I don’t train to become a good fighter. If I was a good fighter, the overpowering, constant, bilious rage and generalized hatred that passes for my personality might manifest itself in ways that would almost certainly get me some jail time. It’s best if I’m not able to hurt people, because if I could, I almost certainly would.
Originally posted by IronFist
No. That class was rad, but I graduated from University 6 months ago so I haven’t been there since.
If possible, stop by the class.
I also said I don’t really have a partner. I have a wing chun wall bag that isn’t hung up, and I have a dummy. That’s about it.
As you can see, I really don’t pay attention to your posts 
You’re trying to make this hard on me, bro. We’ll find a program for you to do.
I’m not really sure. I’d say my body can generate more power than my wrist can take.
alignment problem maybe? In any event, make sure you wrap them before striking.
What do you do with inner tubes? I can’t really do some of the stuff you listed cuz it takes 2 people.
Train throws - all you need is an innertube (or more, if you desire) and a pole to tie them around.
I guess I’m mostly concerned with being able to take hits and not care. Body shots are ok, but I turn into a ***** if I get hit in the face.
can’t do too much about that solo…
footwork drills
shadow fighting
knuckle pushups
inner tube work (if you do throwing of any type. If you are only a striker, don’t worry about it)
bobbing/weaving - hang a jumprope horizontally at about eye level. as you step forward, duck under the rope and raise your head on the other side. do this the entire length of the rope, then repeat, stepping backwards.
slipping - tie a tennis ball to some string and hang it. push the ball, and as it comes towards your head, slip out of the way. (yeah, this one is cheesy, but it’s something to do solo.)
Originally posted by CrippledAvenger
Ah. I’ve never worked with the pulley, so some pictures would be great. Either way, thanks for the info, MST and 7*.
you’ve never used WD’s pulley?
Originally posted by FatherDog
What you need is a coach.
I totally agree; but really, this is the answer to every non-OT post here. Hopefully we can get some inspiration from people’s comments.
Originally posted by SevenStar
[B]
you’ve never used WD’s pulley? [/B]
Nope. :o
We spent more time on rock-pole, two man excercizes, and freewrestling than using the pulley. If the weather had stayed a little warmer into this month, then it’d probably be a moot point.
Replies - here I go!
Thanks guys. So far all the advice has helped.
and put your mind on the elbow (dropping and driving) more rather than the fist?
and
I’ve never trained wing chun, so I don’t know about that. I’m sure that boxers focus on their elbows and weight sinking in this way, but hopefully someone with more experience in boxing will add their insights
Well, Wing Chun uses a vertical fist, so until the punch is completely extended, the elbow is below the fist. The advice to “drop the elbow” just seems to apply here better as compared to, say, a western boxing jab, where the elbow and fist are more on the same horizontal plane.
You should strike through the target, but it’s not the same as ramming your hand through the target. Both to effect your target more and save your own joints, you want to release the force in a certain crisp manner.
I can release the force in a “crisp manner,” but then it usually ends up like I just slapped them with my fist and doesn’t do any damage at all. This is like punching a hanging piece of paper… I get a huge snap but it doesn’t do anything if I punch something that same way.
If you have a stick or machete or something like that around, you can play a bit with moving from your elbow…
I think I understand that drill and the concept behind it. It’s like how if you punch with your whole body (“putting your hips into it”) you get a lot more force than if you just punch with your arm muscles, right?
Maybe when you’re a kid you tried to jump right at that moment, cause it feels kind of weird?
When I was a kid? I still do that You jump right before it starts to go down and then you fall a little bit longer than usual. Or if you jump right before it starts to go up, it will come up under you and you’ll land sooner than you would on a non-moving surface.
I’m just guessing but it sounds like your connection at the wrist is off. When you make a fist, look at it from the side, the knuckles to the other side of the wrist on the arm, all should be a straight line until you get some muscle buildup in the forearm.
It’s pretty straight. But if you’re doing a wing chun straight punch, your wrist can’t be straight with your forearm if you’re hitting something directly in front of you.
Either that or your not getting your mind into your fist.
Maybe that’s it.
I’ve bought some hand wraps and they can make your hands really tight and secure
I don’t use handwraps. It’s like using a belt in weight lifting. A belt will help you lift more in the gym, but it will prevent your abs and lower back from becoming accustomed to that weight you are lifting. Then when you go to lift it in real life (not in the gym), you can damage your abs or back because they’re not used to it. Same thing with wraps… sure maybe I can punch harder in training, but I’m not going to be wearing them in a fight so what’s the use? Thanks for the suggestion, tho.
What you need is a coach.
Yeah, thanks.
You need someone who knows this stuff to watch you and tell you what you’re doing wrong, to correct it.
Uh, I’ve got a digital camera.
At the very bare minimum, you need a sparring partner. You’re not going to learn to fight without fighting, and you’re not going to learn to take hits without getting hit.
I’m working on getting a sparring partner. I could always hit myself 
I was doing some drills tonight. Basically it was just jab-cross-hook over and over and over again with some footwork thrown in. Based on feeling (since I wasn’t hitting anything), I seem to be able to generate a ton more power punching like this than doing wing chun type punches. Even the hard core wing chun punches where you shift your weight and twist a little bit with each punch (sorry I don’t know how to describe it better) don’t come close to the power I was making (I think) with boxing punches. I didn’t include uppercuts in my combos cuz I never learned the proper way to do them.
Hmm. Boxing’s weak point appears to be it’s blocking, or lack thereof. Since you can’t really muffle punches when you’re not wearing boxing gloves. Think it’s possible to mix boxing punches with wing chun blocks? Too bad wing chun’s fighting stance lends itself well to wing chun blocks, but not boxing punches, and boxing’s stance works well for boxing punches but not blocking.
Alright. Now keep this good advice coming.
Thanks guys.
jab/cross/hook
jab/cross/hook/cross
jab/cross/body hook/hook (same hand)
jab/cross/hook/rear hook/hook
jab/jab/hook/cross
jab/lead hook/cross
“Hmm. Boxing’s weak point appears to be it’s blocking, or lack thereof. Since you can’t really muffle punches when you’re not wearing boxing gloves. Think it’s possible to mix boxing punches with wing chun blocks? Too bad wing chun’s fighting stance lends itself well to wing chun blocks, but not boxing punches, and boxing’s stance works well for boxing punches but not blocking.”
bob, weave, duck, slip and parry. the boxing guard works just fine for parrying strikes to the face. your elbows protect your midsection. Use your forearms (in an upward elbow wtrike type motion) to block hooks
Informative Thread
Man, some good stuff on this thread. If I had 60 days to get someone ready for a fight, the heavy bag would be their best friend, and worst enemy. You can do nearly everything listed on this thread on a heavy bag. The footwork, the combos, all of it. Endurance, speed, and power will be natural by products. IF - I get the feeling you’ve been in MA long enough to know how to punch right. I’m pretty sure that you’re right about your problem being weak wrists. My wrists are sad too. This sucks since most everything I do plays off a solid grab. I do over hand, and under hand wrist curls with as much weight as I can keep good form with. You can also take a piece of pvc pipe about 4 inches in diameter, attach one end of a MA belt to the pvc, the other to a weight of your chosing, and proceed to roll the weight up and down slowly by turning the pvc in you hands. You may have to play with the setup until it feels comfortable, but this will make your wrists stronger. I’ve reccomended them before, but for over all strength and cardio training kettlebells are great. They have the added benifit of working on wrist and grip strength as well. They’re an old training tool, but they have many uses for the modern athlete. For more info check out, www.fulcrumfitness.com
One more thing on training to fight, you’ve got to find a sparring partner. It doesn’t matter how good a punch you throw, if you can’t take one. Best of luck.
I had 2 guys pretty competant after 2 months of training twice a week. The fact that you are strong is actually a negative in a few ways. I noticed that people who perceive themselves as the weakest usually have the best form. Why is this? I dunno. Maybe the strong people are soo fixated with power that they compensate improperly. As a result I try to get guys to always think they will always be the weaker individual in a fight and try to fight as if they were “weak.” This will cause you to never focus on one trait and always to be filling the holes in your weaknesses.
Also, one has to cultivate a lack of personal welfare. =D I was told once that what made the Chinese fighters soo tough was that when given the choice between life and death… they chose death. Similar to Japanese bushido. Without the proper mindset to combat, NO amount of skill can save you. Lose the self and be able to go from 0 to 60 in an instant.
I remember this old man in my classes way back in the day. He was old as dirt and he knew it. He couldnt do all the fancy kicks and flipping etc. As a result he was pretty limited on what he could do in a fight. SooOo he picked the ole reverse punch. He trained it extensively until he was soo dead on that he could always hit you with it. Didnt matter what you did… attack, block, whatever. Dont get caught up in the vastness of the techniques cuz there really isnt anything differnt under the sun. In a nutshell, dont collect techniques. Master them and only then move on.
IF:
I don’t use handwraps. It’s like using a belt in weight lifting.
I would re-think this if you are seriously going to train someday to hit hard. It will be hard to train to hit with real power at some point if you dont learn to wrap and do it. You will never get much gains hitting the bag 4-5 times a week if you dont wrap. Wrapping helps your hand. You dont need to wrap all the time, but no one can really afford to not wrap ever and still expect to hit hard.
If anything put up your wall-bag and hit it. Without anything to hit, your actual deliverable power will not improve. Without a partner, same deal.
I thunk you could use stick training for developing speed and many other attributes. Then you can take your sticks with you and hit trees, poles, people, etc.
You should be jumping lots of rope. At least 3 rounds a day as warmup. More is generally better, specially if you dont have the problem of solo time vs partner time. Go from jumping rope to footwork drills into shadowboxing. Then into conditioning, breakfalls, rolls, bodyweight, (dont forget your neck if you want to take shots to head and face..) etc. Then sprints and other pylometrics. Spending lots of time with the rope slipping, bobbing and weaving and ducking will help to.
So you need: a coach, a sparring partner, and a heavy bag. Wnt get very far in a month or two without these things, if you want to fight. Your footwork will be sloppy, your guard will be all over the place, you will be slower, easier to hit, and your clinch and ground game will completly suck.
I dont know if I could live without focus mitts.
:eek:
by dummy… if you mean a grappling dummy… string him up and use it as a heavybag… tape some extra padding on the wing chum dummy and use that as a heavybag… wrap your wrist… when i first started i could hit a heavy bag with out buckling my wrist… now wrapping my wrist is not much of an issue… but it’s more to safeguard against mistakes… and all of this good advice in this forum is worthless without a GOOD sparring partner or 4…
Just do your forms & chi kung. That’s all you need (heh,heh,heh ).
SevenStar said:
jab/cross/hook
jab/cross/hook/cross
jab/cross/body hook/hook (same hand)
jab/cross/hook/rear hook/hook
jab/jab/hook/cross
jab/lead hook/cross
Good info. Thanks.
bob, weave, duck, slip and parry. the boxing guard works just fine for parrying strikes to the face. your elbows protect your midsection. Use your forearms (in an upward elbow wtrike type motion) to block hooks
I don’t know how to bob, weave, duck, or slip.
The dummy is a wing chun dummy.
I may be able to get a heavy bag but I dunno.
Re: Replies - here I go!
Originally posted by IronFist
Well, Wing Chun uses a vertical fist, so until the punch is completely extended, the elbow is below the fist. The advice to “drop the elbow” just seems to apply here better as compared to, say, a western boxing jab, where the elbow and fist are more on the same horizontal plane.
I see what you mean. The advice to focus more on the driving of the elbow isn’t dependant upon this kind of overt “dropped” structure; it applies to a boxing style posture as well. The idea is that if there’s a structural problem, it can sometimes be corrected by focussing on what is driving the problematic area - so if you find your wrist/hand is off, focusing on your elbow might fix it.
I can release the force in a “crisp manner,” but then it usually ends up like I just slapped them with my fist and doesn’t do any damage at all.
I know what you mean. It’s tough to get it right.
Boxing’s weak point appears to be it’s blocking, or lack thereof.
If your guard is up, you can cover an incoming limb by pressing or slapping down on it with your forearms, fists or palms. Practice doing this while adjusting your feet to “cross the T” (shifting and pivoting to take his flank so that your hips point at him but his don’t point at you), watch a good boxer, they’ll spend the whole round doing these adjustments; if you pivot to the left, cover his strike to the right, and vice versa so you’re just guiding it around your rotation rather than taking it. If you can’t cover (usually because the line of the strike is to the outside), lift the appropriate elbow up as if scratching the back or side of your head; hopefully making contact with the strike during the movement to guide it past your head with your forearm (or bumping it with your elbow) as you duck and turn a bit with the force, but at least giving the side of your head some protection (but bring it back down quick cause your side is open).
I haven’t read the whole thread but I’ve heard that these will strengthen your wrists: http://www.ironcrane.com/html/irncrs.html
[i]I haven’t read the whole thread but I’ve heard that these will strengthen your wrists: http://www.ironcrane.com/html/irncrs.html[/i]
No way! I read that article years ago and I was just thinking about it the other day but I couldn’t find it. It’s cool that you posted that link.
student section
[/i]
I’m checking that out. What am I looking for?
Well… theres combo lists: stickwork, padwork, bagwork, solowork, etc. There is a link somewhere to the WISE Camp prep. guide, some other good stuff for you. If your just lookig for combo lists, there are plenty there.
:eek:
What footwork and entries did you learn at the mma school if you didnt learn how to slip?
If you learned the footwork for anything, takedowns, straight blast, what not, practice that religiously while you are solo, it will probably pay off the most besides conditioning.
I think I have them all now, good stuff if you can find or afford.
