Cultivating physical toughness

[marcusdbrutus]

12oz are light for sparring. They're on the heavy side for fight gloves but they';re fight weight none the less and pretty under protective for sparring. You can really hurt someone if you're older then 12.

Let's think about how hard they'll be hitting here.

[CrackFox]

What kind of sparring do you guys do?

You might want to look into boxing drills where for example one person goes on the offence and the other just has to weather the storm, maybe throwing the odd counter punch. Or even making them fight while baked into a corner. Thing is these are drills where you need to have a very experienced person paired off with the beginner. The noob has to be pushed just outside their comfort zone, not beaten into submission.

Actually, making sure the new people get matched up against people who are good fighters (but not assholes) is probably a good idea anyway. Also, this might sound a bit obvious, and you probably do this already, but it helps if the person supervising shouts out some encouragement and the odd idea for an attack.

[Siniq]

I'm looking for some two-man exercises that can be done to improve one's ability to take a...

I'm allredy thinking up gay jokes here

[WhiteShark]

1) Spar more often for shorter amounts of time.
2) Wear quality headgear not dipped foam ****.
3) Wear quality gloves no less than 16oz and intended for sparring.
4) Wear a mouth guard that fits well.
5) Practice the offense defense drill recommended above.

If all of those don't work in 6 months get a new hobby.

[Toptomcat]

Thank you...a lot of good suggestions here. Tough to see why this was moved, except generally for its its 'unclean' TMA roots, but I can't complain- I got what I needed.

[new2bjj]

12oz are light for sparring. They're on the heavy side for fight gloves but they';re fight weight none the less and pretty under protective for sparring. You can really hurt someone if you're older then 12.

Most gyms want you to have 16 ouncers for sparring. Personally I wear 14's but i'm a scrawny girl (unless I know i'm going to spar someone that annoys me, then I leave on my 10's). Guys on the bigger side should probably look at 18oz or even 20.

But yeh, it's really just a matter of mentality. Maybe they'll get used to it, maybe they wont. If they can't/wont cultivate the mental toughness to continue going then martial arts are not the physical pursuit of choice for them and they might just have to accept that.

Toughness can be cultivated, at least if you start early enough- a young Oscar De LaHoya went home crying the first time he boxed, and he probably didn't like it afterwards so much either. At the same time, if you're in your 20's or even late teens, it's really hard to kill the flinch reflex.

A hobby should be something you should enjoy, not fill you with dread before each sparring session. Besides, there are so many other choices, and most fist fights can be avoided these days. And if you are worried about defending your home, buy a gun- Kid has plenty of them.

[DdlR]

I'm looking for some two-man exercises that can be done to improve one's ability to take a hit and physical toughness. We've got a few students at our school who can't take more than one or two hits of a type that merely daze others, and they don't seem to be improving.

This may only be partly a matter of physical toughness (as in developing enough jaw/neck or abdominal muscle to act as shock absorbers); it's also a psychological issue re. learning to take a shot without freezing or collapsing in instinctive self defense, and a skill issue in terms of learning to roll with a punch to deflect the impact.

If they're really struggling with this, I'd suggest progressive resistance training; start them off with controlled pre-set drills in which they get accustomed to taking firm pushes (not punches) to the side of the jaw, the solar plexus area or wherever they're having trouble, gradually increasing the force of the pushes as they get used to it. Next step is to have them take slow and relatively gentle punches, again increasing the force until they've caught up with the rest of the class.

[Ronin.74]

Do what I did when I was 19.

Step 1. Train with a Pro Boxer/Kickboxer who is tough as nails and so mean that he makes the devil piss himself.

Step 2. Continue letting him beat the **** out of you and everyone else for about 8-10 months (preferably without headgear, yeah we were young, stupid and thought we were badasses)

What did I develope from this kind of training? An intense dislike for being punched in the face, excellent defense, better movement, the ability to take a punch and not quit, a fearless attitude when sparring, and a short term stutter.

But after all that I'm at least not afraid to step up when the need arises.

[Matt Phillips]

Back in my JKD days we used to do a drill from FMA where you take turns punching each other in the gut in a me-you-me... you-me-you rhythm. Noobs do it light, and work up to full power. This was done bare knuckle. We also used to use just our hands for focus mits, and let our partners Thai kick our thighs, while turning out the ankle to take it on the back of the leg instead of the nerve. All of this was none with incementally increasing power. It worked.

Feeding pads for someone who has good power will also get you used to maintainiing stability while getting knocked around.

[qazza]

Physical toughness is really mental, its all in the mind, everybodies pain threshold is different, but it does help to put on muscle so your arm or leg doesn't snap when kicked, etc If your going to toughen up your bones by hitting hard objects, dont go crazy and snap your leg, do it every day