Go Slow & Grow
Bob Breen's advice. Go Slow and Grow. He knows what he's talking about and if you've not read either of his excellent books "Sparring" and "Fighting" you really should. We've had a few months of working the absolute basics and tuesday night's Combat Sport class. Jab, cross, hook has been the mainstay for pad work. Last night we moved to numbered counts. This system makes it eas for the pad holder to direct the action whilst allowing the striker to flow.
1 = Jab
2 = Jab / Cross
3 = Jab / Cross / Hook
4 = Jab / Cross / Hook / Cross
Once these simple numbered combinations are committed to memory it becomes easy to create flowing combinations. Punches in bunches as they say. We worked 10 or so rounds last night, in the later rounds the pad holder was allowed to feed back counters to encourage the striker to cover at all times.
Afterwards we worked a half dozen rounds of slow sparring. I aimed for 20% in the knowledge that this will quickly become 30 or 40. The joy of this is we get to see how our opponent really moves and respond in kind. The real value is we become confident in our own movement. And movement is the key. Last night everyone had the opportunity to mix up their sparring without the fear of being dominated by a bigger, fast, stronger opponent.
This type of training only works if both parties are sympathetic to one another and "play the game". Interestingly, it takes a level of maturity to play this game well. If the ego does the fighting no-one wins. You could say "Go slow and Grow Up"
Rannoch Donald CKT1&2, RKC, SimpleStrength
No comments:
Post a Comment