Cutting Weight, Healing Leg: Day Before (Training Videos! - Study [1 of 2])

Stephen is taller than I am, which means his jab has good reach and can snap me.
- My left guard is too open/out to the side, and he catches me on it.
- I'm too front facing; I don't want to face sideways, like walking a rail, but I'm just too square-off to the front a lot of the time. It makes me a bigger target, obviously.
- The constant movement is good: be careful not to just jitter on your feet.
- I don't do well with the balance of countering/attacking here; I know that the point of these is to some extent that I'm not the aggressor, but I'm also sure there's a way to achieve that without being as flightily passive as I am here.

I'm sharing this on the blog for one moment: at ~1:50, you'll see me throw a left than an upper with the left, and then talk. What I'm saying basically is don't tell me, I know I know, meaning I know that that's a weak attack that leaves me open and I shouldn't do. Gotta get that in. Actually, I've gotten better with that at least. I used to throw that a lot; I think I did it because Coach does it, but he uses it differently, kind of as a badgering setup, and also is just a much better boxer than I am.

More neck wrestling with Nick. You don't need to watch more than 20 seconds of this. I barely needed to. We're pretty static. Two things I observe, about that:
- part of it is a weird thing that I think is a part of Nick's technique that he particularly deploys against me; basically grinding his skull against mine to put my skull/spine/balance out of alignment (and in pain, or my skull at least). So when we're clamped together for long times, that's happening.
- my note to myself, which is often my note in neck wrestling, is to be more active/dynamic with respect to throwing my opponent off his weight. I do it a few times here, but not much; I'm tired, in part, and happy to just clamp and try to snake my way into a better position against Nick. And I have one good, or at least reasonable, reason, which is that Nick's base is sturdier than mine, so--as happens once here--if I try to throw him off balance I may wind up getting thrown off myself. All the same, the point stands. More dynamic action in the clinch: more pulling and jerking, more knees.

Okay. My attention span is limited, and I'm hungry (although not much I can do about that!). I'm going to go... do something that day-wise rhythm-wise gives me the impression of breaking things up, eating. Then work some. Then come back to do one more set of these.