If even one applies to you, you can make dramatic improvements in your ability by focusing on it. If you are a coach, you can identify them with your students and help improve them!
I tried to write the top 5, then the top 10 and thought, bugger it. Just write all of them I can think of. Of course they are only the ones I notice. There are bound to be others, that other people think are more important. Fine, write your own article about it. These are not specific to a person, like – ‘point your knee more. they are general and common in a lot of people. So if you want to improve, have a read. I have coached thousands of people and see hundreds of people from other gyms do them as well. Even the best fighters do some of them. We can all learn when we look at ourselves and at least do a review to audit ourselves. Of course, some of you will be perfect and not have any faults, you will only see the mistakes in others. If that is you, change your number one mistake to EGO. Enjoy the read and I hope you learn one thing that makes you better.
- Not doing enough ‘meat and potatoes’ work in training.
Fundamentals are key. The longer you spend on doing the basics, the higher the level of achievement you will reach. Basics are what you do when you first start and what will win you a world title when master them. Basics should be done every class, and you should focus on them until you own them and can apply them. Basics are what will work under pressure and what you need to work in a fight. Basics are the foundation of everything you can do and will be capable of doing. Never neglect them, love them and do them so much you own them subconsciously.
What are the basics? They are the foundation of everything you learn, do and can apply. This can vary per club, and what a trainer believes you need as your core techniques, but essentially, they are your fighting position (guard), jab, straight (cross), outside leg kick, push kick (teep), rib kicks on both sides, driving knees and crossing elbows. Defence basics are fighting guard, checking, catching, bracing and shutting your mouth when you train.
2. Not taking ‘keep your guard up’ seriously enough.
Good, experienced fighters have a good solid guard and take head protection seriously. This is because they have learnt by experience the consequences of being flippant about head protection. Beginners often don’t take this seriously enough because they haven’t been belted yet. They get lazy bringing their hands back to their face and keeping their guard up when they are tired. If you ever want to do sparring or one day compete, take it serious NOW or learn the hard way later. Always bring your hands back to your face, plaster them on your head when you are tired and leave the learning to slip and move like Mayweather until you have had 100 fights, or never.
3. Not bringing your front hand back to face off the lead punch (jab).
More people get knocked out throwing a lazy jab than any other punch. Most people’s power hand is their right, and it is easy to bowl some over following their jab back with an over-the-top bomb or head kick on the break. Drill this basic in the mirror before the looping front jab makes you loopy from concussion.
4. Not keeping your chin down when you punch.
Getting hit in the chin hurts and sticking it up increases the chances you will get KO’d, and your neck will rotate fast, spinning your brain and seeing you hit the canvas faster than you can say knockout. A good posture is for ballet and modelling not for punching hard. Protecting your head, face and brain requires solid head position with the assistance of shoulder lifting into punches to add to chin protection. The top of your head is far harder than your face, so use it to catch punches in preference to your skinny nose.
5. Not training basic footwork and balance enough.
Basics start with your footwork and balance. Every forward motion requires equal retraction, and your footwork is the key to having a strong position. It is like your home base you need to return to every time. Balance is being able to stand on one leg, have your legs strong enough to not get pushed over easily and being able to turn off and move forward and backwards as dynamically as a fight requires. Footwork is a basic skill that requires deliberate practice without strikes and something you should always train in isolation, before adding strikes.
6. Letting your back foot drift/slide forward when punching hard.
When you want to punch hard, your rear leg often drifts forward and you fall into the punch, or your opponent’s punch, which is worse. Always do rear hand hard punches with conscious effort on the bag or pads to keep a solid base on your rear leg. Push down on it as you pivot the power through your hips to keep it solid.
7. Over swinging your arm on kicks and over or under twisting your torso.
Kicking hard is fantastic and putting your whole body into the rotation can create more power, but you must keep balance and balance means being able to bring your hands back up to your face before your opponent’s hands hit your face. When you twist your torso for power your opposite shoulder should be above your base leg NOT forward or you have got your torsion rotation all wrong. Pull your rear shoulder (the shoulder opposite the kicking leg) back on all kicks to avoid this.
8. Not punching straight and lifting the elbows wide when throwing punches.
To hit someone in the head, the fastest way from A to B is in a straight line. When someone covers their face, you need to punch straight. Elbow flare might feel stronger, but it telegraphs the punch and makes the chances of the punch fitting through the defensive guard smaller. If you are punching around a guard your elbows may need to lift but this is not a straight punch.
9. Being too stiff when striking because you are trying too hard. Not being loose and relaxed enough thinking that you need to flex to be aggressive and powerful. Force = mass X acceleration. Whether you hold your muscles tight from tension or on purpose, you will lose acceleration. Flexing doesn’t make your mass increase. You need to brace for impact and defenses but being tense while striking will reduce your power and tire you out fast.
10. Not getting your range right for striking. When you punch or kick from two far away because you fear getting hit or have only ever hit a bag for drills and have no idea of why pad work and partner work are so important to develop range. Not practicing ‘in the pocket’ (where you can get hit and you can hit them) enough to be comfortable striking in range of your opponent. The first step in a strike needs to be executed on the edge of range to move in, and if you are missing you are too far away, because people move when they are going to get hit!
A little known but critical factor in people that develop a poor range is when they do pad work with people who always catch the pads forward of the target area and don’t train the student to hit the target. This trains people to hit short when they face a real person hitting back. People who develop all their skills and combinations this way also do not have enough ‘live’ training and as a result, have poor range with a real person.
11. Moving back in a straight line when defending.
Defence can be like facing a moving train, move out of the way or get run over. Learn to move off, change angles and defend forward. Standing your ground is critical to winning a fight. If you go back in a straight line you are helping the attacker beat you up. A kicker needs room and someone with momentum will get a roll on and crush you.
12. Using the turtle defence to cover up.
In Muay Thai this is the time to elbow someone hard. It may work for boxing to cover up and absorb and tire someone out and you certainly need to cover up when someone barrages you with strikes but if you rely on a turtle defence to survive you will come unstuck as you take on better people who will pick you apart if you turtle up for very long.
13. Not training like you want to fight and not fighting like you train.
What you do when you train should be what you practice when you spar. When you fight and there is pressure, performance anxiety and thousands watching you, it is your training that needs to come out. You must practice what you do in training in sparring, then fighting. Do not watch fights and have some imagined thing you want to do in fighting that you don’t train. You don’t learn new behaviors under pressure. You must think about what you want to do and decide what to do. When you are anxious you don’t listen well, and your brain isn’t always your best friend. You have the best chance of success if you do what you do in training and train what you do in fights.
For example: if you always go forward in sparring don’t try and counter fight in a fight. If you do well going first, don’t think you will fight better waiting. If you punch well, punch in your fight. Fight at the work rate and tempo you are used to and not something above or below what you train.
14. Not sparring at varied intensities and with varied skill levels to improve.
You need to train with people better than you, your same level and people less experienced. For everything from basics to sparring. Use the 1/3 rule. You need to develop confidence to improve and back yourself in a fight, develop others and challenge yourself and not get stuck in one comfort zone. You don’t do this beating up less experienced people and you don’t do it, getting beaten up all the time. If you have limited options at your gym or because of your weight or age, you have to role play, challenge yourself (to defend only, to be left-handed, wear a jumper or bigger gloves or be fatigued) and train others up to be better partners.
15. Not clinching enough in sparring/fight conditions.
The standard Muay Thai thing is to clinch at the end of class or after sparring. This is the grind you must endure to learn and improve sparring. However, if you want to clinch better in a fight, you must be able to apply your clinching in sparring and not under separate conditions. You also learn better fresh, so teaching clinching should also be done before you are exhausted.
16. Not doing enough sport-specific conditioning training that is directly translatable to your Muay Thai to improve your training ability.
When you first start Muay Thai, it is the Muay Thai that is getting you fitter. Throughout your journey always stay as sport specific as possible. You do not get better kicking if you do 1000 shit kicks. You may get fitter, but your technique will get worse. I advise people to ask themselves ‘is this training contributing to my Muay Thai’? Because if it isn’t, why are you doing it. Always plan your training around the time you have and your priorities. If you have 6 hours a week to train and you do 3 hours Muay Thai, 3 hours weight training. You may look more ripped, but someone with 6 hours Muay Thai is likely to kick your arse. If you are tired at training, eat better and do cardio training as an extra to training, before or after. All other aspects like strength and power will come as you get better at Muay Thai first, then add them, with professional guidance, when you get to an intermediate level. No amount of weight training, cross fit or swimming will get you from a beginner to a fighter without the Muay Thai base.
17. Not doing enough defensive training with real strikes to be able to spar or fight because you only do bag and pad training for fitness.
I put this in because I see a lot of people who only do Muay Thai for fitness but like telling their friends they do Muay Thai. You are not doing Muay Thai unless you are at least sparring and learning the offensive AND defensive aspects. If you are only hitting a bag or pads with no one ever hitting you back you will develop awful Muay Thai technique. Your coach will still compliment you because they need your fees to pay the rent. You may even have been conned to look like you do Muay Thai and have a Thai tattoo but if you don’t know the defenses you are not doing Muay Thai. You can tell just by watching people who train like this, and the sad thing is, if that person then wants to spar, they have a delusion of their skill and get shattered quickly. This is their coach’s fault! Like Tae Kwon Do people who think they can fight but have never been punched in the head. No, not quite as bad, but the bullshit is growing as Muay Thai grows and there are plenty of McDojos creeping in.
18. Training flashy low percentage techniques too often in your first 5 years of training.
Owning your basics time far longer than you think – you need them to be subconscious, like walking. . Do what works most of the time against most people. Have some fun & flashy things but never lose track of the time you spend on them vs. the basics. One great spin back kick will make the highlight real, but it is the jab and leg kick that will make you great and improve your ability faster.
19. Eat Better.
I don’t give diet advice when people start training. I find that diet corrects itself when people want to be fitter and they start training more. You have KFC on the way to training – once. Then you get smarter as you can feel what you eat is fuel for your training. Train more and you will eat better. It is hard to train after eating badly. You don’t recover well if you eat badly. I will also throw in my pet hate – energy drinks are very bad for you! They do not help you get fit and stay fit and worst of all, they are incredibly unhealthy. When you start to train every day and want better fuel for your training, seek professional nutrition advice, not advice from the internet.
Thank you for reading. I hope at least one of the top 19 things resonated with you and helps improve your Muay Thai. I am already thinking of more! If you’re a coach, I hope it improves your coaching knowledge. Of course, there are more common mistakes, and every student will have their own challenges. All we can do is give everything we know, and it is then up to people to do what they will with the knowledge.
