Tile exercise for Boxing:

[Sinister]

I train a very high level Shotokhan instructor and his daughter, there's actually more cross-over than you'd think.

This is them (he's in the white shirt, she's the girl):

 

[Sano]

I train a very high level Shotokhan instructor and his daughter, there's actually more cross-over than you'd think.

This is them (he's in the white shirt, she's the girl):

I've found that a lot of the principles from Tai Chi (chen style) transfers well to some parts of boxing. Weight transfer, smooth hips, always using the hips to turn with, balance, being centered, back straight and moving around a vertical axis, and having a low center of gravity.

 

[kenji goh]

I've found that a lot of the principles from Tai Chi (chen style) transfers well to some parts of boxing. Weight transfer, smooth hips, always using the hips to turn with, balance, being centered, back straight and moving around a vertical axis, and having a low center of gravity.

Yeah, but the power delivery mechanics are different right?
At least when we are talking about the rear straight hand.

In tai chi the proper technique is to put all your weight from the back foot to the front foot when you deliver the blow. They avoid being "double weighted".
Also many teachers advocate creating a straight line from head to heel. One guy I know from another forum calls this straight line "a lightning rod" that helps deliver together with the weight shift the power from the ground to the hands.
So when they punch they look like this.

Sinister, according to what I have read here in sherdog, teaches his hard right quite differently.
I guess there are many ways to skin a cat.
Of course, the reason these delivery mechanics and stance in tai chi, have taken this form might also has to do with the fact that Tai chi is a mixed martial art, so they serve various different purposes.

 

[Sinister]

There are cross-over techniques. Ironically enough Wilson Pitts also teaches Tai Chi. Guy who learned a lot of boxing from Georgie Benton.

 

[Sano]

Yeah, but the power delivery mechanics are different right?
At least when we are talking about the rear straight hand.

In tai chi the proper technique is to put all your weight from the back foot to the front foot when you deliver the blow. They avoid being "double weighted".
Also many teachers advocate creating a straight line from head to heel. One guy I know from another forum calls this straight line "a lightning rod" that helps deliver together with the weight shift the power from the ground to the hands.
So when they punch they look like this.

Sinister, according to what I have read here in sherdog, teaches his hard right quite differently.
I guess there are many ways to skin a cat.
Of course, the reason these delivery mechanics and stance in tai chi, have taken this form might also has to do with the fact that Tai chi is a mixed martial art, so they serve various different purposes.

I'm not exactly sure what style that is shown in the picture. I mean, it reminds me a bit like how they drive through in Karate. You can obviously generate power, and you do transfer power like that, but there are different ways to skin a cat as you say. What I'm talking about is this:



Notice the principles he talks about and how he uses his hips and ground forces with the body connected and straight, relaxed, and weight centered. I love watching this guy. His name is Chen Xiaowang and he's the current head of the Chen Style which is more combat focused than many of the other Tai Chi styles, as far as I understand it, although many of the principles are alike.

I find it so cool how at 1:17, he talks about beginner mistakes and how they user their upper body too much, and then he shows it. What does he show? Leaning.

This is him doing something called the 19 movements. It's a basic sort of Kata. Man, I would love to practice this. You can see many of the positive things on display, albeit it's slow and relaxed. Low center of gravity, weight shifting, moving with your "dan tien" (which is basicly another word for center of mass or hips) and letting the force flow and transfer through you.



Beautiful.

I really like the push hands they do as well. It's very closely linked to the push/pull of Judo.

 

[kenji goh]

Sorry for the late reply.
The man in the picture is Yang Chengfu of the Yang style of Tai Chi.

In this video, Chen Xiaowang is also talking about how important is to avoid to be double-weighted

And in this one, in the beginning, at 0:04 we see him doing a reverse punch/right straight
He is doing it similarly to the way I was told the Yang style is doing it.

It would be great if someone who does practice Chen Tai chi could illuminate us.
Preferably in another thread, before someone yells at us for sidetracking
one of the best boxing threads of sherdog talking about kung fu, of all things.

 

[DoctorTaco]

Our gym has a scholarship fund to help people pay for tuition who need boxing but circumstances make it hard to come up with the money. Rather than donate money to the fund I offered an hour of my time as a mitt holder and trainer for half my normal fee if they donated it to the scholarship fund.

The one guy to take me up on it was a half deaf retired school bus driver. Nice guy but a big personality where as I'm more introverted so I hadn't talked with him much. He showed up 10 minutes early, warmed up and got himself ready and then damn near blew my shoulders out of their sockets with his punches. Clean enough technique for an old man hobbiest and still hit like a heavyweight while keeping decent balance and form.

We talked afterwards and I found out he has a lifetime of martial arts experience including TKD and shotokan karate from his time in the service. Wrestled in HS, judo as a teenager, Japanese jiu jitsu in the 70s, a little Thai boxing when it first hit the scene. It was definitely the karate influence that had him driving his punches through the mitts (and my arms) while he stayed rooted to the ground.

 

[ShadowoftheSun]

@Sinister

Sorry to be bothering you again! I haven't been able to go to my gym because of a variety of factors (major depressive disorder and anxiety combined with super shitty conditioning mean that I have trouble finding the motivation... I'm trying to get into better shape so that I'll be able to go back more), but I've been doing what I can of the tile drill at home.

My question is reasonably simple - I saw you mention toe taps in one of the earlier posts, and I was wondering what that means - I've got a hypothesis, but I figured it'd be better to ask and be sure than assume and mess up. My hypothesis is that it allows you to feel when your weight is on any given hip - if I've got my weight on my rear hip, I should be able to lift my front foot off the ground for a few fractions of a second without falling over, and if I have my weight on my front hip, I should be able to do the same with my rear foot.

I'd have to assume that having your weight such that you could stand with only one foot on the ground would result in your head going right over the top of your foot, and would thus leave you vulnerable to punches, but having it shifted enough so that you could tap like I described above would be reasonable, and a good way to practice the necessary shifting of weight for punching, slipping, and so on.

Much thanks for all the content you've put out. One day - or more likely one month - when I can work up the motivation I'll have to dig through your post history and put it all into a Google doc just so it's all in one place.

Much thanks,
ShadowoftheSun

 

[Sinister]

Your hypothesis is correct.

BTW, "motivated" is a mood. You can feel it one minute, 5 minutes later not feel it. Like any mood. So that's not what you need. What you need is discipline. Discipline is little more than understanding that you don't need to feel good about doing a thing before you do it. In reality, it usually works out that you do the thing and then you feel good about having done it.

 

[ShadowoftheSun]

Fair cop to that. I'm not the most disciplined person around - my story kind of echoes that of Tarik, from one of your other threads.

Just another thing on the list of things to work on, I guess.

 

[Clinchster]

I always picture sinister as the old guy in the gym smoking a stogie and starts every conversation with "Let me tell ya somethin kid." Great stuff here, thanks!

 

[Sinister]

I'm actually pretty much the opposite. I'm young, for a trainer, just been through a lot of shit. And the old guard of trainers hate that I say shit like that. As if me saying it means it's bullshit, but if they said the same thing it's sage wisdom.

Fair cop to that. I'm not the most disciplined person around - my story kind of echoes that of Tarik, from one of your other threads.

Just another thing on the list of things to work on, I guess.

No, it's not really something you work on. It is, but it isn't. Discipline is about how you make your decisions. Do you want to feel good about what you do or no? If you do, then you choose to do what needs to be done and do it. If not, then you choose not to but then you don't get to whine about it or act like the World let you down. That's what Tarik does. He's a lazy shit. He skipped the Gym today for no good reason. He says he needs to "figure stuff out" but that's not what he's doing. He's just sitting on his ass, avoiding work.

It's a totally foreign concept to him that what he wants has to be attained by consistent effort. As his parents never once required that of him. He thinks he should just get what he wants because he wants it, which was enough for them to get him stuff primarily out of guilt for not actually raising him.

If any of that shit sounds familiar, then you need to rewire how you look at tasks. This is actually a common problem of today's generation, though. Most kids are narcissistic. If something doesn't revolve around them or they don't see any immediate benefit, they don't do it, even if they claim to have passion for it. And especially if they encounter any criticism of their efforts. Then it all falls apart. But that cycle doesn't get anyone anywhere except for mediocrity. In the immortal words of Tyler Durden: "...chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need."

 

[ShadowoftheSun]

Thanks for the advice, Sinister. I'll try to keep that in mind. Stay on the horse kind of thing.

 

[Redtarget]

Great throwback thread. Even after going over everything I didn't see much on putting this together for combinations (briefly). This seems fabulous for single punches/counters. Why does it feel like it'd be slow to use your hips correctly for 3-4 punch combinations? Was wondering if you ever thought about this or seen this @Sinister is speed (not only punches but actually going from hip to hip) a factor for this? Is it practical to have speed doing this or will you likely suffice to staying on one hip when throwing multiple punches in a row?

Maybe @a guy could see this too.

Thought it was an interesting question having not seen it before

 

[a guy]

Great throwback thread. Even after going over everything I didn't see much on putting this together for combinations (briefly). This seems fabulous for single punches/counters. Why does it feel like it'd be slow to use your hips correctly for 3-4 punch combinations? Was wondering if you ever thought about this or seen this @Sinister is speed (not only punches but actually going from hip to hip) a factor for this? Is it practical to have speed doing this or will you likely suffice to staying on one hip when throwing multiple punches in a row?

Maybe @a guy could see this too.

Thought it was an interesting question having not seen it before

3 full-power punches will always be slower than 2 throwaway punches and 1 full-power punch. Not every strike in every combo should be thrown with full power and hip involvement/weight shift anyway, mostly for reasons of rhythm.

Now if you want to throw 3 hard punches, then this teaches you exactly how to do it without losing balance, and in fact teaches you to do it in a way so that each shot perfectly loads up the next one. It can be done with great speed when your hip control improves, though definitely not at first for most people.

 

[Sinister]

Great throwback thread. Even after going over everything I didn't see much on putting this together for combinations (briefly). This seems fabulous for single punches/counters. Why does it feel like it'd be slow to use your hips correctly for 3-4 punch combinations? Was wondering if you ever thought about this or seen this @Sinister is speed (not only punches but actually going from hip to hip) a factor for this? Is it practical to have speed doing this or will you likely suffice to staying on one hip when throwing multiple punches in a row?

Maybe @a guy could see this too.

Thought it was an interesting question having not seen it before

Timing > speed

 

[shs101]

After watching the fight (just got time to view it) of lomanchenko vs rigo one of the first things that popped in my head was this thread. It seems as lomanchenko has VERY good hips and it really stood out against a fighter like Rigo who hips seem stiffer, also he seems to favor his rear hip entirely which is why I feel like he got caught a lot (besides him completely bending over). Also another gem of lomanchenko is how well he keeps his feet under him when moving/punching (not so relevant to hips here but wanted to point that out) Wanted to see what your thoughts are on this and that fight? Is that a good example of 2 active fighters right now and hips? @Sinister @a guy

Here's the fight also for anyone to watch it if they haven't

 

[StopDucking]

@Sinister One thing I just realized while doing the tile exercice is that when I rotate into my lead side without lifting my heel, my rear knee still points slightly towards the inside even though I'm just moving the trunk. It's a small detail I've never paid attention to before but now that I've just blown up my knee doing jump squats, I can definitely feel it.

Is there a way to avoid this completely? If there isn't, I'm just gonna lift my knee every time I rotate from now on because putting pressure on a knee that's turned to the inside is suicide. Had to learn it the hard way.

 

[Reyesnuthugr]

@Sinister One thing I just realized while doing the tile exercice is that when I rotate into my lead side without lifting my heel, my rear knee still points slightly towards the inside even though I'm just moving the trunk. It's a small detail I've never paid attention to before but now that I've just blown up my knee doing jump squats, I can definitely feel it.

Is there a way to avoid this completely? If there isn't, I'm just gonna lift my knee every time I rotate from now on because putting pressure on a knee that's turned to the inside is suicide. Had to learn it the hard way.

Concsiously lift (opposite of curl) the toes on the pivoting foot as you do it to turn the foot (pushing/rotating off the general ball-area) much easier, remove the unnecessary drag against the floor from your toes getting in the way.

That's what my coach taught me and it's absurdly simple but it works.

 

[StopDucking]

Concsiously lift (opposite of curl) the toes on the pivoting foot as you do it to turn the foot (pushing/rotating off the general ball-area) much easier, remove the unnecessary drag against the floor from your toes getting in the way.

That's what my coach taught me and it's absurdly simple but it works.

Thanks for the tip but the problem I'm talking about is different. I'll explain.

Here's the tile exercice's starting position:

If you rotate into your lead side without lifting your rear heel, your rear knee will turn to the inside while your rear foot will still point straight:

By lifting the rear knee, you can avoid having tension in your knee:

Seems to me like the move shown in the second picture should be avoided.