Techniques · Strikes
The knees
The rear knee and the switch knee to the body, trained side by side.
Where it stands
| Technique | Teacher kept | In the student | Own runs |
|---|---|---|---|
| rear knee | kneeR4-183.5M26 October 2026 | distill7-245.8M26 October 2026 | 4 |
| switch knee | kneeL3-214.0M24 October 2026 | distill7-245.8M26 October 2026 | 3 |
Both knees come from my motion capture, Muay Thai 02, take_03. In the rear knee the lead foot steps in and the right knee drives up into the body; in the switch knee the feet switch and the left knee comes up. Then a retreat to the stance. Each got its own teacher, cloned from guard14, and the two trained side by side on two machines at every stage (work log). The bag was moved so its face is where my knee is at the impact.
The knees landed first time; the feet didn’t. kneeR1 finished in a southpaw stance about 0.6 m forward, and kneeL1 about 0.35 m forward. kneeR2 and kneeL2 kept both feet where my capture has them, but skipped the steps home. kneeR3 and kneeL3 held on to the technique through the steps home, at the reference’s pace, and were kept: kneeR3-183.5M (bag 6 of 6, air 5 of 6, feet back in the stance) and kneeL3-214.0M (bag 6 of 6 at 1.2 cm, air 2 of 6).
Both went into the student in the first distillation (work log), and the kept student distill4 landed them 11 of 12 (rear) and 9 of 12 (switch), the switch knee’s misses in the air.
Then I noticed the rear knee arching its back after the landing. kneeR3 had followed the lean back in my capture after the impact and tipped further. The reference was made upright just after the impact (7.05–7.35 s) and training got a term for it. kneeR4-183.5M leans 1.3° past the reference in the air and 0.9° at the bag, where kneeR3 leaned 12.4° and 9.7° (work log). The switch knee was fine as it was. distill7-245.8M has the upright rear knee (about 1.4°) and the switch knee 12 of 12.
What’s open: the rear knee in the air arrives under the hit speed (kneeR4 0 of 6 in the air, 3.6 cm off at 2.5 m/s), and the student lands it 8 of 12.
What I think, as a coach
My instruction for each knee teacher: “all it needs to know is the stance and the balance and just the specific technique”.
On kneeR3: “after the knee and the feet land back on the ground the fighter arches its back”. The switch knee I was happy with.
And knees have their place. When the jab was tried at a target too close for it, I said forget it: at that range a fighter throws an elbow or a knee.
Every attempt
Every run that trained these techniques on its own, in order.
| Run | Outcome | Machines | Hours | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
kneeL1-2026102424 October · switch knee · kept kneeL1-119.4M · Teachers: the rear knee and the switch knee | Kept | 2 | 1.7 | $1.14 |
kneeR1-2026102424 October · rear knee · kept kneeR1-173.7M · Teachers: the rear knee and the switch knee | Kept | 1 | 1.7 | $1 |
kneeL2-2026102424 October · switch knee · kept kneeL2-57.0M · Teachers: the rear knee and the switch knee | Kept | 1 | 0.6 | $0.37 |
kneeR2-2026102424 October · rear knee · kept kneeR2-37.7M · Teachers: the rear knee and the switch knee | Kept | 1 | 0.7 | $0.45 |
kneeL3-2026102424 October · switch knee · kept kneeL3-214.0M · Teachers: the rear knee and the switch knee | Kept | 1 | 2.2 | $1.52 |
kneeR3-2026102424 October · rear knee · kept kneeR3-183.5M · Teachers: the rear knee and the switch knee | Kept | 1 | 2.2 | $1.52 |
kneeR4-2026102626 October · rear knee · kept kneeR4-183.5M · Teacher: the rear knee, landing upright | Kept | 1 | 2.1 | $1.29 |
| 7 training runs | 8 | 11.3 | $7.28 |
Shared training
Runs that trained it together with other techniques: a base model, a retrain onto a new stance, a distillation into the student. Their whole cost is counted once, in the shared figure above, not split.
How the models descend
Its own runs, each with an arrow from the run it started from; faded boxes are models from elsewhere it started from or learnt from. Tap a run for its details. The whole history is on the lineage page.