Muay Thai Kickboxing Training Techniques

Muay Thai or Thai kickboxing is one of the martial arts trending the MMA world these days. A combination of kicks and punches in a different discipline and intensity has taken millions of people in a craze to enrol to such kickboxing classes and get hooked with it. This martial arts discipline started out to be a battlefield-fighting skill. A lot of theories tried to explain its existence but one’s thing for sure, Muay Thai kickboxing is far more deadly than the weapons in battle. Known to be the “Science of Eight Limbs”, Muay Thai could get your body moving as your hands, feet, elbows and knees get on with the action with kicks and punches.

In order to be performing Muay Thai the right way and learning from your kickboxing classes the easy way, you need to know the elements of such. Here are some elements in this martial arts training:

Warming Up. Such exercises are needed to get your body prepared for such stress. The point of having warm-up exercises is to prevent injury by trying to loosen up your body and maximize the circulation of blood all throughout it. Twenty minutes of warm-up is enough for your Muay Thai kickboxing. You can have a short run, jumping rope, and shadow-boxing, then do some stretching after to further loosen up and allow more flexibility in preparation for your kicks and punches. Hold each stretch for about twenty seconds until all your muscles get loose and ready (if it’s hard, you can try it even for just ten seconds; just don’t bounce). After you’re through with the stretching part, you may now proceed with some rolling exercises to work out your joints. You may have hip rolling (a hula hoop can be of big help!), butterfly or arm-circling to loosen shoulder joints, wrist rotations, and circling exercises for your knees and ankles.

Exercise. Exercise keeps your muscles ready for the stress, thus doing it daily could make it even better. It is important that you get into daily exercise routines to keep your level as is, most especially when you’re advancing in your kickboxing classes. Aside from your daily exercise routine, have some special exercises as well to perform after your sessions.

Endurance. Six to eight weeks could be the running time before you get the level of endurance you’ll need for your martial arts training. Get running and get going with your warm up exercises and kickboxing classes, and you’ll soon get a level up of your endurance.

Intensity. A gradual level up in your martial arts training increases strength and ability. But when you try to go deeper and intense with the training, be sure to know your limits and consider your strength --- decrease the duration of the sessions and take time to rest.

Duration of the kickboxing classes. Overtraining and undertraining could either freak your muscles out or disrupt the skill build-up. At beginner level, two hours is considered a max for ne session --- don’t tire yourself too much, you’ll work your way up in a few weeks time.

Know your limitations. You get too excited with your martial arts training and you keep punching and kicking and doing some more work out without even considering rest periods. It is a must that you take time to rest your muscles and joints to relieve them from the physical stress and avoid injuries. Aside from rest periods, have some massage to keep your circulation healthy.

Physical strength. Working on strength is working on your muscles. Know what muscles are involves and perform specific exercises to tone them and get them tightened up. Squats, punching drills, and some mixes with work outs. Strength is very important in such kickboxing classes to realize your Thai-like punches and kicks, and get on with the action.

So before you get punching and kicking, get familiar with these elements to make the most out of Muay Thai kickboxing.

Jiu Jitsu - The Art of Fighting

Want to learn some self-defense measures, and get fit and all muscle-toned at the same time? Then you might as well check out the Brazilian Jiu jitsu. The Brazilian Jiu jitsu is one of the most known martial arts, a combat sport in the MMA world, and a means of self defense. The discipline started in the twentieth century patterned to the Japanese martial art, Judo, teaching people to get strength and get past over their big and strong assailants by means of proper techniques.

This article is not making you do the techniques of Jiujitsu. It would be better that before you get into some martial arts training, you’d be oriented with what goes around such discipline.

You would come across different methods during your training. Techniques are first practiced on a non-resisting partner, where you could make adjustments on your performance and assess areas needing some improvement. Isolation sparring is another drill in this martial arts training. This drill, also the positional drill, most likely is done to improve your weak points and get strengthened in them. There are given rules and limited moves. You get into a sparring session with only a couple of moves as instructed and you have to win over your partner using them. And the full sparring, in which the two fighters (you and your partner) submit to a duel, trying to win the fight using techniques of Jiu jitsu.

Ground --- this is the one word you should take note in Jiu jitsu. Keep your opponent to the ground. By doing so, you can easily maneuver round different moves to pull him down and keep him harmless. Ground fighting is one of the highlights of Jiu jitsu when compared with other martial arts. More and more moves are created and made better with Jiu jitsu, making it a preferable type of martial arts training.

In the course of the ground combat, the fighter does all means to be in the controlling position and submit his opponent to him. Ways wouldn’t be just anything that he could think of, but techniques he must utilize to get the hold of the other’s weakness. 

The Full mount position is the most dominant grappling position of all Jiu jitsu positions. The fighter sits on the chest of his opponent with his legs alongside of the body of his opponent. In the strongest form, the fighter locks his opponent with his knees up under into the other’s armpits. This style reduces arm movements, decreasing the opponent’s chances of fighting back. In the course of your martial arts training, you may use the Full mount to apply strangles or armlocks. 

Side control is another technique wherein the fighter pins his opponent to the ground from the side of his body, and keeping the opponent to the ground with the fighter laying across his opponent with his weight over the other’s chest. Further control may be achieved with pressure on the other’s shoulders and hips using the fighter’s shoulders, elbows and knees. 

Another technique would be the back grab or the rear mount (back mount). This allows the fighter to put his opponent down by wrapping the other’s legs around, hooking the thighs with their heels, and locking the other by wrapping arms around the chest or neck of the opponent. 

And the last technique is the Guard. At any situation, you can easily get hold of this technique for self defense. There are three types of Guard: Open, Closed, and Half. In the Open Guard, the fighter simply uses his legs or feet to make his opponent lose his balance, limiting his movements to counteract. In the Closed type, which is used when the fighter is below the opponent, the fighter wraps his legs around the trunk of his opponent with ankles closed together to keep the opponent in. In the Half Guard, one leg is controlled, limiting movement and allowing other maneuvers to be done.

You don’t need to be big and scary to get past any attacker. Just learn the techniques, get some pretty reliable self-defense and literally put your opponent down.

Looking for MMA Fights?

Mixed Martial Arts is combat sport which allows full contact with the other and involves striking and grappling techniques done standing and on the ground. This includes disciplines in boxing, Muay thai or Thai kickboxing, taekwondo, judo, karate arts, kung fu, wrestling, and Brazilian Jiu jitsu.

The Brazilian Jiu jitsu or the BJJ, aside from being a combat sport and a self-defense technique, is one of the often-used disciplines for such event. It has turned out to be an effective way of putting your opponent’s weaknesses out by laying away balance and limiting his movements during a MMAfight.

The BJJ was patterned after one of the Japanese martial arts, Judo. This martial art typically puts emphasis on techniques of throwing, grappling and striking the opponent to win over a fight. 

The martial art technique became popular in MMA fights because of Royce Gracie, a Jiu jitsu expert, who won the first, second and fourth Ultimate Fighting Championships over other mixed martial artists equipped with above-average fighting skills in boxing, wrestling, taekwondo, kung fu, muay thai kickboxing and other disciplines. Fighting against larger opponents was not a problem since Jiu jitsu could bring him down. Since then, the Brazilian Jiu jitsu was recognized in the MMA world as a ground-based fighting style, gathering attention on its techniques in grappling, submission, positioning, choking and joint-locking.

The fact that Jiu Jitsu is a ground martial art makes it a reliable weapon to the fighter to keep his opponent under his control. It comes with the most effective results especially when he knows when and how to use such maneuvers. Being on the ground allows the fighter to move fast and do many techniques with the help of balance and coordination his of body parts. The more he is on the ground, the more he’s confident to let out strength to weaken the other. A master of the Brazilian Jiu jitsu always strives to be the dominant player in the game and gains successful control over the other by means of Jiu jitsu techniques.

Techniques of Brazilian Jiu jitsu in MMA fights would be a little different as you could observe in a formal competition of Jiu jitsu. Since players in a MMA fight only wear shorts and go bare on top, they use their actual body parts to grab and steady their opponents, allowing them to do maneuvers which could limit their defenses and their counteractions more.

In order to master such martial art, learn the techniques and have some sparring sessions (isolation and full). Better yet, get an instructor or enroll in a MMA school. From wherever you are, you can get a training course. There are MMA schools in Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York and many other places near you --- All you have to do is to check on them.

Aside from getting a MMA school, better your physique as well. You are the master of yourself. You can do all things if your body could, so get good nutrition and reliable exercises, get ahead with MMA fights!

Looking for Fu Kung?

Bullying has become to be one of the major problems in a child’s and teen’s life --- they get home with injuries or ruined clothes and stuff, they seldom make friends, they feel helpless, they feel inferior and they suffer from eating and sleeping problems. About one in four kids experience being bullied at. One in four kids end up losing confidence in themselves, getting stuck in below-average school performances and socialization daily.

To treat the problem, parents usually enroll their kids to martial arts schools. Teaching martial arts to kids not only bring confidence to them but keep them healthy as well. Performing martial arts simply enhances body coordination, balance, physical control and emotional control. This is a healthy approach to promoting exercise and nutrition, along with the benefits of learning strategies and tactics for becoming “bully-proof.”

Kungfu is a type of martial art from China which is focused on physique power and mind power. Learning such could help your child out achieve his maximum potentials during his growth and development.

Studies show that learning martial arts in kids results to several positive results: Social interactivity increase, there is the self-confidence to start conversations and stay in conversations with others, confident to raise up opinions, has minimal fear of learning from mistakes, eager to share new learning and demonstrate new skills in class, become aware of their health and fitness, has control over mental functions such as attention and concentration, and has develops respect to authority, increased physical coordination and control over sentiments.

Since there are a lot of kung fu schools or martial arts schools nowadays, it could be a taxing job for you to enroll to one, get unsatisfactory results and transfer to another. Therefore, it would be better if you get informed on how to pick the right martial arts school for your kiddo.

First, find a good martial arts teacher. Scan through teachers’ background on martial arts training, or go through the school’s guidelines on formal qualifications for their instructors. You may also look for teaching ranks and equivalent terms of such (since terms used in ranking aren’t that familiar for sure). Be very keen on such for these are the persons your kids would look up to during their training.

Second, be familiarized with martial arts. Knowing the disciplines is another thing you should consider. Read about on what these things could offer you, the benefits and risks of such, and see if it fits your child. Aside from doing research on these, you may sit in during classes and observe how they do things and all.

Third, do some visits. You may have a conversation with the head of the martial arts school and with your “sitting in” sessions, you can clearly see how the instructors control their classes, how they handle kids, and how they stir up interest and learning in them. A good instructor will show their concerns on the progress of their students and not just simply demonstrating kicks and punches. When you’re done with the teacher factor, transfer your focus on the environment. Is the place conducive for learning? Are there facilities and other equipment to help the kids learn martial arts? Is the space enough for the number of kids to do their routines? Is it safe and clean? (Well, it should be!) The environment plays an important role in learning therefore it should be considered.

Fourth, know the cost. It is you, the parent who gets affected by the finances and this really is a concern for you. Clubs may be present but try to arrange this with your child’s schedule if he can make it, or just pay for the sessions he’s into.

If you think enrolling in a martial arts school could help your child, then find the right one, and maximize his development as he works his way out to mind and body power.