Organized kickboxing ringfights. I hear Black Tiger on Miramar Rd. hosts smokers every Friday night. I’m willing to coordinate the fieldtrips, just looking for interest and blessings. Garddawg?
Before opening Brand X, Jeff and I used to go to the Black Tiger saturday stuff. It was very interesting and exciting.
PS I KNOW you meant after class on Fridays Lucky Dawg…
It is pretty cool. Usually people who have done this (at Black Tiger) or never fought before. Some fights are traditional Muay Thai which is a real experience to watch, and some are straight up kickboxing- kicking and punching, a few rounds at most. the biggest problem was weight class- If they didn’t have enough competitors the weight classes could get very broad- you know 140-210 lbs. Not so good for the little guy…
I am for smokers w/ reservations. One BBoJ mentioned, you might get there and end up fighting someone who is just bigger than you. In Boxing the weight divisions are about 5 #‘s apart. There is a reason for this. When you are wearing the same size gloves and protective gear 5-10 #‘s can be a lot. We saw one of our guys fight a guy who weighed 15 pounds more. It didn’t go well for our guy. Basically he tooled the guy over and over but every so often the heavier guy would get in a lucky shot. Besides a mismatch in weight you can have a mismatch in experience. This happened to me and I can tell you three minutes seems like a life time when someone is beating the crap out of you and you cannot get away. Also at Black Tiger we watched a guy litterally beg the ref to stop the fight. He was beating his opponent so badly that he started to feel bad about it. He had to hold his opponent up and he literally carried him back to his corner. The other thing I worry about is getting the competition bug. I have been around a lot of guys who fought, both amateur and professionally. In their twenties and early thities things are okay. But nobody really tells you what MOST of them are like later on. In there late thirties they start moving funny, they cannot control their legs anymore. They become forgetful and often their speech is slurred. This is not something that a few of them have, but most of the people we knew had some degree of it or another. This is not something I want to see happen to any of you. Now… what was I saying?
All that having been said I would support some of you in going to a few smokers and competing. I would recommend attending a few first to see waht it is like. (Never fight in an environment you are unfamiliar with if you can help it) I think the few times I did this it was a great experience and I learned a lot. If you are intersted in doing it I would recommend some changes in your training. No matter what people say the way we train is different than ringfighting. I would be willing to work a little more on Mondays in Kenpo with people wanting to do this, and maybe for a short time change Fridays to a more ringstyle type of sparring. Also, although it might hurt, if you are interested in doing this, ask me for an honest assesmant of how you would do in the ring. LD you are good to go.
das
Answer to your question
Taking three small boys started to seem… not like such a good idea.
Also after seeing the fight Jeff described where one fighter wanted to stop- he knew he was hurting his opponent- and they kept it going…then some incredibly bad weight pairings where one fighter is giving up 50 lbs…makes you lose interest when you know safety is not a top priority. This is not to say that things have not changed- it has probably been ten years since Jeff and I last saw a smoker at Black Tiger. I would be willing to cordinate an outing to check it out and see what it is like now.
I know what your assessment of how I would do is/would be…it probably agrees with my assessment pretty closely. For this reason I believe that I will relegate myself to spectating for quite a while…
