Afternoon all. Despite being once again full of germs (which isn’t too great as I’m meant to be fighting next Sunday) I’ve decided to sit down and whip this blog of mine into shape. I just took the time to take a brief look at statistics and it’s always nice to see people still visiting, checking in and reading what I have to say. I’ll do my best to get it back to appearing once a week again from here on in. Procrastination is still an adversary.

So moaning aside, I thought this week I’d talk about something I meant to write about a couple of weeks back but for one reason or another never did, which is, of course, fighting in what some call the pocket. If your a short arse like myself you’ll understand what I mean and most importantly you’ll totally understand the damage we can do when we get closer than close.

Next Sunday I’m going to be fighting with elbows again (albeit with pads on) and of course, when it comes to fighting with elbows as well as knees, I need to think in terms of being up close and personal. It wasn’t until earlier on this afternoon that the first lot of pre-fight nerves decided to pay me a visit which is good because being honest I’d be wondering when they would stop by, luckily I know how to deal with them and instead of letting them get on top of me I let them flow into intention. Which is always a good thing.

I’ve found in sparring recently that I’ve started to come forward a lot more again and next week what I don’t intend to happen is to spend the majority of the fight on the back foot. It’s safe to say that although I can hang back a little at points when I need to I walk into the person in front of me. Which is what really, Muay Thai is about!

Of course, there’s a lot more to fighting than walking into your opponent but you know every little can help, and an aggressive fighter is often an intimidating one. I think I needed to switch on more in my last fight but I’ve put a lot of that down to ring rust so hope this time around things will be different.

Fighting close or “in the pocket” short distance and in range for all my attacks is something that takes time to get right but it’s getting there. I’ve noticed I’m throwing body kicks a lot more and although not always technically perfect, they usually aren’t bad and it feels good when I land them. Low kicks, of course, have always been a favourite of mine and I can rely on them for stopping power when I need to.

It’s a given that short fighters always have to close distance quickly but there are varying ways to do that I won’t go into too much depth about here. A lot of it can come with developing a degree of ring craft and understanding how to close your opponent down and keep them under pressure. One of the tougher parts of Thai is keeping your attacks constant if like me you do your best to pressure fight.

Taking a note out of the mighty Ronnie “machine gun” Green’s book I’m currently thinking in terms of “upstairs-downstairs” or high and then low attacks. One of my stumbling blocks is that I rely on the basics a  little too much and should really keep my attacks perhaps a little more varied. If it works then it works but it’s important to not be predictable.

Before I start giving myself a hard time it’s fair to say that I’m looking forward to fighting again next week and I want to finish this year on a good note. The week ahead is going to be a monster push to make up for a just about OK week of training but I’m confident I can do it and instead of just going to fight next week I think I’m going to win. See what I did back there?  here’s to the road ahead. And as always, I’ll see you on it soon.