Hi guys, need some advice in shadow boxing and bag work

**bait** · Posted On: 9/05/2008 10:17pm

Hi guys, i needed some help here

things that already noticed

-hand dropping problem

-chin lifted

please any tips?

YouTube - heavy bag1

YouTube - heavy bag2

shadow boxing

YouTube - shadow boxing
Thanks in advance

**hungryjoe** · Posted On: 9/05/2008 10:25pm

Get your hands up and stay loose.

You're killiing your front knee with the back leg roundhouse. Rotate more and you'll find more power. Your front leg knee with thank you later in life.

Other than that, you have good crisp hands.

***WhiteShark*** · Posted On: 9/06/2008 6:25am

Spar actual people more often there are certain thing you do that will just go away with real experience.

**Boogers** · Posted On: 9/06/2008 10:24am

Whiteshark is right.

What follows is my personal opinion based purely on what you have presented in the videos.

Please. I am no pro fighter. I only know what I do from training with and sparring guys who were ranked amateur fighters and less than a handful of ranked pro fighters. These guys have helped me no end in my development but I am nowhere near, nor ever match, them. Lots of advice along with medical and dental bills been my experience.

You have fair foundational striking skills. I have a feeling from the way you strike quickly and move that you are probably around the light to light-middleweight class. If you were to fight in an unranked amateur event, and didn't fight some 'freak of nature', you would have a strong chance of winning due to your ability to hit hard and fast.

Here are the negatives I noticed. You appear to lack mental focus when you are going through your rounds. After every exchange you drop your hands to the level of your middle chest or completely down. You do the same after every right-leg roundhouse kick. Your hands loop in the recovery to guard, or more to the point, your body. It's like you expect that after your combo your opponent will be so rocked he won't interrrupt the flurry or hit you back afterwards. When you became tired, which appeared to happen reasonably soon in the round, you came to a complete halt. It's like you did your rounds with no inner goal apart from hitting the bag as hard and fast as possible (which you do very well I might add).

I have no idea who you are. I have no idea of your trainer/instructor's curicullum and how long you have been training for. I have no idea about your personal goals when you train and what you see as important. If you are hitting the bag for the joy of it, and enjoying improving your striking technique on the bag, you are doing fantastic. More power to you! :icon_bigg

If you want to fight right now, well, that is another matter. Getting hit for real is a super-freakin'-bitch of a thing and the adrenaline dump alone makes my training and limited experience fall out my ass by the second minute in a three minute round - in round one!!! :icon_puke

Work out what you actually want to seriously commit to in your training and where you want to go. What personal limitations have you got in wife/kids and career? I dream of sleeping on the floor of Bas Rutten's gym and being the most conditioned accomplished fighter I could possibly become. I also could never throw away my wife and kids for such a thing either.

I can only do what I can do in the life I have.

What do you have? What must you keep? Are your goals real? Work out what is truly possible and go for it! Have a happy properous life!

**bait** · Posted On: 9/06/2008 11:24am

-HungryJoe

Nice advice for the roundhouse, i really had some knee problems, so i must really take care of them (i know i will miss them sometime) :)

-Whiteshark

Noticed that huh? Good eyes, actually i spar a lot, but due to an injury of my sparring partner the last time i sparred with head punches was like 6 months ago, still rolling, doing takedowns, more grappling lately

- Boogers

Actually i am 82 kilos (180 lbs), lost like 10 kilos in the last months.

About the lack of focus, you are right, looking now, thanks to your advice your advice really hit the spot, i need some alarm clock to measure the time

About the hands, yeah, serious problem, maybe overconfidence?
and yeah, i was really tired, the day before i had to roll with another friend of mine (90 kilos), who is pretty strong, so yeah, my gas tank was down.

My background is tma, competed in some grappling events, and amateur mma, but now i am really busy to compete, so i dropped that option. Actually 8 months ago i almost stopped training completely, but a medical condition (rare i must add) in the blood and heart practically throwed me again to at least exercise myself in the things that i like.
So basically my goal is to be alive (dramatic , huh?)

Great advice people, i have some good things to fix, but feel free to add more advice, BTW greeting from brazil !

**Hesperus** · Posted On: 9/06/2008 3:53pm

This might be noobish of me, but where are you aiming those roundhouses in the first video? They look like they're hitting right at the level of your hip level, and unless you're fighting octogenarians, that seems like a bad place to target.

**fxyrslf** · Posted On: 9/06/2008 4:41pm

My semi educated opinion:

I agree on the apparent lack of real focus. Although you are clearly co-ordinated there is a degree of spazzing going on. For instance, in the shadow boxing you seem to be dancing about without any real rhyme or reason. What are you trying to achieve with the footwork? Are you trying to cut off the ring, circle, create angles on an imaginary oponent etc? It doesn't really seem like it.

**KITAmaru** · Posted On: 9/06/2008 5:41pm

It's really nice that you bother to take videos of yourself for the purposes of self-improvement; maybe a year or so from now you can look back at it and say 'Wow, I sure have improved a lot since then'...

Anyway, I'm almost 30 pounds lighter than you, so to generate more power when striking, I pretty much have no choice but to put emphasis on the pivot when throwing not only the rear leg roundhouse, but the cross as well. You seem to be getting a decent amount of power already, but at least for me, the difference between a pivotless and pivoting right is huge. I feel it would certainly increase the power behind yours.

**bait** · Posted On: 9/06/2008 8:00pm

Originally Posted by Hesperus

This might be noobish of me, but where are you aiming those roundhouses in the first video? They look like they're hitting right at the level of your hip level, and unless you're fighting octogenarians, that seems like a bad place to target.

Surely, but if you can check, the videos are in different angles, the camera was in a lower level than usual.

Originally Posted by fxyrslf

My semi educated opinion:

I agree on the apparent lack of real focus. Although you are clearly co-ordinated there is a degree of spazzing going on. For instance, in the shadow boxing you seem to be dancing about without any real rhyme or reason. What are you trying to achieve with the footwork? Are you trying to cut off the ring, circle, create angles on an imaginary oponent etc? It doesn't really seem like it.

Point taken. being more objective in the footwork
i am trying to fight an imaginary opponent , so any tips how to improve in the rhyme?

Originally Posted by KITAmaru

It's really nice that you bother to take videos of yourself for the purposes of self-improvement; maybe a year or so from now you can look back at it and say 'Wow, I sure have improved a lot since then'...

Anyway, I'm almost 30 pounds lighter than you, so to generate more power when striking, I pretty much have no choice but to put emphasis on the pivot when throwing not only the rear leg roundhouse, but the cross as well. You seem to be getting a decent amount of power already, but at least for me, the difference between a pivotless and pivoting right is huge. I feel it would certainly increase the power behind yours.

thanks, i will try next time

that's great, some good criticism here, keep the good stuff coming !