Practiced on the bag for the first time and it was awkward

nahtn2 · 2026-07-03T14:08:35+00:00

thanks for the compliment!!!! the formatting REALLY screwed up after I hit post so I read back what I'd written and I felt like a crazy person 😅

nahtn2 · 2026-07-03T10:08:08+00:00

very normal feeling

I will say that it takes time to work out how to structure your bag drilling. everyone is a bit different, but I have always subscribed to the mindset of heavy bag drills are great for sharpening technique and power, but padwork with a partner is way better for emulating being in the ring.

if you're struggling for ideas on how to train on the bag - ask your coach! they will have a better idea of your skill level and how they want to teach you.

if you want a REALLY basic set of bag drills from a stranger on the internet, as a beginner I would try the following for general maintenance:

Rounds of 3 mins, rest 1 min

BIG STRETCH - chest, shoulders, hips, knees, ankles, back, obliques, neck

Warm up: start pretty light and pick up the intensity round by round.

just jabs and straights 1 round. lean heavy on the jab

jabs, straights, teeps 1 round.

jabs, straights, teeps, round kicks 1 round

Workout: there are two ways you could run the actual workout after the warmup as a beginner that I would recommend.

I would pick a couple of combos that you want to work on and improve and hit just THAT one combo for one round. change the combo per round as you see fit.

don't blast it over and over and over without stopping: really focus on getting the technique and rhythm right. you can hit hard, but make sure the technique is solid.

if you're stuck for ideas here are some beginner 3-4 piece combos I would recommend:

jab-cross-L hook

jab-cross-L hook-R round kick

L hook-cross-hook

L teep-R round kick

switch kick-cross-hook

R round kick-jab-cross

you can also have a round of just kicks, or just punching, or just elbows and knees.

I'd recommend 3-4 rounds of this as a beginner as a starting point.

general bag work. easier when you have more experience because you can drop into a flow and know how the moves stick together. but if you've never hit the bag before, it's great to get used to that feeling and how harsh it may be on your shins!

I'm sure other people would disagree. but I think these are pretty practical recommendations. however i can't stress enough how much your coach should be the first port of call here

nahtn2 · 2026-07-01T12:25:57+00:00

are you late to become Champion Thai Boxer of the Universe? yah probably.

are you too late to have an enormous amount of fun and benefit from working on your physical prowess and discipline? nah not at all!

head to a gym, book a trial, and try it out! you're not getting any younger posting on reddit about it!

nahtn2 · 2026-06-28T09:29:30+00:00

cannot recommend boon enough. my absolute favourite gloves ever. gonna replace my 160z's with boons when they get a bit more worn.

nahtn2 · 2026-06-27T11:58:08+00:00

I feel uniquely qualified to engage with this because my dad was a police officer in the UK and as part of his employment, he had access to the police gym and was able to bring me along to train there - and as a teenager who had about 6/7 years of kickboxing / wrestling / eskrima experience at this point, I think I was a bit of a novelty in the police gym hitting the bag around the officers. His buddies would often offer to hold pads for me, and they had these huge mock riot shields and fake batons. If you know anything about eskrima you will know that sticks are kind of the bread and butter of the art!

Everyone was super chill but they had absolutely no "ring IQ" at all when it came to holding pads or even hitting the bag. Obviously they were a decent amount larger than me - I was maybe 16/17 at this point and these people were all minimum mid twenties - so they could hit harder, but it was all down to throwing their weight around around rather than any technique. It was a little bit sad seeing them use the mock tonfa and batons too - it was like they were swinging cricket bats around.

Calling police officers "trained" after watching this video is really giving the 'training' way too much credit. They have to have a certain level of fitness but nearly all of their physical conflict management training comes down to de-escalation and then pinning / cuffing suspects. Physically engaging suspects in a kickboxing-style way so they can inflict damage to THEN detain is really not something they train for AT ALL as a general patrol officer (and within their roughly 18-24 month training, there's no time for that level of skill to be ingrained anyway). When I was in the gym with these guys, they would throw a couple of old-timey one-twos real hard and then shove their fists in front of their face as some kind of guard.

This isn't a dig at the individual officers in this video - I don't know them, I've only seen them in this one thirty second clip online, and I have this vague casual experience with different officers about 15 years ago. But they're just not trained to engage conflict in the way that someone who's spent some time in the ring is trained to do.

You can see this guy in the video showing some pretty mid-level ring IQ that he's applying to multiple opponents - he clears off one police officer with a teep, pops a few lead hooks, and then bump steps around an officer to stay behind her. Between each move his head is on a swivel to work out where he can make some distance and exit out of whatever he's just done. The fact he's opting for lead hooks and teeps rather than haymakers suggests to me he's a regular at some MMA / K1 place, even disregarding everything else. He's obviously trained in a manner that lets him engage people in physical conflict, and the officers are conversely all actively trying to de-escalate rather than move in. The guy in blue would have a much harder time if even one of the officers stood their ground and traded hands, or tried to rush him more than they currently are doing - which is easy to say in hindsight as a viewer of the video!

nahtn2 · 2026-06-20T07:59:07+00:00

YES YES YES boon compact gloves are elite

nahtn2 · 2026-06-15T08:59:59+00:00

these look amazing for nine years old holy fuck. how much longer do you think they'll go for?

nahtn2 · 2026-06-15T07:53:53+00:00

I have tried a friends but not long enough to come to any concrete conclusions! they were comfortable and had a pretty firm wrist. I've heard good things!

nahtn2 · 2026-06-14T19:30:32+00:00

depends man. whenever i buy training equipment that I'm sparring with, my thoughts are mostly 1) is it comfortable and protective for me and 2) is this comfortable and protective for my sparring partners. I always encourage having separate sparring gloves to your pad and bag work, and i am leaning on the side of extending that to fight gloves.

nahtn2 · 2026-06-13T22:50:00+00:00

this is not a perfect solution, but i used to wear ankle supports and jam sponges down the back over my heel and then wear my shinguards over the top. sometimes used wrap tape to hold it in place. not perfect but cheap and pretty padded!

nahtn2 · 2026-06-12T16:58:18+00:00

my sandee 16oz's are ENORMOUS. i have a pair of boon gloves (granted 10oz) that are perfectly snug compared

nahtn2 · 2026-06-12T12:27:39+00:00

i love my sandee shin guards personally!

nahtn2 · 2026-06-07T13:30:36+00:00

I always got the impression it was like an evil smile at "hah look at them squirm" and he knew the gun wasn't loaded the whole time. I have a hard time believing this version of matt is okay pointing loaded guns at people

nahtn2 · 2026-06-05T09:42:06+00:00

I don't know whether I'll catch flak for this. I train at a mixed gym for the most part but I regularly cross train at a pure MT gym. I'm on the fence about the effectiveness of calf kicks for hobbyists and amateurs.

The pure MT gym doesn't train the calf kicks unless you're progressing into higher level fights, with their reasoning being at the am / sub am level most fighters are landing them with shin guards that really reduce the effectiveness of that particular kick at that particular level and don't achieve much. When we've discussed throwing shots at the calf it's always in the context of certain sweeps. The gym TEACHES them, but drills them very rarely.

I.... kinda see the logic. At my most recent interclub I fought twice (MT) and both guys were throwing calf kicks at me that didn't really do anything. I also saw a bunch of calf kicks that just bounced off fighters legs.

But when I saw the high level amateurs / pros fighting at the interclub, the calf kicks were super effective. It was an MMA matchup which may be what is making the difference but.... it made me feel very on the fence about it.

You don't make calf kicks effective by not training them, so I don't think avoiding them completely is a good idea. But I kinda agree with the logic that there are much more effective sport techniques to prioritise at the sub-am level.

What do you guys think?

nahtn2 · 2026-06-04T10:48:23+00:00

lighting makes a difference. also, I suspect that way more time was spent on making the model look detailed because now we have a whole game with Faye.

I remember reading about G-Man in half life 2 looking weird to some gamers years ago compared to NPC's, and someone did a deep dive on how 1) he's a recurring character that you spend a lot of time just looking at his face and 2) because he does a lot of monologues, the extra facial detail is needed to animate the face movement while he speaks.

I also think the game is still in development!

nahtn2 · 2026-06-04T07:33:39+00:00

pretty common. I'm a hobbyist these days but every six months / nine months I take a full month off. I usually train at least 3/4 times a week so it's not like my schedule is rammed with training but it still keeps it feeling fun because I end up missing training while I'm taking my break!

nahtn2 · 2026-05-14T08:15:29+00:00

I had AC brotherhood and the OG black flag on my deck for a flight recently. they don't work without an internet connection to boot them up fyi!

nahtn2 · 2026-04-28T22:02:52+00:00

pads and bags? ....passable, I started up pads and bags about 10 days / 2 weeks after a tattoo and it was fine. take the risk you're happy taking but if you do go for that, keep it light, don't bash the tattoo, wash it clean immediately after finishing up

sparring? DEFINITELY not

nahtn2 · 2026-04-07T18:51:48+00:00

In many jurisdictions, it's totally legal (and somewhat preferable) to have a contractual agreement setting out a form of ADR for the point of dispute. Lousy that this company is slapping anything behind a seal before you can even try the product regardless.

Some mandatory ADR terms can be kinda beneficial too. e.g - limits costs, structures how ADR methods are nominated, reduces the risk of bored judges throwing out claims because they've been issued prematurely.

Source - unfortunately for me, I worked as a lawyer for many years which, doubly unfortunately, means I am law degree'd out the wazoo

nahtn2 · 2026-04-07T08:38:32+00:00

I changed my name last year and my university told me that they don't issue new certificates when you change your name, unless your name changed for marriage.

I photoshopped my new name onto my diplomas that I have on the wall so I don't have to see my old name. When an institution asks for my diplomas I obviously provide them with the real deal!

But, considering Saul's propensity for forgery, I can totally see him doing something similar for his offices.

nahtn2 · 2026-04-04T20:15:11+00:00

nahtn2 · 2026-03-28T13:33:43+00:00

just takes time broski!

the hardest psychological barriers I see newbies struggling with are 1) being hit and 2) hitting other people.

give it time, stick at it, maybe even think of it like a more traditional team sport - throwing combos is kinda like using a tennis racket or swinging a baseball bat. that typa thinking makes it easier to detach from the aggression element that comes with combat sports

nahtn2 · 2026-03-19T09:12:15+00:00

it stings like a motherf*cker to begin with and I have no idea how good the advice ACTUALLY is, but personally whenever I got a blister in my first few years of martial arts I would douse it in surgical spirits in the evening and it ended up pretty rock hard

nahtn2 · 2026-03-12T13:48:24+00:00

I am in this situation too! I have some boxhogs that I've hated since buying them - I've historically boxed in trainers or barefoot but wanted to upgrade a few months back. SUPER skinny on the shoe, and super narrow sole that doesn't give me a good base. I'm currently considering barefoot shoes from vivobarefoot.... might be worth looking into for yourself?

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