Interview w/ Lyte Burly (52 Blocks, boxing, Bagua Kung Fu)

[Discipulus]

Hey Standup forum. I wanted to write this post for two reasons.

First, to tell you about the newest episode of my podcast, Heavy Hands. For those of you who haven't heard it, the show focuses on fighting technique and philosophy. We try to stay away from the drama of combat sports in favor of the fights themselves, and the trainers who prepare athletes for those fights.

This week we interview Lyte Burly, who you might know from his Youtube channel, 52blocksinfo. Mr. Burly is a practitioner of 52 Blocks, also known as Jailhouse Rock, a fighting style unique to New York that was developed in the city's prisons in the 70s and 80s. Lyte teaches this art to amateur boxers, and any other students willing to learn. He's also got lots of videos posted of sparring matches with critics and doubters. He's a great personality and very knowledgeable, so we were very happy to have this talk with him about the little known style of 52, and we hope you enjoy it!

iTunes page
Download/RSS link
Episode page (episode is embedded here, if you don't want to download it)

Second, I wanted to let you know that next week Heavy Hands will be featuring an exclusive interview with Matt "The Immortal" Brown, who is set to fight top welterweight Carlos Condit at UFC on Fox 9 on December the 14th. We're going to discuss his unique striking style, including his deadly and diverse clinch game, and discuss the strategies he plans to use against Condit.

Please let us know what you think, and thanks for listening.

 

[frystyle]

Will listen asap I have some spare time. You have some good guests at your show to interview, nice work!

 

[Soul Rebel 2]

Shit, look whos moving on up in the combat sports world. Congrats on the success buddy, I love the program.

 

[Castro Alves]

Fuck yeah! I was expecting Pitts but this is just as good. Thanks.

 

[Discipulus]

Will listen asap I have some spare time. You have some good guests at your show to interview, nice work!

Shit, look whos moving on up in the combat sports world. Congrats on the success buddy, I love the program.

Fuck yeah! I was expecting Pitts but this is just as good. Thanks.

Thanks everybody! Castro, we'll have Wilson Pitts on soon. Perhaps we'll have time the week after Matt Brown's episode. In fact, we may hold on to the Brown episode for a bit, to time it better with his fight on the 14th... I'm not sure right now!

 

[Babba]

nice work. very good questions.

 

[Discipulus]

Thanks a lot, Babba. I'm trying to improve my skills as an interviewer, so that's very encouraging to hear.

 

[Phlog]

Yeah you didn't talk over him and he obviously felt at home. It was an entertaining listen, informative too. Don't have any criticism to give ya! Don't stop!

 

[Fire of Youth]

I'm a fan of Lyte's work. Good stuff.

 

[Bay Area]

Im still not sold on 52. When will we get to see a freestyle match with a 52 guy vs some other style?

 

[Discipulus]

Im still not sold on 52. When will we get to see a freestyle match with a 52 guy vs some other style?

They're out there. You can see Lyte sparring Muay Thai and Wing Chun guys, as well as boxers and other 52 practitioners.

 

[Bay Area]

Yeah, I meant really hard sparing, with head gear, mouthpieces, shin guards and the like. Going 100%. Not light slap boxing in the park. I've seen all the 52 vids. Unless you have seen a vid that fits the criteria that you can upload?

 

[Discipulus]

There's a video of him beating the shit out of a guy named Maoshan, but I think it's on his DVD. I might get that for Christmas though, so I'll let you know how it goes down when I've seen it.

Really, I see 52 as another way of approaching boxing. Yes, there are additional techniques, and certain things that wouldn't be allowed under the rules of boxing, but it's pretty much a system of defense designed to create opportunities for boxing strikes. Lyte teaches versions of the crab, the high guard, the cross-armed guard, the wing block, etc. as well as a number of distracting hand movements to enable offense.

 

[devante]

Yeah, I meant really hard sparing, with head gear, mouthpieces, shin guards and the like. Going 100%. Not light slap boxing in the park. I've seen all the 52 vids. Unless you have seen a vid that fits the criteria that you can upload?

I posted a video years ago of his student young burly sparring a legit muay Thai guy...first they did straight boxing sparring...then boxing v mt...

Look under game of pressure (nakmeezy young burly) I can't post it now

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0x9YLL2FGG4

 

[devante]

And of course lytes student in boxing tourneyz

 

[WillW]

Great interview. It was interesting and funny. Too many quotes to take from it. "I have a Left Hook that will change your life"

Hope you can get him on again in the future to get a little more technical with him. Good to see you got Brown on ur show as well.

As far as his style goes. It basically is boxing, period. I know he talks about incorporating different arts into it, but its about as close to boxing as you can get, at least from what iv seen from a few of his videos.

 

[sourdiesel209]

Im still not sold on 52. When will we get to see a freestyle match with a 52 guy vs some other style?

Im not sold on them either... it looks like some slap boxing mixed with kung fu lol I guess these guys watched too many Jackie Chan movies..

Anyways Id like to see a good sparring session before I pass any judgement, dont tell me its all in their new DVD for just $99.99...

 

[Discipulus]

Im not sold on them either... it looks like some slap boxing mixed with kung fu lol I guess these guys watched too many Jackie Chan movies..

Anyways Id like to see a good sparring session before I pass any judgement, dont tell me its all in their new DVD for just $99.99...

Have you watched Lyte's videos on Youtube? He's actually critical of guys who only slap-box, though he still respects it as part of the tradition of 52 and as a useful but limited training tool. You can find videos of Lyte and his son (Lenny or Young Burly) sparring/fighting online as well.

 

[Jkaylor]

I registered my username here just to post in this thread.

I think you Heavy Hands guys are doing a fantastic job with the podcast. It is the only combat sports podcast I'm currently subscribed to. I find it infinitely more interesting than basically anything else mma related on youtube/podcasts.

I hope you guys continue to grow and are able to put out more frequent episodes in the near future. Keep up the great work.

 

[Sinister]

Im not sold on them either... it looks like some slap boxing mixed with kung fu lol I guess these guys watched too many Jackie Chan movies..

Anyways Id like to see a good sparring session before I pass any judgement, dont tell me its all in their new DVD for just $99.99...

You and Bay should really consider that 52 worked on Floyd Mayweather Jr., even if only for about 15 seconds. Now one could say this and that about rule structures and whatnot, but at the end of the day what you have is that a guy who has been fighting since he was 8 years-old (maybe younger), and Professionally his entire adult life, was completely at a loss for what to do.

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