kidspatula's competition thread

**Torakaka** · Posted On: 8/08/2009 8:20am

Originally Posted by War Wheel

I will second this analysis. What do you think about the relative ability of the two opponents?

Jen Nguyen is a more experienced and more skilled fighter than Tecia, in my opinion. She knows the game of muaythai and she has solid boxing skills. The reason why I had an easier time with her, I think, is that I am more comfortable against the style she uses. She has a more typical "muaythai" style of fighting, somewhat similar to my own, that I am more comfortable with picking apart. Her record going into our fight was 7-2, with her two losses coming from two of the most skilled 115-120lb females in the US.

Tecia was quick on her feet and played a much more defensive game. This, along with her side kicking, made it difficult for me to get comfortable striking with her on the outside. I am pretty unused to evasive, defensive fighters that like to hang back and use counter side kicks. People with TKD/karate point sparring back grounds have always been a bit frustrating for me. Her record according to IKF was 3-0, though her coach told me she'd had 6 fights before me so I imagine she'd done a few smokers that she didn't list on her record.

**Matt Phillips** · Posted On: 8/09/2009 1:00am

IIRC Tecia had decent boxing too.

**Sang** · Posted On: 8/09/2009 1:32am

Was interesting to see the different style match up, we hardly see any side kicks over here. Was that fight scored under Muay Thai rules though?

By my count you won the 1st just with your takedowns and a couple of knees edging you over. Won the 2nd by a large margin and the third was at worst a draw. The only way i can see that going to her is if they were scoring side kicks to the lead leg much higher than knees to the mid-section. That's the fight game for you though :(.

**Anna Kovacs** · Posted On: 8/09/2009 1:49pm

Originally Posted by Sang

Was that fight scored under Muay Thai rules though?

It was supposed to be but the only way that outcome is really feasible is if you have a bunch of FCR guys who don't know how to judge muay thai. The only thing that could have edged the girl over is if they were counting the total ineffective body taps that the girl was throwing from inside the clinch that she couldn't escape. Those would not be scoring blows in muay thai. all they do is show that you can't defend the clinch at all so the best you can hope for is to tap them with your gloves and pretend like you're doing something besides sucking at the clinch. The girl was desperately trying to fall over to escape to the point where she pulled ashly on top of her. In actual muay thai that would basically lose you the fight, it shows that you have absolutely *zero* control of whats going on in a fight that took place mostly in the clinch.

**Torakaka** · Posted On: 8/09/2009 7:57pm

Originally Posted by War Wheel

IIRC Tecia had decent boxing too.

She let her hands go well, though only really landed a couple clean punches. The punch combos that I landed were every bit as effective, though I think not nearly as noticeable since I'd clinch, land punches where she'd turn away and directly back into clinching. She did land a few hooks while I was making my way into the clinch, though they didn't have a lot of body torque behind them and so were more distracting than anything else.

**dwkfym** · Posted On: 2/24/2010 1:55am

I don't like the IKF MT ruleset, but have no grips about their leg kick and AKB rules.

**Torakaka** · Posted On: 10/01/2010 8:44pm

Not sure why I didn't think to post this here instead of making a new thread for it in the first place... oops! Guess I just forgot about these competition threads.

YouTube - muaythai fight

**BackFistMonkey** · Posted On: 10/01/2010 9:33pm

Nice win.

What did you break/bust/inflict pain on to take the will to fight of her ?

Thanks for sharing.

**Sang** · Posted On: 10/02/2010 2:59am

Hey kid i was meaning to ask you about that vid, probably not the right thread/pm for it but how do you do those fold back knees in the clinch? All we're shown in my gym are door closing 'slapper' knees and typical straight knees when there is body room.

Awesome fight by the way, you looked really comfortable.

**Torakaka** · Posted On: 10/02/2010 7:42am

It's all about keeping your hip/leg joints totally loose and swinging your leg back and around in a circular motion. You want your hip/leg joint to be as totally loose as possible so the whipping motion you do with your hips freely slings your leg around. Personally, I am able to knee much harder and from many more angles with these types of knees so it's what a practice 90% of the time when doing any sort of knee drills. I tell my students to try and bring the knee up as high as possible before it starts to drive towards the target to get used to just letting it fly, rather than "pushing" forward. It's the same basic concept as throwing a good midsection roundkick. Total relaxation.

Also, thanks! I was actually pretty tense for the first part of this fight because I was terrified about blowing out my already injured knee, but as I realized how much faster I was than my opponent I got comfortable and started to really relax.