A little worried bout my MMA instructors knowledge of striking/boxing...

So ive started training with my old karate instructor who is now holding MMA classes twice a week. I remember years ago I used to do boxing as well as karate and he would get the shits when Id use boxing in karate coz usually id beat the crap out of my sparring partners due to their poor defence (obviously beating the crap out of them as far as sparring is concerned).

So tonight we are doing some 'boxing drills'....im not impressed. We were doing a defensive drill where one of us is against the ropes and you have to defend yourself for 30 seconds without firing back with any offence. So im parrying a bit and using a shoulder roll coz I can see these guys punches coming from a mile away and after doing this drill twice no one can really hit me cleanly. WELL....apparently that isnt an acceptable form of defense because I was defending my body with one while my shoulder protected my chin and I was rolling away/with punches...the reason its not acceptable is coz APPARENTLY YOU CANT GET KNOCKED OUT WITH A BODY PUNCH (my instructors exact words :-X) .

Sparring with a muay thai fighter whos being very vocal about how good he is and everything im doing wrong. Hes in an orthodox stances so I move to my right, away from his power hand. WELL apparently that is incorrect too coz im moving towards his left leg (which would actually be the less powerful of the two legs due to the stance) and my instructor incourages me to move to my left :-\ Muay thai guy is verbally having a go at me coz hes done some backyard boxing and he did a couple of months of muay thai so he naturally knows better than me :-X (did boxing on and off for over a yr, never had a fight so im not the best boxer ever but I know a little about what im doing). Im moving in and out of range using my jab....I get in trouble coz im moving too much. Muay thai guy says hes fighting soon so I should hit him hard...i refuse because its light sparring and its not the right thing to do without head gear and mouth guard. SO he hits me hard to the body and I dont get sucked into it so I just go light to his left side with a right rip and he says "you havent hit me any where where it could hurt me"....a right rip to the ribs..cleanly...isnt going to hurt.

I mainly going to this for the stand up, its good to learn some bjj and stuff too but this has me worried. Should I be?

If he was that desperate to be hit hard I'd have caved his ribs in... shutting him the fuck up and the clueless instructor who would now be picking him up off the floor. 'Can't get knocked down by a body shot'. My arse.

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Originally Posted by AdamGB

If he was that desperate to be hit hard I'd have caved his ribs in... shutting him the fuck up and the clueless instructor who would now be picking him up off the floor. 'Can't get knocked down by a body shot'. My arse.

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Yeah that comment was the one that made my jaw drop...I know you can...coz I have been and this guy is telling me its not possible :-X Dont worry Adam, I really wanted to put some power into that rip but I thought knowing my luck Ill do some sort of damage to him and he wont be able to fight and it would be ALL my fault so I thought id be the more mature person.

Oh and how bout this for a gem. My instructor is telling the students about boxing is all about going out and trying to kill each other (like WTF), good example of how to get off the ropes is in rocky how he takes a few and then throws the guy in the corner (...you didnt just say that), how bout that guy in the movie the fighter..he would of fought his way off the ropes (I replied by saying yeah Micky Ward...and everyone looked at me like to say who the fuck is that, i suggested everyone should watch the gatti fights...got more clueless looks on that one too :-\).

So whats wrong with the instructor then? sounds like youve found a good quality gym.. lol. Dont worry plenty of those around here aswell, not just in the amature either lol.

Just keep searching if you want the best training you can get it'll be worth it all in the end, i made a lot of effort myself to seek out quality training when i started out and would advise anyone else to do the same, no matter how long it takes, there are too many idiots nowadays claiming they can teach people somthing about fighting.

Find a new gym mate when i started MMA they thought i was the dogs bollocks because i was a good boxer and had heart. I still got beat up but thats how you learn. Everyone shows each other new things now i dip into muay thai classes too everyone is pretty cool were i go. If he is using rocky movies to teach boxing then he is a moron. I would have burst out laughing! ;D

yes. you should not be receiving all of your training from one gym. go to a boxing gym to work on your hands, jiu-jitsu for ground work, wrestling for takedown o/d, muay thai for kickboxing, etc.. rather than seeing one man who knows a little bit about everything, go to multiple people who know everything about one thing. nothing wrong with training mma but only time you should be solely at an mma gym is close to fights.

Problem is i live in a small town so there really isnt any options, its the only place that teaches this stuff. The nearest city that would have gym options is Sydney and thats 3.5 hours away.

Might as well start your own boxing gym lol

you seem to know more about it them those other people

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Originally Posted by Snakey

Problem is i live in a small town so there really isnt any options, its the only place that teaches this stuff. The nearest city that would have gym options is Sydney and thats 3.5 hours away.

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What about a Muay Thai gym? If you are just looking for striking it pretty much sums up all the striking you can do in MMA. Kicks, knees, elbows, punches, clinch.

Our boxing gym shares a large building where MMA is in the back. We are staffed by professional former boxers, some hold former titles.

The MMA instructors are smart enough to send their students over to us to learn boxing skills. The problem with most other MMA, Karate and martial arts instructors are they teach the old forms of holding the hands and striking out. --which might work in a formal match, or if your breaking boards, or your opponent is giving you time to get your form, line up and deliver.... but will get your ass kicked on the street. They also do not fight for real...I mean get hit hard enough to draw blood or rattle your brain (which serves to motivate you to learn your defensive tactics and moves).

Run..don't walk and find a MMA instructor who truly understands that a real MMA match is a slug fest..and watching so many of these matches, I see the main weakness of most fighters is in the boxing...they box like they are on the school ground or at a tough man contest. It doesn't take much skill to get a man under you and pound his head into the mat. The real skill is putting him down with combinations, and watching him back away because he knows you can hurt him with punches. "cant take a person out with body punches??....I would love to get him in the ring and prove that one."

PS: One of our fighters demonstrated how he could smother those leg kicks quickly and deliver some devistating blows....and he was holding back.

Not to bad mouth your instructor or your dojo but it seems he's pretty clueless and that you might very well be in a McDojo

Ned Beaumont in his book Championship Street Fighting..Boxing as a martial art, and a man with a wide experience of all martial arts stated "I maintain that the power punches of a boxer (straight, lefts and rights, hooks, and uppercuts, are the most effective hand to hand blows of any system of unarmed combat."
"To my mind", continued Beaumont in his book, "the best illustration of the adaption of boxing to Asian fighting arts is Bruce Lee's jeet kune do. Lee took many techniques from many systems of unarmed combat, his only qualification being that the techniques must work in a real fight. Study carefully the punching methods taught in jeet kune do and you'll see that they are precisely the power punches of modern boxing as Lee himself admitted."

I have watched many MMA fights and witnessed what some MMA instructor taught his fighter as boxing. I have seen better boxing on school grounds and between drunks. You can tell the training emphasis was in kicking, and taking down.

Bottom line, learn boxing from a real boxing instructor, then move into the other MMA forms with instructors qualified in those specific area. Boxers don't teach Jiu-Jitsu, and Jiu-Jitsu instructors should not be teaching boxing.

Ive basically decided to only attend occasionally for a fitness session. After speaking to a couple of other guys who previously attended the MMA classes and some who still do we all agreed that we dont think the teacher has any idea about what hes teaching.