BruceP wrote:It is a difficult topic because of the vagaries of body types and the mental/mind component that drives/shapes the individual's physicality and body usage.
Agreed.
Most of what you outlined is something my boxing coaches stressed with all beginners. Even diaphragmatic recruitment and level hips was a part of what they taught, and I'm assuming all good boxing has the same foci.
I am sure they do. I have a great respect for higher level western boxing. Dempsey's Championship Boxing is very much a Xingyi handbook. And when I look at top boxers as Tyson and Ali, I see similar things to what we strive towards. Completely relaxed, effortless power. They don't have any problem breathing when they strike either. The main difference is that they build up "functional muscle mass" in shoulders and back. Boxers don't really strive to be able to "use more strength", but to build up mass.
So the body development is different. They can let their body mass fall together with and behind their punch.
But if you don't build up this kind of body, you need to use your whole body more "full". So it's here IMA whole body coordination have a practical function generating strength. IMA is a bit different when it come to store and release power. Boxers fall into the punch and twist with the hips. We try to store and release power from the whole body.
Also, telling someone to breath and relax is not really enough to teach someone. By fighting many rounds, pro boxers learn that they need to relax their breath to be able to keep going. But if you don't learn from that experience, it can be hard to really understand that relaxing and sinking the breath is important. IMHO, the internal arts have a very good advantage by the fact they are designed to teach the practitioner that relaxation is a skill.
And of course there is the mind aspect. I don't know how much emphasis boxing coaches put on keeping a blank, empty mind-state is really important if you want to be able to react fast and spontaneously. This also needs practice and can be quite hard to understand. If you don't experience it from some kind of meditation, how can you even get to know this mind-state? This is one reason why the Samurai meditated, to get to understand the mind-state they needed to survive real battles. So if there is one thing lacking in boxing... Nuff' said.
But then again, if IMA practitioners don’t spar or have no combat practice, they won't understand what aspects of their practice is valid in actual fighting and how. If they do, their training will have another, more practical focus.
Might have strayed a little off topic, but it's also directly related to how a class is structured when the focus is martial method.
I think it's pretty much on topic. I myself when I teach, I put a lot of emphasis on partner exercises and on punching right from the beginning. Some people might think this sounds shallow, or think that it endangers the deeper and meditative aspects of the practice. But I believe that you can go even deeper, and deeper faster, if you put your relaxation, balance and sensitivity into different tests. By testing yourself and by different reality checks you will understand your own limits better and know better what you need to work on. People rather just want to stay in a comfort zone and don't want to be taught about how much they suck, and they don't want to be reminded about it. But still — whatever you want to achieve in life, you need to be brutally honest with yourself and have a very clear idea about your own strengths and weaknesses.