xeberus

I've decided to make a thread to see the forum's opinion on the most effective form of striking.

If you do not fully understand the question, then respond instinctively.

Also if you are a fighter give your opinion on forms of striking. Can TKD/karate/kung fu practitioners have a fair chance against boxers/kickboxers/MT practitioners? Are these arts all on par with each other generally in effectiveness? What are your experiences with such things?

I also would like to hear IronMan's opinion on this subject. Sorry to single you out but you are one of if not the most knowledgeable people on this forum.

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Voiceless

Striking in what context¿ Striking in a Boxing match¿ A Kickbox, Muay Thai match¿ In MMA¿ On the street for self defense¿

Rules and circumstances determine the necessity of the way of striking.

Gloves for example influence your defensive work and therefore subsequently also your offensive work. Big gloves like in Boxing/Kickboxing/Muay Thai enable to easily block striking attacks, which is much harder with MMA gloves and even more harder bare knuckled, so in each case the offense has to be adapted. A rule whether the fight continues on the ground influences on how much you have to worry about your balance. In Muay Thai you don't have to worry that much, so fighters throw a lot of high kicks, because if it hits the head it almost equals a win via KO. In MMA people are more cautious in that aspect, because a high kick makes vulnerable to a take down. It's still an option if you're either confident in fighting on the ground or at least in knowing how to stand up again. On the street you absolutely want to avoid to go to the ground, because that means you lose one dimension of mobility and you never know whether your opponent doesn't have some friends around that stomp on your head while you are busy grappling with him.

Then, what consequences has your punch to you¿ Bandaged and gloved fists are well protected, bare knuckles were not evolved by nature to hit hard targets as a forehead and can easily brake and you don't want the broken teeth of your opponent cut open your fingers and contaminate you with any diseases. So in self defense open hand strikes and slaps have a bigger value than in a sportive competition with gloves. Then again, slaps can directly be transferred into grips if the opponent wears clothes.

And so on...

So the answer to the topic question is not so easy to be found as it seems on first glances. There are many factors that have an influence.

Squirrelfighter

I have to go with other here. There is no one specific form of combatives that are the most effective in all situations. The devil is in the details.

Example: In a MT fight, obviously MT is the most effective, with secondary being a tie between American/Sanshou kickboxing. In a Sanshou fight, obviously Sanshou, a MT guy would be taken down over and over, and possibly get DQed for use of illegal techniques (elbows/knees depending on rules)IMO.

In MMA, again, there's no real #1. The only thing that stands out for me is the rules. The stand up rules for MMA are based loosely around kickboxing/MT rules as well as grappling comps like Judo, Jitz, Greco, etc. The same principle that gives wrestlers an advantage on the ground gives MT guys the advantage on the feet. That's not to say a Kareteka couldn't dominate in MMA, or a Judoka, he just has to condition himself to the rules of the sport, i.e. keeping his hands up (not relying on reverse punches), learning sprawls. This doesn't mean he's using a MT technique because he's using a side head block, it means he's blocking the sides of his head, nothing more.

In the street, this is an area where I believe MT/Kickboxing/Boxing are at their most useless. They are Arts designed for sport, conditioned for the rules, built around sport, and trained for sport. Where as Kung Fu (Shaolin or Wing Chun for example) are not necessarily designed for this purpose. Especially Wing Chun, which is an Art originally designed wholey for self-defense, that has been modified in some schools to become a sport. These Arts, not just Kung Fu, almost everything you listed that is not designed for sport, trains things like groin kicks, throat strikes, eye gouges, elbows to the brain stem. These are all techniques you'd get tossed out of a MT school for practicing, but they do it in non-sport schools. This gives one MT fighter of relative training to one non-sport fighter a significant disadvantage. If the MT fighter can throw the best damn overhand in the land, it really doesn't matter if his throat was just collapsed by throat strike.

However, the rule stands in everything I just listed that 99/100 the most skilled fighter wins, regardless of his background, or what name he assigns to his Art.

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VincePierce

in real life id say boxing as unfashionable as it may sound, it lends itself best to quick effective ambush, connecting the most efficient form of attack ''punch'' with the most efficient target..''chin''.

this is not the whole answer, but within the narrow context of what usually counts as real life, it is the best one.

Scromaster

I am assuming you mean for sport, lots of options open in street fighting you can't do in the ring, ie throat punch, kick to the junk, hammerfist to the back of the neck and so forth.

Even in sport its hard to say which is best because it depends on circumstance. MT is effective there is no doubt, but plain boxing has its advantages. Wing Chun is a style of kung fu, by the way. Kung fu just means personal achievement, but we in the states use it to refer to all the chinese arts which go from joint locking and displacement to the animal styles.

If this was specifically for mma, i would say it just depends on the person, most people who go into mma train MT and boxing for striking, so that is what we are mostly seeing. People like myself never felt right doing MT so i don't train it, i know i am the minority but it doesn't bother me. By the by a MT guy who had been trainning for 2 years came by my school on monday and got his ass handed to him by one of the intermediate students.

I choose other if you cant tell

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_RIVAL_

I'd say agressive Mui Thai.

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VincePierce

street - boxing + jkd. (tho in the street you better have more than just striking. if you fancy getting gnpd with headbutts and no ref to stop it then go around with just boxing.)

jkd is its real sense is just street mma. whatever works to the death.


mma - MT , kicks are just two important.

the way machida uses katate for distance and timing and the fence is good in both. but i feel ppl who can translate their art is different to those who have an art that is already speaking mma/ufc to begin with.

joshua7789

I think the dutch style of kickboxing is the most effective. I guess it could be classified as aggressive muay thai, but it emphsizes a lot more boxing work instead of relying so heavily on kicks.

Scromaster

never seen it, does it have a name or just dutch kick boxing

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joshua7789

Not sure if it has a specific and different name or not. Dutch fighters just seem to have a much more aggressive form of muay thai that incorporates a lot more boxing. Alistair Overeem trains out of Golden Glory, probably the best kickboxing gym out there. Some guys to look up that I consider the epitome of that style are Andy Souwer, Albert Kraus, and Gokhan Saki. Almost left out the greatest ever, Mr. Perfect Ernesto Hoost.