Preferred Exercises or Fitness Activities the Forum engages in

[The Spaniard]

Still doing a mix of boot camps, lifting, and Krav.  Each a few times per week.

Are you doing Krav Maga?

Yes, been doing it for about a year and 1/2.

Nice. I always did more sport martial arts but I have a friend who is very into Krav Maga

I boxed and practiced Tae Kwan Do when I was younger.  Traveling a ton for work prevented me from any kind of consistent training for a while. Krav has been great.  Good conditioning, solid situational awareness training and de-escalation techniques, and good mix of striking, grappling and hold/restraint.  I understand nationally it can be dicey though.  You really need to vet who's running the program.  There's some folks out there teaching nonsense.  That probably holds true for many others as well though.

[oggsmash]

  I have seen some quacks teaching Krav.  It is more or less the modern incarnation of Jeet Kune Do.  That is a very mixed bag as well, everything from literal masters of unarmed combat to dudes teaching eye pokes and trash striking and grappling.   I do not have as much long term exposure with Krag Maga though, so I can not comment large scale, only on the one douche I saw teaching in my area and a few internet train wrecks.   BJJ and MMA have had their share of posers too so I think it is something that happens any time something gets a good deal of exposure/publicity.    The fakes tend to get weeded out in a few years though, especially if what they are teaching involves a good deal of live contact.  Impossible to hide forever in that environment.   I would guess if they people you train with have been around for 3+ years you are safe regarding whackos.  I think that goes for most martial arts though, not just Krav, JKD or BJJ/etc.

[Bedrockbrendan]

  I have seen some quacks teaching Krav.  It is more or less the modern incarnation of Jeet Kune Do.  That is a very mixed bag as well, everything from literal masters of unarmed combat to dudes teaching eye pokes and trash striking and grappling.   I do not have as much long term exposure with Krag Maga though, so I can not comment large scale, only on the one douche I saw teaching in my area and a few internet train wrecks.   BJJ and MMA have had their share of posers too so I think it is something that happens any time something gets a good deal of exposure/publicity.    The fakes tend to get weeded out in a few years though, especially if what they are teaching involves a good deal of live contact.  Impossible to hide forever in that environment.   I would guess if they people you train with have been around for 3+ years you are safe regarding whackos.  I think that goes for most martial arts though, not just Krav, JKD or BJJ/etc.

I don't know much about Krav Maga personally, so I can't comment on the level of bad instruction or good instruction. But in my experience you always need to be on the look out for quacks, bad curriculum, dangerous coaching habits, etc. And places offering self defense, especially street self defense, often seem to be more prone to this. Also just having lived in a high crime area, when I have been to such schools, I really find myself questioning the wisdom of a lot of the advice I have heard.

I think BJJ has just gotten so big that it is now becoming prone to the kinds of things we saw in karate, taekwondo, etc in the 80s and 90s. I started in Olympic style Taekwondo before moving into muay thai, boxing and sansohu, so I remember encountering plenty of martial arts mythology (this was before they started using censors on the gear for sparring though, which pretty much killed my interest in watching Olympic TKD). JKD is one I have always been curious about, because like a lot of people, I like Bruce Lee, but anytime I have seen a JKD gym near me and checked them out, the instructors haven't filled me with confidence. That may have nothing to do with JKD itself though. But as an example there was a school nearby that opened and I thought of checking it out. But when I looked them up online there was video of the instructor doing punching drills and his punches looked undisciplined and he had a lot of bad habits (and I don't think the bad habits were meant to be part of the style).

[Bedrockbrendan]

  I have seen some quacks teaching Krav.  It is more or less the modern incarnation of Jeet Kune Do.  That is a very mixed bag as well, everything from literal masters of unarmed combat to dudes teaching eye pokes and trash striking and grappling.   I do not have as much long term exposure with Krag Maga though, so I can not comment large scale, only on the one douche I saw teaching in my area and a few internet train wrecks.   BJJ and MMA have had their share of posers too so I think it is something that happens any time something gets a good deal of exposure/publicity.    The fakes tend to get weeded out in a few years though, especially if what they are teaching involves a good deal of live contact.  Impossible to hide forever in that environment.   I would guess if they people you train with have been around for 3+ years you are safe regarding whackos.  I think that goes for most martial arts though, not just Krav, JKD or BJJ/etc.

I am one of those people that just can't learn BJJ. I tried many many times. It is definitely a very practical style, especially if it is taught well. I have no gripes with it as a style, but it felt like learning algebra to me. I had an easier time with Judo. Judo made sense to me as a striker more than BJJ. And I went plenty but I think a combined lack of enthusiasm, having more of a striker's disposition and just feeling mentally tired by the lessons, meant I effectively made little to no progress

[Bedrockbrendan]

Still doing a mix of boot camps, lifting, and Krav.  Each a few times per week.

Are you doing Krav Maga?

Yes, been doing it for about a year and 1/2.

Nice. I always did more sport martial arts but I have a friend who is very into Krav Maga

I boxed and practiced Tae Kwan Do when I was younger.  Traveling a ton for work prevented me from any kind of consistent training for a while. Krav has been great.  Good conditioning, solid situational awareness training and de-escalation techniques, and good mix of striking, grappling and hold/restraint.  I understand nationally it can be dicey though.  You really need to vet who's running the program.  There's some folks out there teaching nonsense.  That probably holds true for many others as well though.

Cool. I used to compete in olympic taekwondo. Do you know what style you learned?

Boxing is probably my favorite martial art. My grandfather was a boxer and so were most of his brothers, and I grew up watching it. I haven't competed in boxing but went to boxing gyms and sparred for a long time and it is definitely the martial art I clicked with the most. It is punishing though. You definitely feel like you have been put through the ringer after several rounds of sparring

[oggsmash]

  I have seen some quacks teaching Krav.  It is more or less the modern incarnation of Jeet Kune Do.  That is a very mixed bag as well, everything from literal masters of unarmed combat to dudes teaching eye pokes and trash striking and grappling.   I do not have as much long term exposure with Krag Maga though, so I can not comment large scale, only on the one douche I saw teaching in my area and a few internet train wrecks.   BJJ and MMA have had their share of posers too so I think it is something that happens any time something gets a good deal of exposure/publicity.    The fakes tend to get weeded out in a few years though, especially if what they are teaching involves a good deal of live contact.  Impossible to hide forever in that environment.   I would guess if they people you train with have been around for 3+ years you are safe regarding whackos.  I think that goes for most martial arts though, not just Krav, JKD or BJJ/etc.

I am one of those people that just can't learn BJJ. I tried many many times. It is definitely a very practical style, especially if it is taught well. I have no gripes with it as a style, but it felt like learning algebra to me. I had an easier time with Judo. Judo made sense to me as a striker more than BJJ. And I went plenty but I think a combined lack of enthusiasm, having more of a striker's disposition and just feeling mentally tired by the lessons, meant I effectively made little to no progress

  I always learned all of them pretty fast.   I have no idea why.  I think striking people is easier to learn by a good margin for one reason.  You can practice the most important things you need for being effective hitting people without another person.  Footwork, shadowboxing, etc all go a loooong ways to making you better.  To a degree Judo can be done solo with the foot work and timing of footwork drills.  BJJ almost everything really needs another person to practice so its pretty impractical to work on solo, well past standing footwork/shooting doubles... essentially the same sorts of drills for wrestling/Judo.   

  I made progress MUCH faster with my striking though (on a scale of being competitive with full time pros) than grappling largely because I think there is a pretty big difference in the progression curve due to as I said you can progress solo substantially with striking, no where near as much grappling.   As for Judo...well I guess if you mean the parts standing (which half of BJJ standing is Judo, the other half wrestling), but on the mat...they are the same (with most Judo grappling instruction being a bit more "raw" IMO, but effectively the techniques are the same past no leg locks in Judo)  so do you mean you had an easier time standing grappling versus mat grappling?   

[Bedrockbrendan]

...............  As for Judo...well I guess if you mean the parts standing (which half of BJJ standing is Judo, the other half wrestling), but on the mat...they are the same (with most Judo grappling instruction being a bit more "raw" IMO, but effectively the techniques are the same past no leg locks in Judo)  so do you mean you had an easier time standing grappling versus mat grappling?

Note: formatting got all messed up so I had to pair down the quotes and couldn't put the following paragraphs directly under your relevant statements as a result

Striking I always learned quickly. Striking is easier to learn I think. But I definitely have more of a knack for it as well (I think growing up with it in the family made a difference too). You can get a long way with 6 months of training for example in a striking style. I think I was competing in TKD my first or second month training. But BJJ in particular was something I found hard. I did some wrestling in gym in high school and I got that. I am no wrestler but I didn't bounce off of it the way I bounced off BJJ. Judo I got. There were parts I had difficulty with, but it didn't feel anything like BJJ to me in terms of difficulty. And I honestly am not 100% sure why. I just know I really, really, dislike learning BJJ in a big way.

I will say though with striking you have to work with partners and spar in order to develop real skill. If you are doing it solo, you wont' be able to pull off much in an actual live match. And they do share footwork being important. Striking is very much about footwork. If you can't move into position you can't hit. I can't imagine doing judo solo either. Any martial art, I feel like I need to use against fully resisting opponents to learn well.

I don't know. It has been a very long time and I am not very fond of grappling arts in general. It has been about 14 years since I did Judo so I probably can't give a very solid break down of the why's. And the last BJJ class I took was probably in 2008. I think judo having more standing elements was a factor. Once I realized I am not into grappling, I stuck with stuff like Muay Thai and Boxing. I loved sweeps. But I also found BJJ, at least places where I learned it to be very technical and have a very different culture. In general I found the judo crowd to be easier to get along with as a striker. Whereas I found BJJ folks a little harder to get along with. Again that might just be the dumb luck of the places I went to around here. There was a lot in Judo that was the same as BJJ, but even then I didn't find it as tasking to learn. And there seemed to be more room for, for lack of a better term, gross motor skill rather than fine. It just felt better to me to learn than BJJ. Everything in BJJ came very slowly to me, seemed incredibly precise. Overall I just found judo more intuitive and workable. Though I found more of the judo stuff easier to incorporate into things like Sanshou. There is a lot of stand up stuff in judo that translated into sanshou well. In BJJ things felt very counter intuitive. I just never found it fun to learn and always had a harder time with the concepts. But judo I at least enjoyed. I am not exactly great in Judo either. I just picked up more of it and was able to carry more of it forward. I rolled in both and did okay enough but I had a better time in Judo for sure. And I would never claim to have any real skill in either.

[Bedrockbrendan]

  I always learned all of them pretty fast.   I have no idea why.  I think striking people is easier to learn by a good margin for one reason.  You can practice the most important things you need for being effective hitting people without another person.

You can hit the heavy bag and shadow box. So that is true for sure. But you have to do live drills, sparring and pad work with other people to get anywhere near competent at striking. And the difference in skill from someone who has mastered the foundation to someone who understands all the nuance is, no pun intended, striking. There is a lot of subtlety in striking that you don't grasp or understand until you have been doing it for many years

[oggsmash]

  I always learned all of them pretty fast.   I have no idea why.  I think striking people is easier to learn by a good margin for one reason.  You can practice the most important things you need for being effective hitting people without another person.

You can hit the heavy bag and shadow box. So that is true for sure. But you have to do live drills, sparring and pad work with other people to get anywhere near competent at striking. And the difference in skill from someone who has mastered the foundation to someone who understands all the nuance is, no pun intended, striking. There is a lot of subtlety in striking that you don't grasp or understand until you have been doing it for many years

I have been doing it for many years (31 years in October) and teaching it for a while (18 years).  What I said is flat out true.  Foot work and shadow boxing (really shadow boxing with polished footwork) does more for EVERYONE early on (the first year) than anything else.  I would say a heavy bag is a detriment for the most part to do alone for that first year due to unnoticed bad habits.    Sparring does not improve anyone's striking it is like taking a quiz, it tells you what you do or do not know, but is not a developmental tool until both parties are good already.  Pad work I agree is the real development to striking ability to make you good as well as drills with other people that mimic light sparring but have defined parameters and goals.  So take it from someone who has done it for many years, who has mastered the foundation, and who understands the nuance (though no one can do or knows it all) It will advance faster than grappling because you can do a massive portion of the "homework" away from the dojo/academy/gym.    This was at least the case for me where I could spend an hour or so extra outside of a dedicated training environment (this was a minimum even when training 25 hours a week in addition to working full time) and it was the case for literally everyone good that I know (the ability to work on the more subtle and repetition work alone) with work on the footwork and movement.   That is what matters first and foremost striking.  Pad work develops this to a degree,  but with new people it mostly exposes poor footwork that can be developed to a degree on the spot (with regard to the person learning what is correct) but a shitload of reps on their own is going to make a MUCH bigger difference than more pad work in the early going.   Because for boxing and kickboxing the way you move is for the most part "backwards" compared to normal movement, it is the slowest thing to develop with any new person and the thing they can improve the most on their own time if so inclined. 

  Now all that barfed out you do need to spar and do pad work to be good.  The biggest difference anyone can make to get good faster is that subtle work on their footwork on their own time.  Of course in the gym/academy you can work on this during a designated training time but the curve gets sped up dramatically if proper footwork is practiced daily on the trainees own time...and not even a ton of it, half and hour to an hour a day will make an incredible difference.   This  points to my point though, you can have a dramatic impact doing things on your own time with regards to striking, you can not with regard to grappling...at least not in the realm of technical development.

[oggsmash]

  Re reading that it does look like argumentative glop than how I intended.  I will compare it this way, A motivated trainee with his striking can be the equivalent to how I would view a purple belt (4-5 years of consistent and frequent training) in 12-18 months.   This means I expect that trainee to look good and function well in live sparring, will look like a pro doing pad work, and be able to fight as an amateur with no problems (assuming he has what it takes to fight...that is a more complicated thing that is not purely skill driven).  He will look good under pressure and be pretty polished.   A person straight off the street with no prior grappling (wrestlers can break this time frame...but often have things they will not unlearn early) in no way will look to be at the same relative competence level for the most part.  This is assuming 4 days a week training.   This is because the Kickboxer/boxer/striker will be able to work and work hard on the things that will make him good the fastest (footwork, balance, head movement) on his own to great efficacy once he knows how to do these things.   The grappler is going to be pretty limited to his solo drills and bridging and shrimping will help his fundamentals but slow his progress as compared to solo drill impact for striking.

  This is also for another reason, I think you get more from working on footwork till it is good than you get from sparring.  It is fine to spar as you develop, but IMO as I said the sparring is for the most part a quiz...that footwork, pad work, shadow boxing is the homework.  You have to do the homework to do well on the quiz.   Grappling is different in this regard...many people get a ton of their development from sparring.  Now this is not to say I have not seen outliers to both these things and understand they exist.  IME though sparring for striking is a quiz/test and to a degree it is grappling as well its just the speed dial for grappling is much easier to turn down and still be sparring than it is for anything realistic striking wise.   Even 50 percent contact with people who know what they are doing means often a pretty negative feedback loop while striking....where getting slowly submitted with a person slowly applying an armlock is not the same sort of psychological shock that having blood drip from your nose is (and for sure 50 percent power landing really clean will do this).   To this end that was my main point the PRIMARY developmental tool (footwork, balance, head movement) for striking can be done alone....the primary development tool for grappling (partner drills and live rolling/sparring) can not.

[oggsmash]

  One more to say what really matters...great you are training and doing so consistently.  Cheers.

[oggsmash]

...............  As for Judo...well I guess if you mean the parts standing (which half of BJJ standing is Judo, the other half wrestling), but on the mat...they are the same (with most Judo grappling instruction being a bit more "raw" IMO, but effectively the techniques are the same past no leg locks in Judo)  so do you mean you had an easier time standing grappling versus mat grappling?

Note: formatting got all messed up so I had to pair down the quotes and couldn't put the following paragraphs directly under your relevant statements as a result

Striking I always learned quickly. Striking is easier to learn I think. But I definitely have more of a knack for it as well (I think growing up with it in the family made a difference too). You can get a long way with 6 months of training for example in a striking style. I think I was competing in TKD my first or second month training. But BJJ in particular was something I found hard. I did some wrestling in gym in high school and I got that. I am no wrestler but I didn't bounce off of it the way I bounced off BJJ. Judo I got. There were parts I had difficulty with, but it didn't feel anything like BJJ to me in terms of difficulty. And I honestly am not 100% sure why. I just know I really, really, dislike learning BJJ in a big way.

I will say though with striking you have to work with partners and spar in order to develop real skill. If you are doing it solo, you wont' be able to pull off much in an actual live match. And they do share footwork being important. Striking is very much about footwork. If you can't move into position you can't hit. I can't imagine doing judo solo either. Any martial art, I feel like I need to use against fully resisting opponents to learn well.

I don't know. It has been a very long time and I am not very fond of grappling arts in general. It has been about 14 years since I did Judo so I probably can't give a very solid break down of the why's. And the last BJJ class I took was probably in 2008. I think judo having more standing elements was a factor. Once I realized I am not into grappling, I stuck with stuff like Muay Thai and Boxing. I loved sweeps. But I also found BJJ, at least places where I learned it to be very technical and have a very different culture. In general I found the judo crowd to be easier to get along with as a striker. Whereas I found BJJ folks a little harder to get along with. Again that might just be the dumb luck of the places I went to around here. There was a lot in Judo that was the same as BJJ, but even then I didn't find it as tasking to learn. And there seemed to be more room for, for lack of a better term, gross motor skill rather than fine. It just felt better to me to learn than BJJ. Everything in BJJ came very slowly to me, seemed incredibly precise. Overall I just found judo more intuitive and workable. Though I found more of the judo stuff easier to incorporate into things like Sanshou. There is a lot of stand up stuff in judo that translated into sanshou well. In BJJ things felt very counter intuitive. I just never found it fun to learn and always had a harder time with the concepts. But judo I at least enjoyed. I am not exactly great in Judo either. I just picked up more of it and was able to carry more of it forward. I rolled in both and did okay enough but I had a better time in Judo for sure. And I would never claim to have any real skill in either.

  Regarding getting along with the BJJ crowd...they can trend towards obsessed autists and I think if I had not started training when I did (1997 for BJJ) I do not know that the current generation (or the one you speak of in 2008) would be my cup of tea.   I have an advantage in that the guys I taught are all more on the old school line of thinking so I do not have to deal with the folks who can be...well a pain in the ass to get along with that are no where near as uncommon as I would like for them to be in BJJ.   So I think I know what you are talking about there...from the start there was a tone of arrogance around BJJ I did not care for.  Most of the guys I trained with were as new or almost as new as I was though.  So in a way I didnt catch much flak for being able to box their ears or kick their heads off since I was submitting most of them at the time.  But it was a time where everyone was sort of new and most places the people training there had all done something else before (Karate, TKD, kickboxing, judo, wrestled, etc)  I would say the Judo club I trained with the people were MUCH more laid back than just about any BJJ place I have been (even at the place I ran I think people were wound a bit tight even though I tried to keep everyone laid back) and I guess that could be born of that old "gracie challenge" BS BJJ really got its start with in North America.   

  I think details to teaching a technique are important...but I also think most BJJ instructors waaaay over sell the importance of exact placement and technical perfection.  That is especially true when teaching something new to people.  IME it is a waste of time to harp on precision...now this is not to say your guy was like that...but often details are more long winded than they have to be when something gets taught to a class.  I prefer to keep a warm up that revolves around a technique I want to hammer into people versus trying to nit pick too much on foot and hand placement.  I will correct them when I see them try something sparring (as to me this is the best time to fix doing something wrong, the trainee wanted to do it so their interest is maxed, their acceptance to coaching/instruction will have the highest coupling of attention/emotional attachment you are going to get to marry to memory) if they were on the right path.   Generally I think things stick the best for a person when they ask me a question directly about something they tried/or are attempting.  I do the step in while sparring thing because the years have taught me not everyone is willing to approach me after, before, or during a class to ask a question.   That said...its OK to not train or like to train grappling.  I like all of them...well at my age I am not battling for a contested takedown past 10 seconds...and think whatever gets you to train consistently is always the best choice.

[Bedrockbrendan]

I have been doing it for many years (31 years in October) and teaching it for a while (18 years).  What I said is flat out true.  Foot work and shadow boxing (really shadow boxing with polished footwork) does more for EVERYONE early on (the first year) than anything else.  I would say a heavy bag is a detriment for the most part to do alone for that first year due to unnoticed bad habits.    Sparring does not improve anyone's striking it is like taking a quiz, it tells you what you do or do not know, but is not a developmental tool until both parties are good already.  Pad work I agree is the real development to striking ability to make you good as well as drills with other people that mimic light sparring but have defined parameters and goals.  So take it from someone who has done it for many years, who has mastered the foundation, and who understands the nuance (though no one can do or knows it all) It will advance faster than grappling because you can do a massive portion of the "homework" away from the dojo/academy/gym.    This was at least the case for me where I could spend an hour or so extra outside of a dedicated training environment (this was a minimum even when training 25 hours a week in addition to working full time) and it was the case for literally everyone good that I know (the ability to work on the more subtle and repetition work alone) with work on the footwork and movement.   That is what matters first and foremost striking.  Pad work develops this to a degree,  but with new people it mostly exposes poor footwork that can be developed to a degree on the spot (with regard to the person learning what is correct) but a shitload of reps on their own is going to make a MUCH bigger difference than more pad work in the early going.   Because for boxing and kickboxing the way you move is for the most part "backwards" compared to normal movement, it is the slowest thing to develop with any new person and the thing they can improve the most on their own time if so inclined. 

If you have experience that is great. But I go by what I see in the gym myself and what I have learned from people I know in real life. I am not saying that as a disrespect. I am sure you have a lot of martial arts experience and 31 years is a long time. All the respect in the world but I think you and I have different schools of thought on a lot of this stuff (which is fine, I don't expect you to share my views). That said I don't think we disagree hugely here. I just think we are debating some of the finer details (or possibly speaking past each other a bit).

I am not sure what your point is here though. I never said footwork or shadow boxing weren't important. I said they can't prepare you for a fight in the ring alone. You can do all that, but if you exclude sparring, you are not going to be any good at all. I would also disagree that sparring is a pop quiz. I mean yes it can test a fighter's skills but you learn more in sparring than just about any activity if it is done well (the problem with sparring is it is a high pressure situation and you need to balance it will more relaxed drills, lighter sparring drills and all the other. I am not disagreeing with a lot of what you are saying. I mean footwork is foundational to everything in boxing or kickboxing (and even in taekwondo) and most people have had the experience of going to a gym, sparring and realizing they can't touch anyone because they don't even know how to move their feet. When I get up every morning the first thing I do is shadow box. I also do conditioning exercises so I can move well on the balls of my feet and I do punch step exercises for timing. So sure, that stuff is stuff you have to do to be good. My point is just you can't train striking solo and be any good (even if you look awesome moving around and striking, until you know how to hit a moving target, how to respond to someone trying to punch you, you don't know what you are doing).

Now all that barfed out you do need to spar and do pad work to be good.  The biggest difference anyone can make to get good faster is that subtle work on their footwork on their own time.  Of course in the gym/academy you can work on this during a designated training time but the curve gets sped up dramatically if proper footwork is practiced daily on the trainees own time...and not even a ton of it, half and hour to an hour a day will make an incredible difference.   This  points to my point though, you can have a dramatic impact doing things on your own time with regards to striking, you can not with regard to grappling...at least not in the realm of technical development.

I am not entirely clear what your point is here. Though it looks like we agree sparring and pad work are essential. But I would just say, training on your own is important in striking. But you won't be any good at all if that is all you are doing. You can train footwork and shadow box till the cows come home. That won't matter if you don't expose yourself to the nuances of real in ring fighting. And I guess my broader point is, while I agree with you that grappling is harder to learn (I mean I struggled with it and it clearly took peopel around me longer than in striking to master the basics, the nuances of boxing and kick boxing take years to master. You can get someone in fighting shape and ready to compete in months. And you can usually spar right off the bat. But a person who has been boxing 1 year is very different from a person who has been boxing for 5 or 8 years.

Also footwork is great. It is foundational. But it is not where all the nuance resides in boxing. A lot of the nuance is there. But there are other places you have to devote energy to. It takes a long time to gain fluidity in your punches for example. It takes time to really learn how to utilize angles. And things like parrying, bobbing and weaving, even something as simple as really understanding how to read where punches are coming from, or how to exterminate any flinch reflex, those are all things that sparring is important to fixing. Obviously drills and padwork too. But my point a live situation is always a different kettle of fish. The drills, pad work and shadow boxing are all important preparation, but you will find yourself refining all that through live sparring. And of course all that need to be in harmony with footwork so footwork is a huge part of the equation.

When it comes to training I tend to prefer old school gyms. So I usually expect there to be something like a 45-60 minute class where you condition, learn basic technique, do drills, etc. But I also expect open windows in the gym to train more freely. And it should all be around a clock with bells for rounds.

[oggsmash]

I have been doing it for many years (31 years in October) and teaching it for a while (18 years).  What I said is flat out true.  Foot work and shadow boxing (really shadow boxing with polished footwork) does more for EVERYONE early on (the first year) than anything else.  I would say a heavy bag is a detriment for the most part to do alone for that first year due to unnoticed bad habits.    Sparring does not improve anyone's striking it is like taking a quiz, it tells you what you do or do not know, but is not a developmental tool until both parties are good already.  Pad work I agree is the real development to striking ability to make you good as well as drills with other people that mimic light sparring but have defined parameters and goals.  So take it from someone who has done it for many years, who has mastered the foundation, and who understands the nuance (though no one can do or knows it all) It will advance faster than grappling because you can do a massive portion of the "homework" away from the dojo/academy/gym.    This was at least the case for me where I could spend an hour or so extra outside of a dedicated training environment (this was a minimum even when training 25 hours a week in addition to working full time) and it was the case for literally everyone good that I know (the ability to work on the more subtle and repetition work alone) with work on the footwork and movement.   That is what matters first and foremost striking.  Pad work develops this to a degree,  but with new people it mostly exposes poor footwork that can be developed to a degree on the spot (with regard to the person learning what is correct) but a shitload of reps on their own is going to make a MUCH bigger difference than more pad work in the early going.   Because for boxing and kickboxing the way you move is for the most part "backwards" compared to normal movement, it is the slowest thing to develop with any new person and the thing they can improve the most on their own time if so inclined. 

If you have experience that is great. But I go by what I see in the gym myself and what I have learned from people I know in real life. I am not saying that as a disrespect. I am sure you have a lot of martial arts experience and 31 years is a long time. All the respect in the world but I think you and I have different schools of thought on a lot of this stuff (which is fine, I don't expect you to share my views). That said I don't think we disagree hugely here. I just think we are debating some of the finer details (or possibly speaking past each other a bit).

I am not sure what your point is here though. I never said footwork or shadow boxing weren't important. I said they can't prepare you for a fight in the ring alone. You can do all that, but if you exclude sparring, you are not going to be any good at all. I would also disagree that sparring is a pop quiz. I mean yes it can test a fighter's skills but you learn more in sparring than just about any activity if it is done well (the problem with sparring is it is a high pressure situation and you need to balance it will more relaxed drills, lighter sparring drills and all the other. I am not disagreeing with a lot of what you are saying. I mean footwork is foundational to everything in boxing or kickboxing (and even in taekwondo) and most people have had the experience of going to a gym, sparring and realizing they can't touch anyone because they don't even know how to move their feet. When I get up every morning the first thing I do is shadow box. I also do conditioning exercises so I can move well on the balls of my feet and I do punch step exercises for timing. So sure, that stuff is stuff you have to do to be good. My point is just you can't train striking solo and be any good (even if you look awesome moving around and striking, until you know how to hit a moving target, how to respond to someone trying to punch you, you don't know what you are doing).

Now all that barfed out you do need to spar and do pad work to be good.  The biggest difference anyone can make to get good faster is that subtle work on their footwork on their own time.  Of course in the gym/academy you can work on this during a designated training time but the curve gets sped up dramatically if proper footwork is practiced daily on the trainees own time...and not even a ton of it, half and hour to an hour a day will make an incredible difference.   This  points to my point though, you can have a dramatic impact doing things on your own time with regards to striking, you can not with regard to grappling...at least not in the realm of technical development.

I am not entirely clear what your point is here. Though it looks like we agree sparring and pad work are essential. But I would just say, training on your own is important in striking. But you won't be any good at all if that is all you are doing. You can train footwork and shadow box till the cows come home. That won't matter if you don't expose yourself to the nuances of real in ring fighting. And I guess my broader point is, while I agree with you that grappling is harder to learn (I mean I struggled with it and it clearly took peopel around me longer than in striking to master the basics, the nuances of boxing and kick boxing take years to master. You can get someone in fighting shape and ready to compete in months. And you can usually spar right off the bat. But a person who has been boxing 1 year is very different from a person who has been boxing for 5 or 8 years.

Also footwork is great. It is foundational. But it is not where all the nuance resides in boxing. A lot of the nuance is there. But there are other places you have to devote energy to. It takes a long time to gain fluidity in your punches for example. It takes time to really learn how to utilize angles. And things like parrying, bobbing and weaving, even something as simple as really understanding how to read where punches are coming from, or how to exterminate any flinch reflex, those are all things that sparring is important to fixing. Obviously drills and padwork too. But my point a live situation is always a different kettle of fish. The drills, pad work and shadow boxing are all important preparation, but you will find yourself refining all that through live sparring. And of course all that need to be in harmony with footwork so footwork is a huge part of the equation.

When it comes to training I tend to prefer old school gyms. So I usually expect there to be something like a 45-60 minute class where you condition, learn basic technique, do drills, etc. But I also expect open windows in the gym to train more freely. And it should all be around a clock with bells for rounds.

  Thing is...when I mentioned you can train alone for striking...I never said you would be good doing it.  I said you would get good MUCH faster doing it while doing all the other stuff.  That is a fact. So you are arguing a point I did not make.  Everything else you said fully supports everything I said...so we do agree. I think you somehow think I said your working alone will make you good.   I said it is the big accelerant to getting good at striking faster than you can get good at grappling.

[Bedrockbrendan]

  Re reading that it does look like argumentative glop than how I intended.  I will compare it this way, A motivated trainee with his striking can be the equivalent to how I would view a purple belt (4-5 years of consistent and frequent training) in 12-18 months.   This means I expect that trainee to look good and function well in live sparring, will look like a pro doing pad work, and be able to fight as an amateur with no problems (assuming he has what it takes to fight...that is a more complicated thing that is not purely skill driven).  He will look good under pressure and be pretty polished.   A person straight off the street with no prior grappling (wrestlers can break this time frame...but often have things they will not unlearn early) in no way will look to be at the same relative competence level for the most part.  This is assuming 4 days a week training.   This is because the Kickboxer/boxer/striker will be able to work and work hard on the things that will make him good the fastest (footwork, balance, head movement) on his own to great efficacy once he knows how to do these things.   The grappler is going to be pretty limited to his solo drills and bridging and shrimping will help his fundamentals but slow his progress as compared to solo drill impact for striking.

Appreciate that. For the record I am not trying to be argumentative at all but like I said I am a striker. I tend to punch back if I perceive someone is punching me (even if it is verbal). What you say is reasonable. When I first went to a muay thai gym, they wanted me to fight after just 2 months (it was an emergency situation because someone who had a fight got injured but I am pretty sure I could have handled myself okay: turned out it wasn't necessary though). After about a year of training you do look good. And I agree it takes longer to look good at grappling. My only point was after that 1 year to 18 months of training there is still tons to learn in striking. I was not happy with my punches for example until about 6 years in. I could hit like a truck from the get go. It was one of the things I was good at. But I get so much more power now and I have such better command and fluidity and I know how to find openings so much better.

This is also for another reason, I think you get more from working on footwork till it is good than you get from sparring.  It is fine to spar as you develop, but IMO as I said the sparring is for the most part a quiz...that footwork, pad work, shadow boxing is the homework.  You have to do the homework to do well on the quiz. 

I guess this is our main point of disagreement though it really isn't by a lot. I think footwork is crucial. You have to work on footwork. But the best thing for making sure your footwork is improving and to experiment further and improve more, is sparring. You have to do shadow boxing, drills like punch step, conditioning drills where you are moving around the ring and developing the muscles. But you also got to spar. And I don't see sparring as a quiz. I see sparring as something you do as regularly as possible because yes it does test what you learned, but it is also where you learn to put to use what you have learned. Hitting a bag and hitting a man are night and day. Hitting a pad and hitting a head are night and day.

Grappling is different in this regard...many people get a ton of their development from sparring.  Now this is not to say I have not seen outliers to both these things and understand they exist.  IME though sparring for striking is a quiz/test and to a degree it is grappling as well its just the speed dial for grappling is much easier to turn down and still be sparring than it is for anything realistic striking wise.   Even 50 percent contact with people who know what they are doing means often a pretty negative feedback loop while striking....where getting slowly submitted with a person slowly applying an armlock is not the same sort of psychological shock that having blood drip from your nose is (and for sure 50 percent power landing really clean will do this).   To this end that was my main point the PRIMARY developmental tool (footwork, balance, head movement) for striking can be done alone....the primary development tool for grappling (partner drills and live rolling/sparring) can not.

Again, I can't comment on grappling much, so I am sure your commentary here is accurate in that regard, but I think you get just as much development from sparring in boxing, muay thai and even stuff like TKD.

Where I agree is grappling is easier to manage sparring. There are many many pitfalls to live sparring with striking. I have more concussion than I can remember. But I come from the hard sparring school of thought with this stuff. Rarely are you going 100% (for example an approach I often saw was something like 100% against the body but 50% against the head, assuming you are sparring someone in your weight category). But talking in percentages is important. A good instructor knows when to go down to 20% so you can experiment and learn, and knows when to crank it up so you can learn what it is like when someone is trying to hit you hard. And you have to learn to be hit hard as well. Learning to take punishment is part of boxing and muay thai.

Well I would say in terms of what is primary in striking, they are all important. But if you remove sparring, that is bigger than removing pad work. You shouldn't remove pad work either but sparring is what separates people who know how to strike and peopel who just know how to hit pads IMO