Whats better bagwork or drills?

hmmm…maybe in the modern age of easy travel and television. Prior to that, it may be true in countries where boxing was popular. Outside of those areas, no. Because a heavy bag of some sort wasn’t first invented by western boxing.

i understand that you and I go about using the heavy bag in different ways due to different philosophy of our training approach. I’m ok with that.

Do people do this? I don’t know. I can only speak for myself and my experiences. I don’t and never have, and neither have my instructors. In nearly forty years of training I cannot recall a single instance where we had that kind of conversation and structured a training session around that idea. Maybe some people do that, but I don’t know who they are.

I would expect so. He is coming from a different experience. If he wants to learn boxing, he ought to train in a boxing club. If he does not want to learn boxing, then he shouldn’t. This is no different from saying if a boxer walks into a karate school, it’s going to be an altogether different experience. Well of course.

Well no, boxing does not have the monopoly on using the heavy bag. In my experience, nobody is reinventing the wheel, nor claiming “boxing does it this way, we do it that…”. We simply use the bag according to our philosophy of training. Speaking again only for myself, I don’t think about how or what boxing is or isn’t doing at all. I don’t care what boxing does, it is a non-issue in my opinion. This isn’t difficult to understand.

 

One major difference between boxing and CMA is

- A boxing punch is just a punch.
- A CMA punch is a punch followed by a pull.

Which way is better?

- Boxing only considers punching without pulling, the boxing punching combo is faster (such as jab, cross).
- CMA also considers clinch, A "jab, grab, pull, cross" combo can be slower than boxing combo "jab, cross". But CMA can bridge the striking art and the wrestling art much better than boxing can.

People always say that if you train boxing and wrestling, you can integrate both together. But your boxing instructor doesn't know wrestling, your wrestling coach doesn't know boxing. None can help you to do that integration. CMA willl be your nice bridge even just for that purpose.

 

It seems like a pretty big assumption that any given coach only knows that style. People integrate boxing and wrestling successfully all the time, from the very beginnings of formalized MMA. Don Frye is an early example of a successful integration of boxing and judo, despite your assertion that his trainers in each couldn't help with the integration. Anyone with sufficient background in both can begin to connect the dots.

 

It remains to know the CMA and boxing. And become a CMA+Boxing coach Since coaches don't know CMA and boxing at the same time.

 

- The boxing coach may try to integrate the wrestling art.
- The wrestling/Judo instructor may try to integrate the striking art.
- The CMA teach has alreadly integrated the striking art and the wrestling thousands years ago. For example,

- a downward parry can set up an arm wrap.
- a comb hair can set up a head lock.
- a hook punch can set up an underhook.
- an uppercut can set up an overhook.
- a downward separate hands can set up a bear hug or double legs.
- ...

 

And yet the people who have been able to demonstrate their successful integration of both skill sets are coming from boxing and wrestling backgrounds, rather than traditional backgrounds. Now, a possible counterargument to that is "the traditional practitioners weren't interested in proving themselves in the ring." The trouble being that there are plenty of documented cases of arranged matches in CMA. That being the case, and your argument being thousands of years of integration, I struggle a bit with the empirical evidence.

Note that I'm not saying "X doesn't work." Though you kind of have. You've asserted that there's trouble in integrating one thing and thousands of years of precedence for the other. And yet the empirical evidence we have readily available to us shows that the former works just fine and that the latter lacks corroboration.

I know that the things you list above could theoretically lead one into the other. But where can we go to see it happen? If it's happened in the most visible venue available, it should be easy to watch.

 

The CMA striking art and wrestling art integration can been seen in a lot of Sanda fight. I believe the integration is done in more detail in Sanda than in MMA.

 

I always think Zhang Weili has excellent Sanda style take takedown/striking integration, I doesn't hurt she also trains Muay Thai (one of the father arts to Sanda) and wrestling as well.



It's a bit like how combat sambo is also an excellent base for the grappling and striking mix, but Khabib Nurmagomedov still went and trained at the AKA to add world class wrestling to his abilities.

 

The northern Chinese arts especially integrate striking and throwing very well due to the big influence of Mongolian and Chinese wrestling on those arts.

The problem is the vast majority of exposure to Chinese arts is in the southern arts which simply don't have the same influence and expertise in grappling and throwing.

However the desired outcome of these northern arts is different from MMA so the set ups and throws used don't always cross over very well.

When I take someone down in TCMA I'm looking to stay standing and not be griped on the way down, when I take down in MMA I'm specifically thinking of and looking for takedowns which allow for a dominant grip and control on the ground.

Even sanda is different to MMA in the takedowns used as the desired out come is different. You aren't going to use scissor sweeps or foot sweeps that much in MMA because they don't offer the control you want but they score big in sanda.

similarly headlock throws are a big part of sanda and TCMA but if you are allowing grappling in the floor it's not a great idea as you a re basically giving your back to someone .

 

You can see that with Zhang Weili, she scores takedowns, that don't end up anywhere, but it tires her opponent out having to constantly scramble for them, I imagine it works for her because she already has better cardio output then the other fighters, so far.

(This may not be 100% correct, I've watched like 5 of her fights over a year, and I'm definitely not a WMMA or even MMMA expert)

 

You even see it with some judo throws (ippon and drop seonagi for example) and foot sweeps which score great and can be a fight ending ippon in judo but in MMA they don't give you the control you need

 

Sanda and sanshou are competitive formats though. And many of their biggest stars do, in fact, seek out training or originally come from training outside of the thousand-year-old integration you cite. Cung Le, for instance, came from a wrestling background.

What I see here is a couple of boxing punches performed in boxing gloves leading to tying up and a sweep. An integration of boxing and wrestling. What I don't see is stylistically clear indicators that this sequence stemmed from the traditional background you cite and not from learning boxing and wrestling, then learning to build the bridges between them.

I really like sanda as a format, but to me it reinforces the importance of blending boxing and wrestling, rather than arguing at its impossibility.

 

Yeah you see that in Judo all the time. I mean obviously they are playing to the Judo ruleset so might do things differently in a different environment but so many times in Judo the thrower ends up in a worse position than the thrown.

 

Wrestling is similar high crotch/head out singles aren't a great idea in MMA for the same reason, lack of control and also opening yourself up for submissions.

Headlock throws are also something found in freestyle but again in MMA and submission context not the best idea.

Rules change what and how you attack and also your desired outcome changes what technique you use or drill

 

The white guy in that clip is my student's student. He has no boxing and wrestling training but 100% CMA training - long fist + combat Shuai Chiao.

- All boxing punches exist in long fist training.
- All western wrestling training exist in Shuai Chiao training (Chinese wrestling).

Long fist + combat Shuai Chiao (Chinese wrestling) = 100% CMA

The striking art and wrestling art integration is all in CMA.

 

I understand. But that's not the point I'm making. You asserted that there was no way that boxing and wrestling could be successfully integrated because the boxing trainer doesn't understand wrestling and vice versa. Whereas your art had been integrated ages ago. So your student's student shows a successful integration in this clip. How do you explain performances that very much resemble this one but performed by people who don't have that CMA background? Because most of the most visible examples available to all of us of people successfully bridging from boxing to wrestling come from training backgrounds that don't include CMA. (Or my art of FMA, lest you think this is me playing favourites)

 

Wasn't Pankration basically boxing and wrestling together? The MMA gym I train at these days, the MMA coach there's main background was boxing and wrestling, and that's the main basis of our movements.

 

People in MMA have got so good at integrating wrestling with boxing that the "wrestle-boxer" has become a known and very successful archetype.
It's not the only way to be a successful MMA competitor (Adesanya isn't a wrestle-boxer for example). But if you want to be functional for MMA a very solid route is to do some form of wrestling in your youth/teens and then use that as a base to add basic boxing (and maybe a low kick).

 

The bulk of my background is knockdown karate and judo, but my judo coach also had experience in greco-roman wrestling and liked to teach us that as an extra. I find the wrestling more natural for me as Im short and stocky, and out of strikes I prefer to go for kicking the lower half to beat the mobility out of an opponent if I can.

 

I think John's point, that some coaches might not be aware of the changes needed to be made to boxing or wrestling when the two are integrated where as TCMA already has these integrations is valid.

Boxing has to be changed when wrestling or takedowns are allowed, the stance, punches thrown, defences all changes when takedowns are allowed.

Like wise the entries into takedowns from wrestling when strikes are allowed, even the distance and height of the takedowns have to change when strikes are allowed.

Now can pure boxing or pure wrestling coaches make these changes, maybe, probably if they want to but maybe not as well as an MMA coach or a Sanda or TCMA coach where the arts have been integrated from the start.