From: todd@reed.edu (Todd Ellner)
Newsgroups: rec.martial-arts
Subject: Re: Thai kickboxing
Date: 31 Dec 92 08:08:03 GMT
Article-I.D.: reed.1992Dec31.080803.24930
Organization: Reed College, Portland, Oregon

In article <1992Dec31.024754.25064@microsoft.com> bobsarv@microsoft.com (Bob Sarver) writes:
>Why is this better / more dynamic than other kinds of sparring?   Are the 
>motions simpler / more instinctive than other MA? If so, does that let you 
>concentrate less on artistic perfection of form, and more on "getting the 
>job done"?  

What I was trying to say is that with Thai pads or focus mitts and a good
feeder you can get a lot of the benefits of sparring without sparring per se.
First, when you hit pads instead of hitting just air you get used to hitting
something that provides resistance and to hitting a target in a certain place
(i.e. wherever the feeder puts it). If the feeder is good s/he will move you
around much like in sparring and make you defend yourself (blocking, evading,
etc.). In other words, you hit something like you really would hit an
opponent without having to pull your punches. You move around in a realistic
fashion, and practice defense and offense in the same drill. Of course, all
of this depends on the feeder. If s/he is good, and there is an art to feeding
which I am still struggling with, s/he will work on what you need to do at
the level you need to work and give you a good hard physical workout as well.
[Please not that this is not unique to Muay Thai. Boxers use focus mitts, and
many other styles of martial arts have picked up this training method].

>So the padding doesn't interfere with the toughening of the shins, elbows,
>etc?  Does the padding create any bad side effects (due to the fact that
>in the ring or on the street you won't be wearing padding)?
1Thai pads and focus mitts are not soft, at least not the good ones. They
provide some mass so that your feeder doesn't get broken, and they are  not
hard like wood, but it is not like hitting an air shield or a cushion. You 
can hit a Thai pad much harder than your limb can take without pain. Then
too a teacher of mine has said that it is better to hit something softer
ten times than to hit something really hard once.

>Also:  makiwara?  
A somewhat-padded surface (often a wrapped post or a bean-bag on a wall)
which Okinawan and Japanese stylists among others use to toughen their
limbs.

>(todd)
>/I have gone on for some time about the virtues of Muay Thai _training_ and
>/have said very little about the _sparring_. That is because there is very
>/little (or no) sparring unless  you actually get into the ring. 
>
>No open sparring, without pads?

Not in any school I am aware of or any training camp in Thailand that I have
heard of. The one school I am familiar with that tried it regretted it. The
students wanted to spar and kept bugging the instructor to let them spar
full-contact. He finally gave in. So many of them got badly hurt that the
school quickly dropped its Muay Thai program (Iron Tiger Karate School in
Capitola, CA). 
-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Todd Ellner  todd@reed.edu 
"What has the study of biology taught you about the Creator Dr. Haldane?"
JBS Haldane:"I'm not sure, but He seems to be inordinately fond of beetles."
Newsgroups: rec.martial-arts