Welcome to Kickboxing!

The other day I was invited to a friend’s kickboxing class. Thought, what the heck! I’ll give it a shot. He’s been doing it for about a year now and the class is a beginner’s class.

Format was pretty simple – Following 5 minutes of shadow boxing warm up, we had 1 hour of high intensity session of hitting the pads.

It was a great workout. And that was about it. A bit of background on me – I’ve done karate throughout my high school years and then dabbled in other Chinese martial arts until I found the current Wing Tsun school I’m at. For fun and fitness, I joined a boxing gym about 2 years ago and was with them for about a year.

My thoughts on the kickboxing class.

It was just OK. In particular, I was watching the caliber of the majority of students - which was not particularly impressive. When they punch, they just hit at the target – sometimes they punch themselves off balance, hands swinging everywhere, elbows high, unrooted, sloppy form, fatigued etc.

When I punch my combos, my partner couldn’t keep the pads up. When I kicked, he moved. I felt solid, I felt rooted. Combos included jab, cross, short hooks, long hooks, upper cuts and the left/right front kicks.

I think my partners were surprised at the speed, comfort and power of my hits..as I was the obvious newbie (no uniform) there.

Of course, I’m not here to bash kickboxing. I have great respect for the martial art and kick boxing produces fighters with absolutely powerful punches, kicks, stamina, etc.

My point here is that the majority of people that train, train casually and are ‘mediocre’ just like the rest of us in wing chun that train casually. It’s really not about the style that is better, but how much we train, how hard we train, how we train, our instruction, etc.

I feel we are very fortunate to have the detailed training that we do, that we focus on rootedness and structure, that we take the time to figure out form, technique and then add power, speed, reaction and creativity.

I don’t feel that, in this particular class, that the teachers emphasized this at all. It was just about leading drills and letting the students hit the pads. Yes, it could have been just this class, just this one time. I can also see how students may think they’re really good at kickboxing as they get to just hit the pads all the time.

But my point here is that students in other styles, in particular that train casually for fun, are not the lethal weapon that we may believe them to be just because of the style they train.

It’s not Muay Thai vs. Wing Chun. The assumption is that Muay Thai will win. But that’s not true. It’s him vs. you. Like you, he’s just an average joe, not a champion Thai boxer…

Would I go back? Nope. My heart’s in Wing Tsun.

Until then.