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Reminiscing some more on my previous Muay Thai gym, I think I was a little hasty to call the padwork there “mediocre at best”. Now that I remember more, that was actually the best thing about the gym. It was only when my primary instructor left the gym that the padwork (done by the other instructor) drills started dipping in quality, and started becoming more about getting a cardio workout at the expense of everything else. (which was my most recent memory when I wrote my previous critique)
Its definitely still not the highest quality of padwork, but it wasn’t horrible either. My drilling on the pads transferred over nicely when I had to do hard sparring.
Anyway, here’s a video of excellent padwork:
https://youtu.be/rnXzEE3kAYw?t=460 (start at 7:40, then some more notable moments around 27:03)
To quote somebody else describing what makes this so good:
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Pay attention to how the coach doesn’t just mix up the combos and the timing of the strikes that he calls for, he also goes after the student to make them defend against a variety of attacks while continuing to move and hit back. Compare how dynamic this padwork is to the padwork shown earlier. It’s done at a very high level, but the same concepts should be incorporated at all levels of pad work.
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The padwork I did at my gym wasn’t at this level, but it was at least emulating a little bit of this. Unfortunately, that’s the only thing I can retract. every other critique I wrote (such as the bag wailing, the lack of partner drilling, and the lack of technical sparring, etc.) remains.
My worst ever experience with padwork was with a gym I only briefly attended several years ago when a fellow student held pads for me (and then I had to hold one for him too. I’m sure I did an even worse job than him).
Ideally, fellow students should never hold pads for one another, only the instructors should be holding pads. (and maybe senior students who are long-term dedicated to the school and willing to undergo the extra time and training to become skilled pad holders) Because effective padwork is a separate skill in and of itself.
Obviously this becomes less practical in a large class. degradation of instruction quality is probably unavoidable once the class is big enough. I think the only real solution here would be to not bother with padwork in a large class, but do partner drilling instead.
@yarara (and anyone else here with experience in this matter)
You have a fair amount of experience with Martial arts yourself, right? Did the padwork you do look like the one I linked? Did you do a fair amount of partner drilling and technical (light) sparring when you trained?
Anyone ever seen this movie? It’s one of the most subversive I’ve ever seen ( and I’m ready for Zionists calling me a hypocrite):
https://youtu.be/uc8NMbrW7mI?si=nS_MxmfTiRFqXkFq
I watched Dances With Wolves as a kid but I only have vague recollections of it. However, I do recall that the mainstream media pushed this movie quite strongly. The prescribed mainstream opinion was that you were supposed to like this movie and tell others how great it was. The next time a Western was pushed this hard was the subversive faggot movie Brokeback Mountain.
It’s like 3 hours long, but I’ll save u some time. Basically, Souix Indians = perfect. White American men = evil. This is a particularly disturbing scene depicting white male military men. I remember after watching this with my cousin, he said “stupid White man.”
https://youtu.be/Tpwf7dBg8Yo?si=mkpbKAr73zxLlMMy
More reconstructive architecture! 🙂 This time in the Netherlands:
https://www.facebook.com/ArchitecturalUprising/posts/pfbid02rjcreG3EgPEmKW9vKGB3H2td2KwQ2s6CDNFQAmpa4kD6s6dEpejguDFLND8KcNdKl
Happy to see this trend spreading.