A few fighter at the mma gym i train at want me to teach them boxing. I made the jump from boxing to mma about 1 year ago. I still train in boxing but don't fight boxing matches anymore because i want to concentrate on mma, muay thai and grappling comps. Where i train now they are mainly a grappling gym so they are strong wrestlers and bjj fighters and some good muay thai fighter and mma. There isnt anyone there that can teach proper boxing it is more a boxercise class. So a few of the fighter said they liked the way i moved and my footwork and they said they wanted me to show them some things. The problem is i don't know where to start. Teaching and fighting are 2 different skills. I don't really think i have it in me to teach. My attitude is, ''you just do it'' meaning i don't know how to explain how i do it i just do. I remember all the drills i have done and everything. What they want me to teach them is movement and footwork, meaning head movement, slips and counter, spinning to angles, etc.. So where do i start? any tips would be much appreciated.
start with the first things. stance(i show them boxing stance and show them the advantages an disadvantages in it for kickboxing/mma), moving side to side, straight shots. keeping hands up, chin and elbows tucked in all the time. after you got the basics you can start with more things. teach them a good jab, and teach them to step back and come back with a right straight. this manouever alone makes most guys much better... always work on fundamentals.
Yep, you got it. I got asked the same thing two years ago, and I am not a great boxer, but got to spar with low level pros at my boxing gym for about 2 years. When striking with MMA/BJJ guys, it was almost silly, so they asked me. Here is what I did for what it's worth. Stress the fundamentals. If these are fighters, they need to drill this stuff over and over just like you did starting out. I would not allow them to spar for months, even if they have been sparring. I would work on the hybrid boxing stance for mma, which is a combo of wrestling/boxing stance. Too square, you get lit up. Too sideways, no hips to sprawl. Footwork- I put down a cone for each person, circle around it, shoulder through the cone, bend your knees. Don't worry about the checking the leg kick stuff, it's boxing. Instruct them to let their shoulders bounce, elbows tucked, stay relaxed, chin tucked, hands up, keep hands open, don't hold tension Punches-straight off the ribs, throw in a straight line, step with punches, turn punches over, etc. Break down every punch and teach yourself first. Go slow, look at what you are doing with your feet, hips, etc. If they have trouble with all of it, break it down further. After this go into defense-parrying, bobbing, etc. Start slow with sparring-I didn't allow any of them to spar for several months, and then we only did body sparring for months. This was because I wanted them to learn to effectively throw punches without worrying about everything else(see the bottom as to why). Eventually graduate on a case by case basis to regular glove work and of course, when a fight is coming up, combing these skills with the wrestling portion. One important piece of advice is to try not to teach everything. If there is somebody who is having trouble just stepping with their jab, don't tell them about keeping your other hand up, do this, do that in addition. This is the biggest mistake I see people make. Approach everything one step at a time. Slow and steady wins the race. This was my approach. Good luck!
An all around good post. :good As far as how much to cover in one session, we used the rule of three for this one. We focus on no more than 3 things at a time. Beyond that and things get counter-productive.
i dont want to treat these guys like they are begginers and these guys dont want to fight in boxing matches either. I was thinking i might only show them long range boxing or get in and get out boxing. There is no point teaching in fighting because it doesnt happen in mma, that is where wrestling comes into it. I sort of have a idea of what i want to teach them. i want to teach them evasion. So i will do slipping drills and teach them to counter after the slip. I will do pads where after every combo i have them spinning out to the angle or laterally moving the other way. These guys are proffesional fighter so i cant not have them sparring for months. They just want me to teach them boxing useful for mma. The mainly want me to teach them footwork and evasion.
That's fine. I was just letting you know what I did with good results. I see what you mean by being pro fighters and not being able to spar, I thought they were new guys with a few amateur fights. I will tell you that we have a pro fighter, great wrestler, who has really gotten killed the past two fights against trained boxers with takedown defense. He just works on a very cookie cutter approach and has not done well at all, getting ko'd twice in the first round. He only trains boxing twice a week and doesn't have good fundamentals at all. He also gets beaten pretty bad when he spars some of our amateur MMA guys for the boxing portion. I feel it would be worth their while to learn some of the very basic fundamentals. As far as infighting, yes you are right. That close proximity you train elbows and knees strikes. However, those short punches do still have their place in MMA. My .02 is to not water that portion down too much. Good luck.
the more i think about it now realise the fundamentals are important to building any base. Sometimes you just forget all the work that went into building good footwork or defence or punching. I will start of by showing him the different stances i know. Then show him a few different jabs. Then start getting him to punch and move. I will wait until he gets fluent with head movement, straight punching, spinning to angles, moving in and out and defence, then add in short punches, shoulder rolls, etc. But the more i think about it, its starting to come to me what i should teach him. But thanks for your reply mate. When i introduce boxing sparring we wont be bombing away. it will be very controlled sparring using more speed and what i have taught him and not so much power. Cheers.
Hey von, that was a pretty good post and good advice man. I can definately agree about only working on one or two things at a time. I was teaching some guys down here how to box, and most had never even worn gloves before. Now, i am far from an expert, but just stuck to what i knew, and taught all the basic stuff. There were other guys who had done boxing/kickboxing and had fought alot, and they kept giving these new guys all this advice at once. It just completely overloaded them. I ended up telling the ex-fighters to say nothing, as it was making these new guys worse. I just corrected one or maybe 2 things a session. Starting with the most important stuff first, eg footwork, and found that to be extremely successful. All of these beginners look really sharp now with what they know.
