thanks Jerome, BIC Beards, SGC, interesting point
Glad you enjoyed it hugojkd, thanks for the good words.
C-Hamzeh, you can e-mail editor@insidefighting.com and the letter will get to him. He will also be getting his own InsideFighting e-mail soon. Also, www.myspace.com/fightersheart
thanks Elias.
btw... Chuck has an iron head and great power in both hands, as does Gomi. They are not good examples of saying MMA striking is so different, unless you too have those attributes.
Even still, Diaz showed Gomi you need much more than that.
C
Good article! I'm gonna mail it to a boxer friend of mine who is eager to learn about MMA.
ttt
Thanks for reading and the good words! Glad to hear folks are passing it along as well, thanks!
Super article! The huge difference can be felt in sparring as well when you change between Shooto style gloves and boxing gloves. Glad to see someone write a proper article on this :-)
Great article, thanks!
Thanks for reading guys, glad you enjoyed it. It's also been good to get fighters' perspective on the topic.
I wonder if Lethwei (burmese boxing) would help you get ready for MMA striking better than most traditional striking arts. It allows takedowns, all the striking as Muay Thai, and no gloves are used (once I seen it done with small MMA gloves, but that is the one exception).
Main difference is it allows headbutts too, which wouldn't apply to todays MMA.
C
C-Hamzeh, interesting. By the way, have you readh "A Fighter's Heart"? In it the author (and author of this IF article) Sam Sheridan writes about Burmese boxing and wwanting to go fight there under those rules. Very good book. bsrizpac, thanks. Nice to see someone realize that you don't have to agree with something to enjoy it!
It's cool that this thread is still alive...
C-Hamzeh, the one thing I really noticed that was different with Burmese
boxing was elbows. (Now--I am absolutely no expert--I just spent a week
with a lethwae fighter in Myanmar and it was pretty mellow--but ask Phil
Dunlap or Giordano if you can find them)
I think the elbows would work extremely well in MMA because they're
really sneaky, a lot of different angles, turning back elbows that no one
would be ready for. Besides that and the headbutts, it was basically muay
thai.
The headbutts were really weird--they used the side of the head, above
the ear, and kind of jumped at you...no thanks!
I think there are HUGE problems with what they do though--and the
Thais--which is a lack of lateral movement.
Elias, yes I have "A Fighters Heart" at home, read it all, good stuff.
Sam, interesting about the lethwei elbows. I think combining good lateral movement and muay thai is tough, and I haven't seen many guys do it. Michael McDonald in K1 seems to move like a boxer in a kickboxing environment. A lack of lateral movement for MMA isn't terrible if your clinch is very good as it is fairly easy to get a clinch in mma. I think the way Anderson Silva has his striking down is one of the best examples of movement and all round striking ability for MMA. Sam I actually sent you an email through the inside fighting editor email.
C