Muay thai gyms and footwork drills

[FABRIZIO]

Has any one any experience of Muay thai gyms in London that incorporate footwork drills in their classes. Most of the places I've goine to don't seem to do this and I can be pretty static when I spar.

[Standupstar]

Can't you do footwork drills in your own time?

[maz]

Can't you do footwork drills in your own time?

you should be doing basic footwork in everything you do...sparring, padwork, technique.
footwork in thai boxing is not complicated, its just small movements but its one of the first things you should have started learning.

[Romeoblood]

I have to agree with maz

footwork is crutial with any combat sport! If you cant move, your gonna get knocked out very quickly!

you should be working on your footwork every time your in gym, on the bags, on pads, and in sparring

speak to your pad man, after every combo, move

jab, jab cross, step left

jab, cross, hook, step right

jab, right kick, jab, step back

(note it doesnt have to be these combo's, bt after ever single combo, you should be moving!)

[123 MMA]

Has any one any experience of Muay thai gyms in London that incorporate footwork drills in their classes. Most of the places I've goine to don't seem to do this and I can be pretty static when I spar.

where do you train? in london you have some amazing muay thai gyms such as KO, Diesel, and Minotaurs.

[FABRIZIO]

cheers for the advice. I know about the basics of moving forwards backwards and side to side.
I know in boxing they do drills on boxes and floor ladders to improve speed and movement and I thought this may be helpful to me as well.

[Romeoblood]

It wouldnt be unhelpful, but footwork isnt as complicated in MT compared to boxing, so IMO it wouldnt be needed, focus on technique, power and speed, and you'll b fine

[Standupstar]

footwork isnt as complicated in MT compared to boxing, so IMO it wouldnt be needed, focus on technique, power and speed, and you'll b fine

Just because it might not seem complicated doesn't mean it isn't essential, good footwork can hide and setup an attack, get you out of trouble, set up quick kicks and so on, no individual technique is difficult, the key is tying them all together and without good footwork you'll often find it difficult to get out of trouble.
I'd say don't obsess over footwork drills but a bit of speed work tossed in with a few other drills can only help

[thaison]

Actually most of the best thai boxers have unbelievable footwork, saying you dont need to work on it is ridiculous. The footwork is different from boxing, in some ways more sutle, but just as sophisticaed and important.

technique power and speed is pointless if you dont have footwork to position you to use it or to use in defense.

i start most sessions with footwork drills, with new students a large amount of there intial training is footwork based, once the footwork fundementals are down the striking bit is alot easier

[Romeoblood]

to refer back to my previosu post, footwork is important, but things like ladders, boxes etc dont have as much use in thai

in the gym I train in, we tend to intergrate footwork in with pad work, with emphasis on the movement as opposed to the strike

different coaches have different methods, its not to say that my coach is right and James is wrong for using drills, or james is right and my coach is wrong for intergrating footwork into pad work, they just have differing methods

if your concerned about your footwork, speak to your coach, you may even be working footwork without even knowing it

[thaison]

We just had a thai coach (son yodyut) over for three months and the he spend lots of time emphasising footwork and foot placement stuff, same stuff happened when i trained at sasiprapa in BK last year. Again if you dont now what your looking at in a thai fight you might be missing the footwork aspect as it is much more subtle to boxing.

Its best done early in training other wise you will be correcting bad habits later on, and whe you get it down it makes everythig else easier. (in some ways footwork in striking is the equivalant to positions in grappling, you dont get the footwork down in striking your positioning and striking will be off, you dont get the postions down in grappling your submissions will be practically useless) Good work is the foundation for effective, efficent striking and makes a difference to timing of shots which might be the most important aspect of striking.

Other way to think about it is if you get two guys fighting one with really good footwork and one with inferior footwork, the one with footwork can out position and land more shots while taking less.