Note: a few of these are silent - that's because YouTube has scrubbed them of copyrighted songs (music plays during workouts at the gym). Don't turn your volume up, trying to hear them, or it'll blast you when a different (not copyrighted???) songs come on halfway through.
Neck wrestling with Nick. Better/different than previous.
- I move around more, hang less, and am cinching Nick round his head, better
- I can't do that with gloves though, really! This is a challenge; trying to recreate your leverage with your hands, with gloves. But I can duplicate that spacing, balance, position. Or try to.
- Throwing more knees. That's good.
- Still not basing enough, not pulling him off balance enough.
- Man, what a burn at the end where Nick negs my fist bump.
And, last one. A defensive drill with Sal. In this drill, he is supposed to come after me boxing (volume, rather than force) and I'm not allowed to do anything but defend or evade (can't teep; not really supposed to clinch, although you'll see that I do). That's it. Get used to the onslaught.
I wish there were more Sal, in this series, but he wasn't around much during training for this fight because he has a business and a life and et cetera. He's a terrific fighter and a really generous guy. I always learn a lot from him. What I learn, watching this drill:
- my guard can still be tighter; both in my rest position and in my parries/dodges
- I take a lot of body shots. This isn't a good thing; they wear on you (and also, I think, you get points for them, although how all that works isn't totally clear to me and doesn't seem to be that rigorously defined). It'd be good if I got out of the way of those, or were better at hunkering in so my head and my body were protected from wide open shots
- I definitely rock it like a boy band here: one direction. I need to juke more, fake more, move my movement around
- several times, I overcommit on a parry and Sal punishes me for it with a light face punch. I need to watch that. Don't overcommit. it's the same thing really as the note above, about my guard, but it's worth saying twice. It's key, for me.
Okay, start this one with something a bit different. This drill: I can teep (push-kick) to keep my opponent away, evade (move), or clinch (pull them into that wrestling position). That's it.
Their job is to come at me, swinging.
Nick does his job great here, doing some conditioning (medium hard) shots on my body, but just making a point with the head-shots. This drill is exhausting, and requires a decent amount of concentration; it's technically specific and tiring. I like/hate it; I think it's very useful. Thoughts:
- left hand, james! left hand! you see how it flies up sometimes when I block? You see how it drifts away from my head? These are bad things, bad. I need to just think tight, lock it in, left hand. Tight, lock it in, left hand.
- so, I need to do more head movement in boxing, yes. But I need to not do... I do this stupid little head swaggle that looks like I'm imitating how people in parts of South Asia say 'yes'. That's great as a communicative gesture, but it doesn't achieve much for me as a dodge or evasion in boxing, because my big long head is still up there on my big long neck. I'm writing about this so I don't get the idea in my head that I'm helping myself with that waggling -- it's maybe a tiny bit better than really being totally still, but actually ducking, actual movement, actually sinking my chin low and keeping it there, protected by my shoulders, is much more important.
Neck wrestling with Nick. Better/different than previous.
- I move around more, hang less, and am cinching Nick round his head, better
- I can't do that with gloves though, really! This is a challenge; trying to recreate your leverage with your hands, with gloves. But I can duplicate that spacing, balance, position. Or try to.
- Throwing more knees. That's good.
- Still not basing enough, not pulling him off balance enough.
- Man, what a burn at the end where Nick negs my fist bump.
And, last one. A defensive drill with Sal. In this drill, he is supposed to come after me boxing (volume, rather than force) and I'm not allowed to do anything but defend or evade (can't teep; not really supposed to clinch, although you'll see that I do). That's it. Get used to the onslaught.
I wish there were more Sal, in this series, but he wasn't around much during training for this fight because he has a business and a life and et cetera. He's a terrific fighter and a really generous guy. I always learn a lot from him. What I learn, watching this drill:
- my guard can still be tighter; both in my rest position and in my parries/dodges
- I take a lot of body shots. This isn't a good thing; they wear on you (and also, I think, you get points for them, although how all that works isn't totally clear to me and doesn't seem to be that rigorously defined). It'd be good if I got out of the way of those, or were better at hunkering in so my head and my body were protected from wide open shots
- I definitely rock it like a boy band here: one direction. I need to juke more, fake more, move my movement around
- several times, I overcommit on a parry and Sal punishes me for it with a light face punch. I need to watch that. Don't overcommit. it's the same thing really as the note above, about my guard, but it's worth saying twice. It's key, for me.
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