FightFlow 1.2.6: Screen Off on Android and Pendulum Footwork

FightFlow 1.2.6 is out on iPhone and Android. Here's what's new:

• Screen off on Android: turn it on in Settings, and every training mode keeps going after you lock the phone.
• Pendulum footwork: new calls and three drills built around the boxing bounce.
• More time after kicks and knees in Combo Flow.
• Moves Trained you can tap, to see how a move is done.
• Rounds Mode on your watch: follow the current work or rest countdown, and pause a rest.
• Daily goals from 10 minutes, and no goal reminder once today's free time is used up.

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Train With the Screen Off on Android

The phone is in your pocket, or on the floor by the bag. You want the calls, not the screen. Until now, locking an Android phone paused your session, so the screen had to stay on the whole time.

Now there's Continue with screen off in Settings, under Training. It stays off until you turn it on. Start a session, let the first countdown finish, then lock the phone, and the session keeps going. Lock it during that countdown and the session waits there until you unlock.

It works in every training mode: Quick Train, Combo Builder, Shadowboxing, Skill Academy, Footwork, Hand, Defense, Kick and Elbow drills, Stepping Strikes, Conditioning, Pad Rhythm, Rounds Mode, Build my session and Fight Camp stages.

Your music plays the way you set it: Lower music dips it under the calls if the music app allows it, and Mix leaves it as it is. Continue with screen off does need FightFlow's recorded voice rather than the system voice, and Show session on lock screen turned on. Both are the defaults, and if one is in the way, the row in Settings tells you which.

A few sessions still pause when you lock the phone, as they did before: one you're filming, one opened from Siri or a link rather than a press in the app, and a combo of your own with a call that has no voice clip, or a Rounds Mode routine with one in it.

A Fight Camp day with several stages doesn't run through by itself. Each stage keeps going with the phone locked, but the next stage waits for you to press Start stage.

Calls, alarms and unplugged headphones still pause it, though a call ringing silently may not. Once it's paused, it waits until you come back to it. Time with the screen off counts toward your free 10 minutes a day, same as any other, and when your free time runs out the session ends.

Phones differ in how hard they save battery, so try a short session before you count on it.

This one is Android only. On iPhone, the Continue with screen off setting already does this, and it hasn't changed.

Pendulum Footwork, and Three Drills to Train It

Standing still at the edge of range makes you easy to read. The pendulum is a boxer's way around that: small bounces in and out that keep changing the distance, so it's hard to tell which one is coming forward.

Now FightFlow calls it. "Pendulum!" starts the bounce, and you keep it going until the next call. Three new drills are built around it:

• Pendulum Rhythm, in Footwork Drills, for getting out on time. Bounce, then leave on the call with a pivot, an angle out or a step back.
• Pendulum Entries, in Hand Drills, for punching off the rhythm. Bounce, then come in with a jab, or a jab and a cross and a step back.
• Double Step Entry, in Hand Drills, for getting past a longer reach. Where the other person expects you to bounce back out, "Double step!" takes you one step further in, into a jab and a cross, and then you step back.

Not sure what it looks like? Open a drill's info sheet and press Play to watch the feet on the drill board before you try it. Both moves also have a page in Knowledge on how to do them. If your calves tighten, stop and shake them out.

You can add the drills to a Rounds Mode routine like any other. The calls only come up in drills, though. You won't hear them in Quick Train or Build my session, and you can't put them in a combo of your own, because a rhythm you keep going until the next call has no place in one.

They're boxing footwork, and they're listed for kickboxing and Muay Thai too. With kicks in play, weight on the front leg makes the check slower.

A Little More Time After Kicks and Knees

A kick costs more than a jab. You have to get your foot back down and find your stance before you can do anything with the next call. Combo Flow used to count a kick the same as a punch when it set the gap before the next combo.

Now a combo with a kick or a knee in it earns a little extra before the next one starts. A teep gets some, a low kick or a knee a bit more, a roundhouse or a sweep more again. Elbows, clinch work and other heavier moves get a small extra too. It's a short breather, not a rest, and it follows your pace: a slower pace gives you more of it, a faster pace less.

A combo of jabs, crosses, hooks and uppercuts gets no extra time. There's nothing to turn on. The extra time comes between combos and adds no delay between the moves of a combo.

You get it in Combo Flow, with your own combos too, and wherever Combo Flow runs: Rounds Mode, Build my session and Fight Camps. Combos that come up in Move Flow and Constraint Flow get it as well. Target Callout, Pad Rhythm, Shadowboxing, Skill Academy, drills and the Combo Builder player keep their own timing.

Tap a Move to See How It's Done

FightFlow calls moves fast, and that's the point. But now and then you hear one you're not sure of, you throw your best guess, and by the time the session ends you've forgotten to look it up.

Now it's there when you finish. On Session End, open Moves Trained and tap a move with an arrow beside it. A card shows what the move is, how to execute it and what it's for, and you can hear the name said out loud. It's the same explanation you'd find in Knowledge, while the move is still fresh.

It's a written card, not a video, and it explains the move, not your version of it: FightFlow doesn't see you train. You'll find it on Session End only, not in History.

Rounds Mode on Your Watch

You're halfway through a routine and the phone is across the room. Your watch used to show the time left in the whole routine, so a one-minute rest could read 2:00.

Now it follows each step. WORK shows what you're training and its countdown. REST shows the time left and what's next. A Conditioning round follows each exercise and rest, as it did before, and a Shadowboxing round follows each block. With several rounds you also see the round number, and your watch buzzes when a new step starts, unless you've turned off Interval taps. You get this in Rounds Mode, Build my session and a Fight Camp day that runs as rounds.

You can pause a rest from your wrist too. The rest is running out and you're not ready: you need water, or a wrap has come loose. Pause on your watch used to do nothing during a rest.

Now it works. Press Pause on your Apple Watch or Wear OS watch and the rest countdown stops. Press Resume and the countdown carries on, and the next round starts when it runs out. Pause the rest on the phone and the watch follows. With FightFlow open on your phone, a long pause no longer ends the workout on your watch. On Android with the phone locked, a pause of 10 minutes or more needs you to open FightFlow to resume.

You need the FightFlow watch app tracking your session. New to it? Here's the setup for Apple Watch and Wear OS. This is about the rests between rounds in Rounds Mode. Your watch could already pause a round.

Daily Goals That Start at 10 Minutes

Free accounts train 10 minutes a day, but the smallest daily goal was 15. So a free account had a goal it could never finish, and a reminder about it on top.

Minutes / Day goals now start at 10: pick 10, 20, 30, 45 or 60 in Goal Settings. A goal you already saved at 15 stays at 15 until you pick another one. Weekly goals haven't changed.

The Goal Reminder eases off too. Once today's free time is used up, today's reminder doesn't go off. Later days aren't affected, because your 10 minutes are back at midnight. If you still have a few minutes left, the reminder goes off as usual, even if your goal is bigger than what's left. With Unlimited there's no daily cap, so your reminders carry on as before.

The rest of 1.2.6 is smaller fixes all around.