# 1st Thai Boxing Sparring Session



## DaveB (Aug 5, 2017)

I'm getting back into training after a long child rearing hiatus.

Yesterday I went to my first sparring session at the Muay Thai club I've joined. It was great fun, the guys were friendly and took it easy on my out of shape carcass. 

I think I acquitted myself well, but two things struck me that were interesting.
1. It's funny what habits stick with you through years of inactivity.
I kept wanting to spinning kick people, an old habit from my Taekwondo training.
I also kept dropping my lead hand to block leg kicks a la Shotokan.
This is funny because the last art I trained regularly was kungfu where I replaced both those habits, but it was the shortest training period of the three.

The spinning back kicks were fairly effective at least.

2. Thai boxers creep up on you and I'm not used to dealing with that in gloved sparring. Because of the slow creeping advance it can be very hard to get them to over-extend or chase and so the fight ends up up close and brutal very often. At least when the fighter is a similar size as me. There were not many distance manipulation opportunities with the bigger guys.

I wonder if with gloves the threat of injury is less of a deterrent or if it's just the Thai way to keep moving forward. 

Anyway, there's not really a question here, but any comments or advice are welcome. Any other getting back to training stories, or fight habit observations too.


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## drop bear (Aug 5, 2017)

Not really with the gloves. Sorta. You do get hit more and it hurts more.

I know guys who fignt muay thai in MMA gloves.And I asked them exactly that.






If you are going to drop your hands for leg kicks. Drop them over the top and catch the kick.


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## DaveB (Aug 6, 2017)

drop bear said:


> Not really with the gloves. Sorta. You do get hit more and it hurts more.
> 
> I know guys who fignt muay thai in MMA gloves.And I asked them exactly that.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the tips.

Thing is, even before doing kungfu I'd adopted a legs for legs hands for hands approach.  Maybe it's not the karate but the boxing? I had completely stopped kicking for a number of years die to back injuries so maybe I'm just hand focussed now....

Aside from the spontaneous jumping back kicks.


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## JP3 (Aug 6, 2017)

I had a lead hand drop to block in the beginning, too. One thing my MT teacher did was to set up a leg-blocking drill to develop eht musclememory of using the legs to block and/or using movement to degrade/diminish the power with which the kicks would impact.  Pretty simple, really. All you do is just dril that particular moment of sparring, but you do it over and over, with your partner designated to attack you only with one side leg kick, starting out with only one height level, and you consciously tell yourself to block with the leg, and you get ready and do it against the known inbound attack, starting with slow speeds, low power stuff, and gradually wratchet up the speed and power intensity of that one kick until you can comfortably (so to speak) deal with that attack.

Rinse, lather & repeat for the other side.  Once you've done both sides for a couple-three days, probably doing 100 per training session per side, I think you'll find that you've replaced the hand-drop habit.

I found spinning side kicks worked well on the MT guys, too. Also, the TKD front snap kick is a winner, especially if you have developed a good MT push-kick and ccan mix them up as the defense against them is different (unless the guy can just step out of the way, in which case you need to work on speed, timing and/or spacing).


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## DaveB (Aug 6, 2017)

Excellent suggestion re the front kick, thx.

I'd started doing the leg block practice with my partners but was mindful of their training time too.

I think I've got the answer to that creeping forward thing... side kick!

Lead leg snapping side kick to the mid section to wound and give me space. Hopefully they will start trying to lunge in faster and I can set up the chase and counter!

Of course this is based on the speed and flexibility of my youth when I could snap out a kick faster than the average punch... I'm probably gonna get bludgeoned when I try it with my current stats.  Should be fun though.


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## marques (Aug 6, 2017)

DaveB said:


> I wonder if with gloves the threat of injury is less of a deterrent or if it's just the Thai way to keep moving forward.


I did not get this 'moving forward' thing from my training, but it can be relate to the cultural need to show toughness and courage. Technique is not everything. Running away (aka defence) is not much valued. It is more a feeling than something I was told by this words. Just my 50 cents. 

Also, look boxing. Quite the same kind/size of gloves and they constantly move front and back, left and right.


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## DaveB (Aug 6, 2017)

marques said:


> I did not get this 'moving forward' thing from my training, but it can be relate to the cultural need to show toughness and courage. Technique is not everything. Running away (aka defence) is not much valued. It is more a feeling than something I was told by this words. Just my 50 cents.
> 
> Also, look boxing. Quite the same kind/size of gloves and they constantly move front and back, left and right.



Good point.


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## drop bear (Aug 6, 2017)

DaveB said:


> Excellent suggestion re the front kick, thx.
> 
> I'd started doing the leg block practice with my partners but was mindful of their training time too.
> 
> ...



You can try booting the knee out oblique style. Mostly legal. You might upset some people though.


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## DaveB (Aug 6, 2017)

drop bear said:


> You can try booting the knee out oblique style. Mostly legal. You might upset some people though.



I considered that but i thought it was against the rules and i was already struggling to keep style specific. 

If it's allowed I'll try it as a light tap so as not to get in trouble.


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## JP3 (Aug 6, 2017)

The MT push kick is really the one that knocks the creepers backwards.  FOr me, it's easier to chamber and fire effectively even if they try to jam. if you can still chamber and fire the sidekick like we could in our 20s, then, by all means! Sounds like it'd work for that purpose just fine.


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