Fight with grace

Learn to float around the ring gracefully with swifth, efficient and fluid like footwork and strikes.

Characterized by elegance or beauty of form, manner, movement, or speech.

How often do you see guys training or sparring in a sluggish messy manor? Landing a punch and simply stopping for a second before moving out. Or 'freezing' on the defense when they are getting attacked. How about those guys that throw a 1,2,3 combination and then pause? I'm sure you know the guys i'm describing here.

Ask yourself a question and answer honestly..Are you one of them?

Grace is something that isn't often trained in your average Dojo or martial arts.

If you watch the all time greats of martial arts - you will notice that they all have one thing in common - and that thing is grace. Fighters such as Mohammed Ali, Bruce Lee and Flloyd "Money" Mayweather all fought gracefully, efficiently, smoothly and subtly. They didn't move, the floated. They didn't block shots with ugly blocks, they evaded with swift head movement. Their footwork didn't jolt or hesitate, it just kept moving.

Elegant: a graceful dancer; a graceful reply.

Ballet dancers could well be the most graceful movers in the entire planet. Can you imagine what some of these guys could do if you gave them a pair of gloves and trained them for a couple of years? Their background in efficient and smooth movement would give them a huge head start.

Grace is something that isn't often taught in most martial arts curriculums however it is something extremely important. Being able to move around and throw shots (more importantly combinations) with graceful movements is one of the key things that separates the best from the rest.

How can you improve your grace?

Choose any drill that involves moving around. As shadowboxing needs no explanation i'll use that as my example, here we go:

Training shadowboxing to improve 'grace':

1. Stand in the middle of a ring or spacious area.
2. Start to Shadowbox.
3. Instead of just 'moving' try to 'float' around with light quick feet.
4. Avoid over committing to any step or punch.
5. Avoid stumbling.
6. Avoid stopping.
7. Avoid becoming flat footed.
8. Find a free flowing rhythm.
9. Feel yourself moving naturally.
10. Don't force any movement.

It's pretty hard to describe, but go try it, you'll soon understand what i'm talking about when you try it.