What do you find blends better with your eskrima boxing or muay thai? This question is to those that do or have crosstrained.
Can't go wrong with that choice. Both are excellent matches with eskrima. But if I HAD to choose, I'd say muay thai. For the breadth of technique. I love boxing, and they're absolute masters at what they do. But I'd miss elbows and leg kicks terribly.
I've trained fMA and boxing. Either is a good choice, many founding GMs in FMA were boxers so I'd think boxing is a good fit. Boxing specializes in avoiding hands, if that hand were holding a blade boxing could only help. MT is still a good choice, if you really have both available look at cost, instructor qualification, and schedule, I'd be surprised if all were equal. That should make your decision easier. An art like FMA is well paired with an art that offers resisting/alive trainibg like boxing or MT. A solid background in a system that regularly spard combined with the combative focus of FMA makes for a solid art, both cover all bases. You cant eye gouge and throat punch everyone and you don't want to go toe to toe with everyone either, a solid competitive system combined with FMA or a combative system gives a good foundation.
I've only dabbled in escrima but I've trained in both boxing and muay thai. Wing chun shares some similarities with FMA so I'll toss in my 0.02 I find the tight Muay Thai footwork blends well. The clinch is a great tool and one of my favourite for empty hand but for escrima it can get you tagged with the stick. If you learn some foot sweeps though your ability to control from the clinch can let you dump your opponent pretty easily when you get into a bind. Some of the boxing habits will blend well like using hands and no kicks. High kicks aren't conducive to weapon based fighting and you won't see them in any traditional European weapons manual, and they're arguably a recent incorporation to weapons in Chinese styles. The boxing footwork can blend well and will teach you a lot but transferability of body mechanics depends on how your coach develops you as a boxer. You face a potentially similar thing with Muay Thai but I find a lot of Muay Thai footwork more similar than not. It really comes down to personal preference but I find the Muay Thai body mechanics blend better and I prefer a more open fighting ruleset so I can exercise and learn more tools.
I agree with both Ap and Chadderz, however structurally boxing is the best fit. Or maybe an FMA empty hand class?
To piggyback on this question to ask another: what do people think about the footwork in boxing vs FMA? I've found to be the more squared on footwork in the FMA I learned/am learning (rapid arnis) to be substantially different from the more side on footwork of boxing, and more reminiscent of the mongrel MMA stance, which seems to be a hybrid of Muay-Thai and Wrestling. Legs fairly wide apart and long, knees pointing more forward, squared up, sitting fairly low in the stance. This seems to make sense as we are expecting all the same threats as MMA and more. However, I hear lots of people talking about how boxing is a great art to combine with FMA, and I wondered if that extended to the stance, or was more a comment on the hand skills, reaction times, ranging etc. Anyone who does use a stance which is more reminiscent of an orthodox boxing stance (which I understand to be more side on, back knee pointing out, often slightly hunched for better protection from the lead shoulder), what do you see as the benefits of it for FMA?
Boxing isn't that boring when you have good opponents to play with. But back to the OP, Muay Thai will provide you with a bigger arsenal to work with. Although I do Boxing and Mau Rakau and I find the two complement each other very nicely. However I also have a couple of years of Muay Thai under my belt as well. But Mau Rakau is more similar to Kobudo (with much more emphasis on sparring) than to Eskrima.
I guess it depends on your FMA background. I train Balintawak a close quarters weapons system. Our stance is very similiar to a boxing stance, tight, hips slightly turned off center, the method of power generation is also similiar utilizing hip rotation to generate force. I think the similarity to boxing depends on the preferred fighting range and specialty of your given FMA.
I'll drive one home, I'd say mt and really for the reason simon stated, I mean let's be honest if I'm going to hit you with a stick then punching you just seems bland, I'd rather knee or elbow you to.
Well it depends on the fight and who you're fighting. I frequently work punches into sparring. Elbows and knees are good but the require a closer range and usually are thrown from the clinch. Punches enable you to stay mobile and hit and move, knee and elbow are good tools but may not be as mobile. Elbows can be devastating but often they just open up cuts, the cuts can have a psychological effect on the opponent but they aren't guaranteed fight Enders like some envision. Knees however can be pretty effective especially to the head! There are stories that Floro Villabrille won many challenge stick matches with the left hand punch. The left hand punch is a parallel for stick and knife, don't underestimate the value of a well placed punch.
