full contact WITH DEATH AND BLOOD

[Ikken Hisatsu]

well maybe not death and hopefully not too much blood, but after a haltage of the full contact in our club (well before i joined- something to do with a nasty accident) it is being started again, first lesson this sunday. the fellow teaching it has about 5 years of muay thai under his belt (so to speak... bwahahaha im so funny) and is a good mate so hopefully I wont turn up to school with eyes so black i look like a street victim.

anyway my question is- how many people here actually do "full contact" (by that I mean not pulling punches etc, not neccessarily throws and so on) and if so, tips? I dont mean stuff like "keep your guard up" or "head kicks dont work" cos I have, in all my incredible knowledge, figured those ones out. we arent doing throws to start out with- maybe later. and obviously we arent starting out full contact straight away, we're going to do it gradually, starting with padding etc (my friend managed to rustle up some of those tkd vests with the target things on them)

[bob10]

We train everythhing full contact but start slow, or sometimes come back to slow to focus on a particular area. This way people get used to hitting and being hit in a progressive way and it hopefully keeps the training "honest". It's not uncommon when people speed up for them to start pulling strikes. We'd rather a hit lands, at whatever speed, than have it pulled.

Of course it leads to a lot of misunderstandings, when people see only slow work and make assumptions, but it's a tried and tested method and brings good results.

[stimulant]

head kicks work great in full contact if used in combinations (I've stopped a few people with them in the past), to get them to work by themselves you need exceptional timing and / or leg speed.

[Ray Pina]

Yup... and you'll learn real quick what is reasonably safe and reliable, what is so so and what is plane ol suicide.

Hopefully you trust these guys and who ever supervises this. When it comes to training, pick your friends carefully.

[Liokault]

Indeed head kicks work......but if you get it wrong you are screwed. In practice head kicks are high risk unless your in a miss matched fight.


I think the main thing when starting full contact is to get over the fear!

Things to remember:

If your to scared to enter and hit him, your nothing more than a big target.

If your hitting (again unless your mismatched) your oponent will be forced to defend and so probably will not be hitting you.

If your stood in range and not attacking/reacting to an attack your doing somthing wrong.

[Ray Pina]

"If your hitting (again unless your mismatched) your oponent will be forced to defend and so probably will not be hitting you."

Be careful with this. This assumption can make things go bad real quick.

[Liokault]

Be careful with this. This assumption can make things go bad real quick.

Indeed. But if your just starting out yoyr probably not going to be put up against a great counter puncher.

[IronFist]

Head kicks work...

if your opponent is on his hands and knees :p

[MaFuYee]

double leg take down :)

[CaptinPickAxe]

I fight full contact. And my only bit of advice for you is stay focused or your in for a whoopin'.

[BlueTravesty]

good advice :)

[Merryprankster]

Advice:

If you're not moving, you're getting hit.

To be more descriptive:

If you're not busy being active, you're a target. There is a temptation when newish to sparring, or have become to comfortable with "call and response" type work, to do this thing where you don't do much until you're set. Well, you're never set. You're going to have to strike on the go and evade or block on the go. Stay active. Use your footwork. Move. If you're not moving your feet, you'd better be punching, kicking or evading/blocking, because if you're standing still, you're getting hit.

[Kristoffer]

I don't pull punches, but we pull elbows in practise and don't target head with knees unless we agree on it before