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Sylvie's Technique Vlog - Barefist Training vs Training with Bag Gloves (Patreon)

Published:

2021-02-21 13:26:51

Edited:

2021-02-21 15:20:25

Imported:

2021-08

Content

My vlogs are just me talking about my experiences with techniques over the years.

About 6 years ago I broke my hand in a fight. As I was recovering from that, training around it, I started in earnest with "barefist" training, which I learned from Sifu McInnes (Robert "Sifu" McInnes is in the Muay Thai Library here). The short version of why that was a method I chose while my broken hand (the fight I broke it in: Part 1, Part 2) was recovering is that barefist training forces you to learn how to feel all the tiny angles and imperfections on your punches. All of them. There are also theories about it strengthening your muscles and tiny bones in the hand, calcifying, all kinds of stuff I don't have a science or medical degree to really push forward. But I am an expert in my personal experience of how honest it makes you in your strikes. You can feel every single strike in a way that the padding of a glove simply doesn't allow. A glove just lets you fudge it, landing off angle or wonk without much pain or awareness. Barefist training makes you honest and it hones your ability to feel, self-assess, and self-correct.

After many years of this, I learned how to feel my punches. I feel all the details. Having learned how to do that, I also acknowledged that this method has a trade-off (for me) in that it made me punch less than full power on the bag, to not really dig in so much. This isn't necessarily the case for all folks, and maybe especially not for those who are in disciplines that actually instruct barefisted; but I was doing this on my own for years in the gym and after gaining the benefit of learning to feel, assess, and self-correct, I recently decided to start wearing gloves on the bag in order to encourage more power. I still didn't go back to regular padded gloves, I use "bag gloves," which are basically padded leather oven mitts. I like the Boon bag gloves (the are not a sponsor, it's just equipment I like). It keeps me from scraping the skin off my knuckles and offers just enough protection that I can hit with full power. It's not that you CAN'T hit full power with bare fists. If I decided to I really could rip the bag, but its more than over time I had developed a lighter hitting style focused on timing and feel, even after my skin toughened. I wanted to shift my focus.

I totally believe that this progression was the right one and greatly informative for me and my punching. I wouldn't skip steps now that I know where I ultimately landed, going from gloves to bag gloves because that's where I ended up; I think the full barefist training stretch was necessary to really teach me how to feel those details.

But, very importantly, I'm definitely not saying that you have to train barefisted for years first before using bag gloves. This was just my journey. Make it your journey. Maybe try out barefist training for yourself, or buy some bag gloves and see how they feel when compared to full gloves.

A note on scrapped knuckles early on: It's a process. Start light. I think I may have begun with hand wraps, then put tape on my knuckles at times. Eventually the skin toughened. Vaseline at night helped too. But, skinned knuckles can sometimes means you aren't making solid contact. Also some bags may have harsher covers than others.

In this Sylvie's Technique Vlog I cover both barefist training and my transitioning to bag gloves, explaining why along the way. Hope this gives you some insight and ideas, play with some of them and see what you like and learn.

More on Bare Fist Bagwork

As I incorporated Bare Fist training into my bagwork, I also was doing ball-balancing work also taught by Sifu McInnes, you can read the article here: Bare Fist Training and Fight Balance – Robert “Sifu” McInnes WKO