EVEREST

Levels Essentials 2 ESSENTIALS EVEREST EVEREST MINDFUL THAIBOXING CONTENTS

BLOCKS/ TIGHT COVERS Double pillar Cover left Cover right hook

DEFLECTIONS Side parry Side parry

EVADES Slip the jab Slip the cross

SPRINTS Alternative (skip) knees

ESSENTIALS EVEREST EVEREST MINDFUL THAIBOXING

The following are essentials for a reason, every self-respecting Muay Thai enthusiast should and will be very familiar when performing these movements. Without a correct understanding and good grasp of these Essentials, you may start well but eventually you will learn slower and later you could have problems with more complex techniques. ESSENTIALS EVEREST EVEREST MINDFUL THAIBOXING BLOCKS / TIGHT COVER

It’s fun to but sometimes you’re going to be under fire yourself. In the Quark Level 2 we will start to look at defence. Defence is important, generally there are three ways of doing this, moving your head or body out of the way of incoming strikes, deflecting the shots, or the attack.

Here we will look at some blocks, including the Double pillar and tight covers for the hooks, simple and reliable way to stop most punches. ESSENTIALS EVEREST EVEREST MINDFUL THAIBOXING Double pillar

how to: Normally when in a neutral guard our middle knuckles should rest around the cheek bone with the palms facing inwards towards our face. To engage the double pillar block from there simply move your knuckles up to just above the eyebrows on the fore- head and then bring your arms together slightly like a brace as the straight shots land. As always, it’s super important to try to and keep your eyes open and focused on your opponent. Maintain contact between your knuckles and head at all times as to avoid hitting yourself in the face due to the deflection of their shot.

Mastery You keep watching while receiving heavy shots, you push towards the punches and maintain connection between your hands and forehead. Stay tight! Main points A very simple and reliable way to stop straight shots. Be careful that the arms don’t get drawn up too high leaving the body open to attack. Also often when raising the double pillar defence the fighter looks down at the floor and their head gets too low. The most important thing when you’re defending yourself is to look at your surroundings, keep your head up and vision forward at all times to achieve this. A balance of protection between the knuckles and wrist. ESSENTIALS EVEREST EVEREST MINDFUL THAIBOXING Cover The Left hook

How to Start from your guard position. Keep both the right hand and arm really tight to your face and body. Begin the movement by sliding the hand up your face, through your hair at the right side like John Travolta and ending up grabbing towards the back of your skull. A common mistake is turning or collapsing our body in expectation of the hook. Not necessary, simply the slide the hand back and up to protect yourself and keep the rest of your structure strong and attentive. Mastery Lifting up the fist to block the punch and not the whole arm, therefore the body remains more protected. Main points Stay tight, having space between your blocking hand/arm and head will cause you to hit yourself when the strike lands.

Stay tight. Don’t expose the other side of your head by letting the hand which is not blocking fall down. ESSENTIALS EVEREST EVEREST MINDFUL THAIBOXING Cover The RIGHT hook

How to Start from your guard position. Keep both the left hand and arm really tight to your face and body. Begin the movement by sliding the hand up your face, through your hair at the left side like John Travolta and ending up grabing towards the back of your skull. A common mistake is turning or collapsing our body in expectation of the hook. Not necessary, simply the slide the hand back and up to protect yourself and keep the rest of your structure strong and attentive. Mastery Lifting up the fist to block the punch and not the whole arm, therefore the body remains more protected. Main points Stay tight, having space between your blocking hand/arm and head will cause you to hit yourself when the strike lands.

Stay tight. Don’t expose the other side of your head by letting the hand which is not blocking fall down. ESSENTIALS EVEREST EVEREST MINDFUL THAIBOXING Deflection

Sometimes in life it’s best not to be firm, rigid and unmoving when something unpleasant comes tumbling towards us. Sometimes it is best to be clever. To deflect that negativity away from us instead fully taking the brunt ourselves. Well the same can be said of boxing, welcome to the deflection part of the defence section. ESSENTIALS EVEREST EVEREST MINDFUL THAIBOXING Side PArry the jab

How to To execute this technique a slightly more open guard with the arms can be adopted, giving us more time to work with as the straight jab arrives.

As we see the jab come towards us we can move our right hand towards it, looking to gently swat or tap their jab towards the inside, hopefully sending it over our left shoulder.

Straight punches can also be parried in a downward direction, giving us good options to counter right away with our own straight shots. Mastery Parrying punches in a downward motion and also playing between parrying with just the arm or the whole body Main points People engage the arm too often to tap the incoming jab resulting in the face being uncovered, if the opponent were to fake the jab this could be a problem. Try to play between twisting the back and parrying with the arm rigid and tapping the hand. This way we don’t expose the face too often by only parrying with the arm. If your opponent is smart he/she will read your patterns. ESSENTIALS EVEREST EVEREST MINDFUL THAIBOXING Side PArry the cross

How to To execute this technique a slightly more open guard with the arms can be adopted, giving us more time to work with as the straight cross arrives.

As we see the cross come towards us we can move our left hand towards it, looking to gently swat or tap their jab towards the inside, hopefully sending it over our right shoulder. This can be done with the arm alone or using our core and keeping the arm stiff.

Straight punches can also be parried in a downward direction, giving us good options to counteract right away with our own straight shots. Mastery Parrying punches in a downward motion and also playing between parrying with just the arm or the whole body Main points People engage the arm too often to tap the incoming cross resulting in the face being uncovered, if the opponent were to fake the cross this could be a problem. Try to play between twisting the back and parrying with the arm rigid and tapping the hand. This way we don’t expose the face too often by only parrying with the arm. If your opponent is smart he/she will read your patterns. ESSENTIALS EVEREST EVEREST MINDFUL THAIBOXING Evading

As opposed to blocking, it is often preferable when defending to have no contact with your opponent whatsoever. Think about it, why have any sort of impact when we can simply avoid one? Also, if you make the opponents miss maybe they will lose balance, opening up our options for attack. ESSENTIALS EVEREST EVEREST MINDFUL THAIBOXING Slipping the jab

How to From our stance think compression, left shoulder should twist towards right knee to perform the slip of the jab correctly. The left shoulder and left knee turn in together in unison. Your head should move diagonally forward and to the right.

For now, keep both hands around the cheekbones while slipping and your eyes on your opponent. Mastery Miss by a hair not by a mile! You should feel like you’re getting a haircut if executed properly as you are so close to their fist. Main points The movement is not dissimilar to our upper body when throwing our own jab; right shoulder going back and the left hip going forward. We don’t want too much twist, this will take too much time to come back for the counter. Think of the size of a , that’s how much you want to move your head. ESSENTIALS EVEREST EVEREST MINDFUL THAIBOXING Slipping the CROSS

How to From our stance think compression, right shoulder should twist towards left knee to perform the slip of the cross correctly. The right shoulder and right knee turn in together in unison. Your head should move diagonally forward and to the left.

For now, keep both hands around the cheekbones while slipping and your eyes on your opponent. Mastery Miss by a hair not by a mile! You should feel like you’re getting a haircut if executed properly as you are so close to their fist. Main points The movement is not dissimilar to our upper body when throwing our own cross; left shoulder going back and the right hip going forward. We don’t want too much twist, this will take too much time to come back for the counter. Think of the size of a boxing glove, that’s how much you want to move your head. ESSENTIALS EVEREST EVEREST MINDFUL THAIBOXING Sprint

Sprints are when you repeat a strike or a certain combination of strikes as quickly as possible.

Sprints are useful to build speed in your strikes and cardiovascular resistance. They form an integral part of Thai .

Sprints can be performed with any of the 8 limbs of Muay Thai. The following is an explanation of how we can sprint using our knee strikes. ESSENTIALS EVEREST EVEREST MINDFUL THAIBOXING Skipping Knees

How to: Throw either knee to begin, from then on only one foot should be in contact with the ground. As the kneeing leg comes down again the opposite supporting leg must shoot backwards and off the ground to charge the knee of the opposite side. This knee then lands and the cycle begins again. Unlike in the video, it is common to grab either a person or a bag to perform skip knees. Mastery Pulling the opponent in towards each knee. Hiding the head completely behind your own shoulders and behind their head. Main points Skip knees are a way to throw a large amount of knees in a small amount of time. You must avoid your opponent closing his/her grip around your neck at all costs, and conversely when you get that grip then start kneeing!