Casting questions

[Garth Sch]

Hi Tribe,

I was playing with casting wondering a couple of things.

1. Is casting supposed to replace the boxing jab?

2. My understanding of casting is to float the shoulder, elbow, wrist in a wave. Does the shoulder sink back down before impact? I've found that the whip doesn't feel good on my shoulder if I don't "close pack" before the end of the cast.

Thx,
Garth

BTW I really like the ChiGung like castings in IntuFlow, they feel quite nice to play with whilst I'm still recovering from my disk compression injury.

[Coach Jones]

Garth,

Casting doesn't replace a boxing jab. A jab in boxing as with any punch, should change position depending on distance to the target. A cast will enable you to gain distance. If you are firing a jab without "casting" you're muscling it. The apparant differance in these two punches comes from people incorrectly identifying Fisticuffs as a "system" of fighting. Fisticuffs is an absolutely amazing and transformative selection of drills and concepts that will push your striking to the next level.

"Stimulate don't simulate"

When you begin with range of motion, refine and coordinate your movement through Prime Your BioEnergy, over time the large casting motions can be made tighter. You can't force them to be tighter it only comes efficiently through daily personal practice.

Once you get there, the casting aspect and benefits remain but the movement itself can be made tighter.

The shoulder "floats" when you're developing this movement through greater articulation, it is "propelled" and the entire body recruited after, and only after you've developed your range of motion.

Makew sense?

It's a very difficult thing to try and describe in it's entirety with the printed word. Get to a Flowfighting seminar, and you'll see. :wink:

[HereBeADragon]

its funny but I really didnt get fisticuffs until I started working with intu-flow. Now I've seen hugh improvements in my striking.

[Coach Jones]

Not funny at all really. Everybody wants to run down and grab the product that sounds more like fighting. Even though Coach Sonnon and the entire staff and those who have spent substantial time with the material, time after time recommend starting with Intu-Flow.

The fastest most efficient route is to start there.

[Robert V]

Coach Jones you are really in the zone lately!

Great explanation.

Keep it up!

[Coach Jones]

Thanks, Robert.

Wait until FLOWBOX hits...you're going to love it!

[HereBeADragon]

dont suppose we could get a teaser? I loved Going Ballistic! Really looking forward to this one.

[Coach Hurst]

I agree with Robert!

You are really 'flowin' lately, Coach! :wink:

Brian, I can relate. I bought Fisticuffs over a year ago and now having spent so much time with WW and PYB I went back to Fisticuffs and it was like, WOW! I can see it now!

Now it's just a matter of going deeper and working on the drills from Fisticuffs.

So much to do before IOTA!!!!

[Adam Steer]

Hi Everyone,

Just wondering if I can ask a question about Fisticuffs vs. Softwork. Does softwork cover the material of Fisticuffs at all, or should one go back and purchase things like Fisticuffs and Leg Fencing even though they have Softwork.

Thanks for any insight.

Cheers,
Adam

[Scott Sonnon]

Think of it this way...

Softwork is to Fisticuffs what method is to mode.

Fisticuffs covers the application of the Work Continuum (Softwork to Hardwork) in the specific mode of bare-knuckle fighting. Fisticuffs is more of an intensive.

Softwork covers the method of improving efficiency in integrating all modes (Fisticuffs, Leg Fencing, PAE, IOUF, AK, Prasara Body-Flow, Intu-Flow, etc.), but not to any systematic depth of each one. It's more of an overview.

[Garth Sch]

Thanks Coach Jones,

So.... is the idea to practice your jab (if jabbing is what you like to do) and to practice your casting, and at some point your casting practice will transform into a striking vehicle?

You'll still have your jab, but your proficiency at throwing casts improves up to the point where it out-performes your "muscling" jab.

Is this the idea?

Thanks for your very lucid explanation,
Garth

[Chuck Kechter]

Garth wrote:
You'll still have your jab, but your proficiency at throwing casts improves up to the point where it out-performes your "muscling" jab.

Is this the idea?

Coach Jones Wrote:

Casting doesn't replace a boxing jab. A jab in boxing as with any punch, should change position depending on distance to the target. A cast will enable you to gain distance. If you are firing a jab without "casting" you're muscling it. The apparant differance in these two punches comes from people incorrectly identifying Fisticuffs as a "system" of fighting. Fisticuffs is an absolutely amazing and transformative selection of drills and concepts that will push your striking to the next level.

"Stimulate don't simulate"

When you begin with range of motion, refine and coordinate your movement through Prime Your Bioenergy™, over time the large casting motions can be made tighter.

Garth,

Coach Jones answered your question with the above...

But think about it like this, as you get better at casting -- more efficient -- your cast will compress, in both space (how "big" the movements are) and time (how "long" it takes you to throw the cast)... Thus the cast and the jab are THE SAME THING... Does that make sense?

One thing to think about... Everyone casts -- you can't help it. Try throwing a punch without moving your shoulder --elbow -- wrist (and fingers)... It can't really be done... What you'll get it some "fish flop" at the end of a wrist, or limp limbed "pimp slap" from the elbow... But a "true punch" comes from from the ground up--and waves up through the legs into the hips -- through the core -- and out through the shoulders and down the linkage...

What concentrating on casting does is make the movement more efficient. Which is what you're looking for.

[KD Jones]

...When you begin with range of motion, refine and coordinate your movement through Prime Your Bioenergy™...

Coach Jones - just to clarify (I don't yet own Prime Your Bioenergy, and yes, I've been told to get off my butt and get it, and yes I will soon) does the incormation/method apply to all kinds of movement, or are we talking only striking here?

And yes, you are reallly in the zone lately. To everyone's benefit.

[Coach Jones]

One thing to think about... Everyone casts -- you can't help it. Try throwing a punch without moving your shoulder --elbow -- wrist (and fingers)... It can't really be done... What you'll get it some "fish flop" at the end of a wrist, or limp limbed "pimp slap" from the elbow... But a "true punch" comes from from the ground up--and waves up through the legs into the hips -- through the core -- and out through the shoulders and down the linkage...

Garth,
Chuck is right on here, but he suffers from a kind of amnsesia. :lol:

Chuck,
The amnesia I refer to is common among those who have learned to do something correctly. We forget that there was a time when what we take for granted was new. While you are absolutely right in what you say, remember that people CAN and DO throw punches without moving the shoulder. In most cases, it's a trained attribute/skill. They are taught not to. It seems ridiculous, I know to people with boxing, kick-boxing, Muay Thai experience - but it happens a lot. The vast majority of MMA'ers are arm punchers. In fact there is a very popular video series (which will remain nameless, which is a bible of how to throw arm punches.)


...does the incormation/method apply to all kinds of movement, or are we talking only striking here?

Well, it depends how deeply you grok the material. It is focused specifically to striking, but any field of endevour where joint articulation would benefit (read as almost everything).

[Coach Al-mulla]

coach jones wrote


Stimulate don't simulate

this isue has been on my mind for a while. After looking at coach sonnon's article about internal power of the screw up + the explanation you gave me that a punch is a kinetic chain, i think i kind of get the idea of stimulation.

for example: would the fist variation of the screw-up be a good stimulation for a punch becouse of the simular kinetic chain(core activation>hip>shoulder>elbow>wrist>force from fist to ground) ?

so if you want to Stimulate a particular movement you have to use the same kinetic chain(with the same summation of forces)?

Any info on this subject would be helpful

[Scott Sonnon]

Mohammed,

Yes, exactly... unless someone mistook the exercise for say a "reverse punch" technique and practiced it for simulating the 'technique' under load.

[Chuck Kechter]

Chuck is right on here, but he suffers from a kind of amnsesia.

HAHA!!!

You know I was just thinking about this, this morning...:roll: :oops: :D


Chuck,
The amnesia I refer to is common among those who have learned to do something correctly. We forget that there was a time when what we take for granted was new. While you are absolutely right in what you say, remember that people CAN and DO throw punches without moving the shoulder. In most cases, it's a trained attribute/skill. They are taught not to. It seems ridiculous, I know to people with boxing, kick-boxing, Muay Thai experience - but it happens a lot. The vast majority of MMA'ers are arm punchers.

I agree! I know a lot of boxers that do this as well as MMA fighters...

They "throw" the elbow a fraction of a second ahead... Initiating the punch. Which in a lot (not all) of cases packs the shoulder...

There are boxers I grew up with that because of poor mechanics, now have "problem" joints along that tension chain... Particularly their elbows and shoulders.


Chuck is right on here, but he suffers from a kind of amnsesia.

It's funny, one of the things I try and have is a "beginners mind"... I love to learn new things, movements, et cetera... But I have a hard time with "beginner eyes" (or memory :lol:)...

Some time ago someone asked me if I could remember what it felt like to be a "beginner" at a particular movement... And truthfully I can't... I can sort of intellectualize it, but that is, and would be disingenuous...

Thanks for the catch!

[Coach Jones]

No problem, Chuck.

We all do this to one degree or another. I'm often guilty of it. I have to watch what I say and edit many posts to the forum because I realize that i'm answering a question from the wrong perspective, or complicating the issue by adding in information that is not warranted or even desired by the person asking.

[KD Jones]

The amnesia in question may be part of the problem of "mastery" (or almost mastery)...

The quote I usually refer to is Charlie Parker's "you learn the scales, in order to forget them." In fact, to the extent, that in a way you can't remember them? At least not in an experiential (rather than intellecualized) way?

And maybe it also goes to the body = subconsious mind question. In my case, I can't really remember sensations (I don't know if this is common for everyone). What I can remember is the circumstances in which the sensation occured, or what I was thinking, or how I felt about it, or some echo of the sensation.

So, would it be surprising that we can't remember what it was truly like to do what was natural to the body once upon a time, since such an action is more a sensation than a resultant mental imposition upon it?

But then, this line of thinking is kinda creeping me out, because it points to a certain ephemerality of the actual subconscious. Shutting up now.