Quote Originally Posted by The Student View Post
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My issue isnt throwing a quick shot out, its more about putting them together quickly so as you and others have mentioned the good balance and form will be vital to achieving this.

Also your long term advice is great, I will keep practicing combos over and over again, no matter how redundant it may feel. But you're right, for me to really get good at the combos I need to keep repeating them over and over again, slow first and steadily pick up the pace as I can without losing technique and balance.

Thanks
I am impressed that you understand this so thoroughly -- most people don't initially get it. They hear it but it doesn't resonate in their bones.

When practicing the combos stop thinking of them as individual punches -- e.g., a jab and a cross. Instead make it into a JabCross -- no to hurry it, but to join it into a single unit, smoothly with the absolutely minimum of wasted or excess motion.


Slow is doubly important when practicing by shadowboxing, because you punches don't have the same motion when you hit NOTHING if you do it at speed. This is especialy true fo the non-straight punches (e.g., hook, uppercut)

You elbows may stop the straight punch when they straighten, but on curving punches YOU have to exert energy to stop the arc or they overtravel to improbably places that won't be the same as when a punch contacts a bag or an opponent.

When you shadowbox hard there are two possibilities: either your ELBOWS (etc) take a lot of abuse or you must tighten the opposing muscles to artificially stop the punch.

I am not a fan of (lots) of full power shadowboxing. Some is ok if you let the punch just carry through naturally because small reps won't tear up you joints and you must be able to deal with the times when the opponents makes you miss entirely.

Do the hard work on the bag. Do the PRECISE work slowly on both the bag and shadowboxing.