From boxing to muay thai

[pugilistico]

I used to box and had a few fights both in the amateur's and pros but stopped due to injuries several years ago. I trained sporadically once a blue moon since then. I mean the last time I sparred was earlier this year after not even having hit the bag in years. I did worse than I would have liked, but better than I feared. I didn't completely lose it at least. I didn't even have a mouth piece lol.

Anyway, I'm now living in Thailand and I figure since I'm here, I should do Muay Thai. I met an expat who's actively fighting here and she said that her gym will actually let people have little smokers with people of their level after a month of training. I would like to do it for the experience and to test how well my boxing can be applied in a fight with kicks and knees in the cinch.

I've done a couple classes already at different gyms to try it out before committing to a specific gym and I noticed a few things. I always hear how boxers have wide stances compared to MT fighters because of low kicks, but the stance the trainer taught us was wider than expected. It seemed my natural boxing stance didn't need to be adjusted much. I could tell I definitely had better hands than anyone else in the class, although I am sure I was also the only one there who also used to fight competetively. There's a lot of other intricacies that I will need to get used to.

Kicking is something I need to get used to. I also did taekwondo many many years ago and I still have the bad habit of hitting with the top of my foot instead of the shin. I need to figure this out. Other than punches, everything else feels new to my body as it hasn't been ingrained as muscle memory. Putting together combinations with punches and kicks has been a challenge. One trainer on the pads had me throw a rear low kick after a lead hook and making the weight shift was weird. It felt more natural to throw a kick from the same side as the punch, like a rear low kick after a rear straight. All of this is of course obvious because throwing punches on the bag also used to feel weird when I started.

I like throwing elbows though, it feels more natural to me because it's the same mechanics as throwing a punch but with the elbow.

Defense will be another issue. I always trained to slip and roll under punches to stay in range to throw back, but this may make me open to knees and head kicks. I'm thinking I need to rely more on stepping out of range or leaning back to avoid counters. Or step into a clinch instead.

Has anyone boxed and done muay thai both?

 

[SandisLL]

If you love clinch fight and so on....
Maybe I think.
If you have good legs and grip.

I had a bit different stuff like TMA > KB > boxing....like this.


Basic is kicks are allowed to learn about is to read reference points from opponent's stance where and when he is able to deliver a power kick.....

There ofc is difference that some KB stuff used in central - eastern euro was with low kick as a norm.
Basic then was ... fc with stuff more like PAK KB.
Then other stuff and then low kick....
KB had been limited with clinch fight time and strikes you are allowed to do during clinch episode....

I had did stuff under K-1 type, full contact and low kick KB....and am boxing rules...
For spar also aka like in MMA or pro boxing....

 

[pugilistico]

Went to a gym and did some light sparring with kicks for the first time ever after some drills.

Technically it isn't my first time ever because I used to train with some amateur mma guys but this was over a decade ago. We used to spar lightly with punches, kicks, and takedowns and I don't remember having to adjust so much. Those guys weren't as good and I myself wasn't as good at boxing alone as I was cross training a bit more then. Plus the threat of takedowns might have changed things. I also used to spar in hapkido class years back but only with light kicks and no punches.

Anyway, the guy I paired with also used to box so he gave me some tips and was really accommodating to me.
The threat of kicks completely changed the game. I thought I could check low kicks and counter with punches but that was a lot harder to do because the guy was pretty good at kicking low to high and kicking with both legs so I didn't know which way the kick was going to come from. He had me so preoccupied with kicks that when he threw punches, I didn't see them coming either. It was hard to get into my punching range because of teeps, and if he used a mix of teeps and had a better jab, it would have been really hard for me to get into range.

I did eventually get more comfortable and got off a few combos that I always tried to end with a low kick. Although every time I kicked, he checked it pretty easily. He later got too comfortable and tried to use more boxing but since that's my game, I was able to time my punches as he threw. He commented how sneaky my punches were.

It's harder than I thought to shift my weight to the right foot in order to lift my leg up to check, which is I guess why muay thai guys seem to shift back and forth a lot. And getting too preoccupied with kicks must be something I just need to get more used to.

 

[MT5]

I did boxing to muay thai, although I'm just a dude who decided to start doing combat sports in middle age, so I have nothing like the skill and experience you have. So take anything I say with a grain of salt.





That said, I basically had your same experience. For checks having weight 30-70, with the 70 on the rear is how a lot of guys at my gym do it. Also remember you can cross check with your front leg. I won't say I never check with the rear but the front is my go to. Watch your front leg on punches. It's easy to put too much weight there leaving you defenseless for the leg kick. With regard to the shin/top of the foot I'd say figure out whatbworks for you. Muay Thai guys really emphasize the shin but I've seen western kickboxers I respect , like Gabriel Varga, say they commonly hit with the top of the foot. I go shin since I have bad feet from decades of running but I don't think it's as cut and dry as Muay Thai guys say. The big worry IMHO is hitting an elbow or knee with the foot. And the shin probably has more force too.



Head movement and slips are tough. Gotta find what works again. The one advice I'd give is try to avoid going too low and, more importantly IMHO, try to avoid putting your face toward the floor because you'll wind up getting kicked right in the schnozz.



Make sure you don't get into the habit of watching his feet. Watch the chest and work on seeing kicks with peripheral vision.

Edit: oh and get up on those toes on kicks! You can really feel the power difference between that and flat footed.


Good luck!

 

[pugilistico]

Head movement and slips are tough. Gotta find what works again. The one advice I'd give is try to avoid going too low and, more importantly IMHO, try to avoid putting your face toward the floor because you'll wind up getting kicked right in the schnozz.


Make sure you don't get into the habit of watching his feet. Watch the chest and work on seeing kicks with peripheral vision.

Edit: oh and get up on those toes on kicks! You can really feel the power difference between that and flat footed.

Good luck!

I didn't know Varga says that. I've actually been watching his videos on youtube to get tips.

Ducking down with your face down is maybe more forgivable in boxing, but it's also not a good idea because it's easy to get uppercutted that way. I got my nose busted once ducking down like that. With knees I'm sure it's even more risky. I'm going to not try ducking low in general although as a short guy, that's how I used to get under taller guys and go to the body.

I realized I tended to watch the lower body too much, hence I was open for punches. I went to another gym and one guy told me I need to turn my feet and hips into the kicks more, and that helped tremendously with hitting with the shin. Now my shins are sore lol

Interestingly enough, there was a local girl who was getting ready for a boxing match, so they had me spar her with no kicks when they saw that I obviously used to box. It was interesting trying to spar with boxing rules but I gave myself "muay thai" limitations such as not ducking too low and not using shoulder rolls.

Sparred one of the trainers after and he outboxed me. Used a lot of headmovement and combinations and only threw the occasional kick.

Another thing about Muay Thai is that I'm not so used to sparring light. We used to go quite hard when training for boxing matches. I can see the value in both though.

 

[Trabaho]

Do lots of light sparring and stop blocking low kicks with your hands. I switched from boxing to kickboxing and instinctly threw down my hand to block low kicks

 

[biscuitsbrah]

Hey man are you the guy from Korea who eats pigeons?

 

[pugilistico]

Do lots of light sparring and stop blocking low kicks with your hands. I switched from boxing to kickboxing and instinctly threw down my hand to block low kicks

I don't have that problem but I want to catch kicks to the body to counter, but it's still hard to read where the kick is going.

Hey man are you the guy from Korea who eats pigeons?

Yep

 

[biscuitsbrah]

I don't have that problem but I want to catch kicks to the body to counter, but it's still hard to read where the kick is going.



Yep

Good to have you back. Your threads about girls and pigeons always entertained me

 

[pugilistico]

Good to have you back. Your threads about girls and pigeons always entertained me

LOL. My pigeon days are over especially since where I live now there aren't many pigeons. Girls aren't as big of a focus anymore. The older I get, I'm just complaining about shit now

 

[Stuart0502]

Biggest thing for me is going to be body conditioning if you are going to be a boxing specialist in Muay Thai.

Gabriel Varga may be the best resource on this topic;

 

[deucesarewild]

I used to box and had a few fights both in the amateur's and pros but stopped due to injuries several years ago. I trained sporadically once a blue moon since then. I mean the last time I sparred was earlier this year after not even having hit the bag in years. I did worse than I would have liked, but better than I feared. I didn't completely lose it at least. I didn't even have a mouth piece lol.

Anyway, I'm now living in Thailand and I figure since I'm here, I should do Muay Thai. I met an expat who's actively fighting here and she said that her gym will actually let people have little smokers with people of their level after a month of training. I would like to do it for the experience and to test how well my boxing can be applied in a fight with kicks and knees in the cinch.

I've done a couple classes already at different gyms to try it out before committing to a specific gym and I noticed a few things. I always hear how boxers have wide stances compared to MT fighters because of low kicks, but the stance the trainer taught us was wider than expected. It seemed my natural boxing stance didn't need to be adjusted much. I could tell I definitely had better hands than anyone else in the class, although I am sure I was also the only one there who also used to fight competetively. There's a lot of other intricacies that I will need to get used to.

Kicking is something I need to get used to. I also did taekwondo many many years ago and I still have the bad habit of hitting with the top of my foot instead of the shin. I need to figure this out. Other than punches, everything else feels new to my body as it hasn't been ingrained as muscle memory. Putting together combinations with punches and kicks has been a challenge. One trainer on the pads had me throw a rear low kick after a lead hook and making the weight shift was weird. It felt more natural to throw a kick from the same side as the punch, like a rear low kick after a rear straight. All of this is of course obvious because throwing punches on the bag also used to feel weird when I started.

I like throwing elbows though, it feels more natural to me because it's the same mechanics as throwing a punch but with the elbow.

Defense will be another issue. I always trained to slip and roll under punches to stay in range to throw back, but this may make me open to knees and head kicks. I'm thinking I need to rely more on stepping out of range or leaning back to avoid counters. Or step into a clinch instead.

Has anyone boxed and done muay thai both?

I mean, I've done boxing and kickboxing and Muay Thai. Only boxing where I ended up getting a fight. There others were because I was also training JKD and the whole point of that is to develop a combat system based on directness and realism and I figured elbows, knees, and the Thai clinch and low kicks would be good tools.

One thing I found was that if I was against a guy who could naturally out-kick me (not in power, but in reaction time and simply being more fluid...but probably also in terms of power, too lol) I could crowd them, be more successful in punching range, smothering their kicks. They also don't do little things that I realized worked from boxing. Jabbing the chest, throwing a vertical jab (thumb up) to split their guard, or even an occasional body jab (where I didn't crouch too low) were effective when used sparingly.

Also, I noticed Thai fighters and kickboxing don't overall really understand the power of the jab as a tool and as a power weapon. They mostly just throw it as part of a combo to set up kicks. One Thai fighter I trained with never trained or sparred a boxer before and he recognized from training with me how much power you can get from the jab (and I'm nothing special). I'm not trying to brag, but only illustrate that the jab can be a hidden weapon for you to set up other techniques. Mostly, unless they are at a pretty seasoned and skilled level, Thai fighters see punches as least points so they tend to like the higher point strikes more. However, punches set up those other attacks quite nicely.

You'll want to shadow box and practice on the heavy bag to get your sense of distance and fluidity with kicking off your punches. This will get you used to landing with your shin and not the top of your foot. Also shadowboxing will train out those upper body defensive moves taught by boxers. Interestingly enough, I found that boxers eith that upright, Eastern/Soviet bloc stance and style were more fundamentally prepared to transition to Muay Thai. They don't do a lot of upper body movement compared to other boxing styles.

Their clinch technique was usually just better than mine due to amount of time trained. I could outmuscle, but just like in wrestling, balance and leverage and their ability to fire knees while controlling in the clinch was dangerous territory for me.

Exiting out your right side after you close eith punches may be useful to you. It was for me. Though Thai fighters have better legs for kicking, boxers that got good a footwork, usually have better legs for strategy and movement. The old wide V angle of attacking and then escaping to your right can crowd their left kick and keep you away from their right kick. If you move to their left and give them too much space they may be able to kick from left side so going in and out, almost on the same line of attack is just giving them something to kick at their range. Leaning back will get your leg kicked.

While learning something new, don't mistrust what is old. Some boxing habits will get you into trouble, but lateral movement, controlling range with footwork, and the almighty jab will help you create a style that can frustrate the opponent. Shadowbox shadowbox shadowbox, but videotape yourself and then watch YouTube of real good TECHNICAL pros, and see where your looking untidy. Show it to your coach and ask for pointers. Shadowboxing is the blacksmith's furnace and anvil which forges the right design. Maybe you aren't bringing Muay Thai into your boxing habits so much as taking the right ingredients from boxing and throwing them into something foreign. It can create an identity crisis for a fighter, but you'll soon discern what helps and what hurts. I hope that any of what I learned and wrote about above helps you and/or makes sense to you as a reader.

Remember: the Dutch brought their boxing heavy style into Muay Thai and it worked!

 

[pugilistico]

I mean, I've done boxing and kickboxing and Muay Thai. Only boxing where I ended up getting a fight. There others were because I was also training JKD and the whole point of that is to develop a combat system based on directness and realism and I figured elbows, knees, and the Thai clinch and low kicks would be good tools.

One thing I found was that if I was against a guy who could naturally out-kick me (not in power, but in reaction time and simply being more fluid...but probably also in terms of power, too lol) I could crowd them, be more successful in punching range, smothering their kicks. They also don't do little things that I realized worked from boxing. Jabbing the chest, throwing a vertical jab (thumb up) to split their guard, or even an occasional body jab (where I didn't crouch too low) were effective when used sparingly.

Also, I noticed Thai fighters and kickboxing don't overall really understand the power of the jab as a tool and as a power weapon. They mostly just throw it as part of a combo to set up kicks. One Thai fighter I trained with never trained or sparred a boxer before and he recognized from training with me how much power you can get from the jab (and I'm nothing special). I'm not trying to brag, but only illustrate that the jab can be a hidden weapon for you to set up other techniques. Mostly, unless they are at a pretty seasoned and skilled level, Thai fighters see punches as least points so they tend to like the higher point strikes more. However, punches set up those other attacks quite nicely.

You'll want to shadow box and practice on the heavy bag to get your sense of distance and fluidity with kicking off your punches. This will get you used to landing with your shin and not the top of your foot. Also shadowboxing will train out those upper body defensive moves taught by boxers. Interestingly enough, I found that boxers eith that upright, Eastern/Soviet bloc stance and style were more fundamentally prepared to transition to Muay Thai. They don't do a lot of upper body movement compared to other boxing styles.

Their clinch technique was usually just better than mine due to amount of time trained. I could outmuscle, but just like in wrestling, balance and leverage and their ability to fire knees while controlling in the clinch was dangerous territory for me.

Exiting out your right side after you close eith punches may be useful to you. It was for me. Though Thai fighters have better legs for kicking, boxers that got good a footwork, usually have better legs for strategy and movement. The old wide V angle of attacking and then escaping to your right can crowd their left kick and keep you away from their right kick. If you move to their left and give them too much space they may be able to kick from left side so going in and out, almost on the same line of attack is just giving them something to kick at their range. Leaning back will get your leg kicked.

While learning something new, don't mistrust what is old. Some boxing habits will get you into trouble, but lateral movement, controlling range with footwork, and the almighty jab will help you create a style that can frustrate the opponent. Shadowbox shadowbox shadowbox, but videotape yourself and then watch YouTube of real good TECHNICAL pros, and see where your looking untidy. Show it to your coach and ask for pointers. Shadowboxing is the blacksmith's furnace and anvil which forges the right design. Maybe you aren't bringing Muay Thai into your boxing habits so much as taking the right ingredients from boxing and throwing them into something foreign. It can create an identity crisis for a fighter, but you'll soon discern what helps and what hurts. I hope that any of what I learned and wrote about above helps you and/or makes sense to you as a reader.

Remember: the Dutch brought their boxing heavy style into Muay Thai and it worked!

Good notes. Thanks.

I've noticed that about Muay Thai guys as well. They don't utilize the jab like boxers do, nor do they throw punches with authority and in bunches. I sometimes watch muay thai fights and can only think about how bad some of the punches look. I wondered if it was just because of the ruleset, punches don't work as well, or if they just really aren't good at it. I think it's the latter because I see high level MT guys who do throw punches well and get knock outs. One of the local thai trainers at a gym I went to also even said most of them aren't good with their hands so they focus on throwing kicks more when they fight westerners.

Recently I saw a local event and it seems a lot of foreigners try to "fight like Thais" and end up getting beat. The last fight was an African guy and a Thai guy, and the African did his best Deontay Wilder impersonation and started throwing bombs off the gate. The Thai guy barely could get his kicks off and got swarmed and ended up getting KOed.

But if I do end up getting a fight, they'll probably (I won't take a fight against an experienced guy anyway unless he agrees to go easy on me) put me in with another foreigner who is at my experience level. To an extent, fighting is fighting, and I have more experience than a lot of other foreigners who's only experience fighting is the few months they've done muay thai. The feeling I get when I spar some people is that I could light them up with combinations if we were to go hard, but I am there to work on Muay Thai and learn, not to win.

 

[NoSmilez]

I done both before. It's harder to convert from MT to boxing. I never really developed a real jab in training in MT and I don't really throw strikes while moving back.

I am assuming you are fighting Thai rules. You need to how to learn how to clinch. It seems unimportant to people who start training MT. If you aren't good at that facet of the MT. You aren't going to be able to punch or kick. The clinch allows you to dictate where the fight takes place. Someone who is good at it will just exploit that weakness. Get used to automatically kneeing back in the clinch or setting up for a throw. Learn the scoring system. Punches aren't weighed as much as kicking and knees. If someone is kicking you and you are just punching. You are most likely going to lose on points. You need to pick up sweeps, throws and catches as well. Try to get used to checking kicks or lean back. Try not to block kicks with the arm.

All that rolling your shin with sticks and bottles is kinda bullshit but everyone tries it. Just kick a long bag. The rag sinks to the bottom of the bag and that part is the hardest.