m sure you will be pleased with the results if you heed my advice and train accordingly. And always remember “The right tool for the right job”, definitely applies here.

Stay safe and train hard.

Daniel Sambrano
www.SuperHeroSystems.com