Fedor shadowboxing... weird techniques need explanation

[Officer_Brown]

His body is straight then he leans his body back then throws weird jab's and crosses left and right side I never seen anyone do that before. Someone explain me what is that about. It also seems like his uppercuts are too high. Well he is the greatest of all time... how can we critique his technique? (outstruck mirko)

If you don't know what i meant..


Full video

 

[Sano]

Fedor was extremely good at a style that was not particularly well suited for standup only. He stood tall, leaved himself off balance all the time in poor positioning and wasn't good at defending in the pocket. At the same time, he had excellent speed, excellent agility, excellent reactive balance, great instincts, was very aggressive, good hand traps, a great lead right hand and, most importantly, his striking style coming forward lead him to the clinch. What made Fedor so good was his speed, instincts, transitions and groundwork. After he lost his grappling and Judo, he declined fast.

The only time he kinda sat down a little bit and lowered his stance was against Monson and Cro Cop. He used more kicks in those fights too.

 

[Reyesnuthugr]

Here he's training for a counter-punch while being rushed/flurried, which is why it looks like he's leaning back and to the side- he's actually moving backwards a little to compensate for the attack coming in. That's just his way of doing it that worked somewhat for him in MMA. I wouldn't recommend it for other people unless you feel like you really know what's going on, how to make it work, and then decide to experiment with it in sparring and it happens to work really well for you and your system.

It's unorthodox and tricky (and also needs to be expertly timed) and that's what would make it work, not any solid mechanics of such a move. When your timing is as good as the combat sambo champion of Russia, you can do some crazy things that other people can/should not.

 

[GuitarNinja]

I think its called the russian sidestep

 

[eero]

here mayweather using same strike, but with hook koeing hatton. fedor doing with straight punches and with back leg and front leg, but the mechanics are the same. basic boxing

 

[eero]

the lean is to get his head outside of center line.

i think its called a check hook in english. Its a defensive punch that is very common in russian boxing that can be done with straight, uppercut or hook.

 

[AcumenAthletics]

The leaning back is for countering.
Pulling your head off center and/or slightly back can make your opponent miss, creating great opportunities to counter.

 

[Uchi Mata]

Here he's training for a counter-punch while being rushed/flurried, which is why it looks like he's leaning back and to the side- he's actually moving backwards a little to compensate for the attack coming in. That's just his way of doing it that worked somewhat for him in MMA. I wouldn't recommend it for other people unless you feel like you really know what's going on, how to make it work, and then decide to experiment with it in sparring and it happens to work really well for you and your system.

It's unorthodox and tricky (and also needs to be expertly timed) and that's what would make it work, not any solid mechanics of such a move. When your timing is as good as the combat sambo champion of Russia, you can do some crazy things that other people can/should not.

Not to mention that combat Sambo also features a lot of blitzing forward to try and punch into a grip + throw, it's probably a sport-specific thing to get out of the way of the blitz and get a punch -> grip yourself.

 

[Reyesnuthugr]

Not to mention that combat Sambo also features a lot of blitzing forward to try and punch into a grip + throw, it's probably a sport-specific thing to get out of the way of the blitz and get a punch -> grip yourself.

Yep, it looks like that to me too. It looks like half its use is to get a grip for clinch, where a superior samboist would have the upper hand.

In pure striking, you might want to still lean to the side to slip the oncoming punch, but instead of leaning back it would be much more sound and common to take half a step back while keeping posture, (WITHOUT leaning back at all ) to account for the incoming blitzing opponent, as you threw for stability, recoverability, and ability to put together more strikes immediately afterwards (and also not lose balance or get bulldozed over).

 

[Uchi Mata]

Yep, it looks like that to me too. It looks like half its use is to get a grip for clinch, where a superior samboist would have the upper hand.

In pure striking, you might want to still lean to the side to slip the oncoming punch, but instead of leaning back it would be much more sound and common to take half a step back while keeping posture, (WITHOUT leaning back at all ) to account for the incoming blitzing opponent, as you threw for stability, recoverability, and ability to put together more strikes immediately afterwards (and also not lose balance or get bulldozed over).

It would probably be a better way to do it combat Sambo too. It's not like those guys are known for overly technical striking, the whole point is just to bridge the gap and throw the guy since that's the fastest way to win. Fedor never looked like a very skillful pure striker to me, he was just a super effective one because he threw so hard, he was so fast, and all he wanted to do was clinch anyway. As someone else mentioned in an earlier post, when he stopped striking into the clinch and throwing people and just started striking, his results went downhill pretty fast.

 

[Brando]

Fedor is moving "off the tracks" and countering. Not particularly unorthodox.

I recommend watching this video for some more insight into this style of side-stepping.

 

[Reyesnuthugr]

Fedor is moving "off the tracks" and countering. Not particularly unorthodox.

I recommend watching this video for some more insight into this style of side-stepping.

Good vid. The technical breakdown done in slo motion by the coach @ 4:25.

His posture is still balanced/forward/solid and taking deliberate and measured half steps. Fedor's was similar in concept but he was clearly leaning backwards while throwing the counterpunch (not the greatest idea in boxing) with little-to-no technical emphasis on (to make up for) foot placement. Fedor, of course, he can afford to go to the ground, probably all the better for him because sambo guys like Fedor and Kabib tend to do that backwards twisting suplex where they land on top, they love to do that and they're very good at it.

The difference between the vids is small enough to miss, yet enormous. If you used each example to learn from/to train one group of striking students, the difference in results between the classes would not be fair. Which brings me back to not recommending Fedor's video to learn from unless maybe you're competing MMA with a Sambo background, and probably even then the vid you posted is still much smarter to learn from. Fedor knew what he was doing, but a lot of what he did was tailored to himself.

 

[Brando]

Good vid. The technical breakdown done in slo motion by the coach @ 4:25.

His posture is still balanced/forward/solid and taking deliberate and measured half steps. Fedor's was similar in concept but he was clearly leaning backwards while throwing the counterpunch (not the greatest idea in boxing) with little-to-no technical emphasis on (to make up for) foot placement. Fedor, of course, he can afford to go to the ground, probably all the better for him because sambo guys like Fedor and Kabib tend to do that backwards twisting suplex where they land on top, they love to do that and they're very good at it.

The difference between the vids is small enough to miss, yet enormous. If you used each example to learn from/to train one group of striking students, the difference in results between the classes would not be fair. Which brings me back to not recommending Fedor's video to learn from unless maybe you're competing MMA with a Sambo background, and probably even then the vid you posted is still much smarter to learn from. Fedor knew what he was doing, but a lot of what he did was tailored to himself.

Great stuff. I disagree that he's not thinking about his feet; the drill seems to be mostly about switching his stance/hips 180 degrees as he steps off the tracks. The shorter clip doesn't give a good view of his feet throughout, but he's changing leads every time - that's why it looks like he's leaning. He switches hands while slipping off the tracks. It's viable as long as you understand the risk/reward, like everything else, which I think you sum up nicely in the second bold sentence.

Can't know if Fedor was practicing a "full" technique here, but fun to break down either way.