Shadow-Boxing vs. Boxing
Mark Hatmaker
Right up front, let's define some terms--for the duration of this article, when I say "shadow-boxing" let's understand that I refer to any and all solo training be it actual shadow-boxing, kata, mirror-training, and even heavy bag work. Got it? Moving on.
"How you train is how you'll fight."--Fight Gym Credo
"Let your training be reflective of battlefield conditions."--Special Forces Maxim
If you've been involved in combat sports training for any length of time you've, undoubtedly, encountered the two preceding quotes in some form or another. The reason why you've encountered those two little nuggets of wisdom (which are really stating the same principle) is because they are absolutely valid and vital to your training success. I don't really think there's any debate as to the veracity of this wisdom.
The more closely you can mimic the events/situations you are training for, the more likely you are able to hone skills that will manifest themselves in the actual event. It is for this very reason that football players play with a football to the exclusion of all other ball shaped objects even though it is conceivable that you could pass and punt with a soccer ball--less ably I'll grant you, but it can be done. Perhaps easier to imagine, you can dribble a soccer ball and shoot free throws with it, but the NBA has no training regimen whatsoever utilizing this practice, nor does any soccer organization substitute basketballs for goal practice.
Obvious stuff, I know. These athletes don't trade balls used for other sports to supplement what they do as it violates the wisdom of specificity. Football players, basketball players, and soccer players (all athletes for that matter) strive for their training to be reflective of the battlefield conditions.
OK, I'm sure we're all on the same page here, at least so far. Following the above examples we must admit that it makes little sense to exclude head-shots from your striking training if your actual event includes them. It makes zero sense to exclude grappling from your training if you expect to encounter an environment where it is a likelihood. I'm sure we could all go on and on with "why would you eliminate this or that" examples. Excluding elements from your training that will likely be encountered is akin to training with the wrong ball, worse yet--training on the wrong field or court.
I anticipate no arguments thus far (but what do I know?)
Here's something to mull, common wisdom says that the best way to retain information is rote memorization. That is repetition, repetition, repetition. (See how I repeated myself?)
I mean ,this does seem to make sense on an intuitive level. If I repeat this German vocabulary list to myself long enough it will stick. Throw this jab in front of a mirror enough times and woe to the noses it shall meet in the future.
Experiment after experiment by cognitive scientist after cognitive scientist reports that "Information processed by its meaning is better retained than information that is merely repeated over and over again." (Lilienfeld, Lynn, Ruscio, & Beyerstein 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology--great book, by the way).
Research demonstrates that that German vocabulary list is less valuable than trying to engage in actual conversations in German, no matter how halting or rudimentary. The same goes for physical skills--1000's of jabs in the mirror are fine, but nothing will educate the jab better than a few successful iterations under sparring conditions. What we find is that context and utility create a better seating of a desired skill than perhaps hours upon hours of repetitions performed out of context.
With all of the preceding information in mind, specificity, situational approximation, and drilling/training in context we can surmise that there might be a hierarchy of training that we can adhere to to more rapidly get us to where we want to be.
At the bottom of that training hierarchy we would find Solo-Gearless Training. I include kata, shadow-boxing, shadow grappling, mirror training and the like in this category. This class of training lacks context and is all about rote work. I'm not saying that it is completely valueless, but consider this, how successful do you think a basketball team would be if its training eschewed using the ball and spent a large part of its time pretending to dribble, mimicking free throws, and acting like they were playing a scrimmage? Exactly, if that's an absurd scenario, why is pretending to beat someone up any less silly?
Before anyone bristles at that--I said it's not valueless just that we might want to give far less weight or time to this class of training.
The next class to assess is Solo-Gear Training--this can included heavy bag work, double-end bag work, maize bag work, et cetera. We're getting closer to context here as we can actually make some contact, build some power, some form, some technique, a little bit of reaction off of the double-end bag, but...let's face it, solo gear training is still de-contextualized rote work.
These pieces of gear are great conditioning tools, yes, and there is indeed some skill and craft work to be had, but our problem comes down to a Bruce Lee paraphrase: "Bags don't hit back." To which we can also add, bags don't walk, trash-talk, push-back, feint, et cetera.
And the last class of training/drilling in our hierarchy is Partner Drilling (not necessarily talking about sparring/rolling although that is a large part of this class). Intelligently constructed partner drills can give us that rudimentary German conversation from day one. Yes, there can be an aspect of the rote to partner drilling as in the do 50 double-wrists locks per side with your partner or fire 5 rounds of jab to switch kick with your partner--but, and this is a very big but--this is rote plus contextualization--that's a key difference. This form of rote training with a live body gives you a feedback loop that offers varying degrees of resistance, realistic movement to respond to, or that bit of "hit back" that shadows, mirrors, and bags can not and will never provide.
Again, I am not calling for the end of all solo-gearless training, I'm just offering a persecutive on giving more weight to what modes of drilling are most likely to reap the most bang for the buck in the shortest amount of time.
If your goal is to be the best kicker of shadow ass then by all means ignore all I've said and punch away at the atmosphere. If your ultimate goal is to do well against a real-live, "I will hit you back" human being then step out of that human's shadow and work with what casts that shadow. | 
