Grey & Thomas's Fountain of Knowledge

[Chris Nagel]

On Training:

You have to know your body. What pace do you fight at? Are you very tensed when you fight or is your body relaxed? You have to know what youre trying to accomplish strategically because thats what you will be asking your body to do for you. Try to get a guage of this because you want to get your body just right to accomplish what it needs to without over or under training. Over training is a pretty big problem and just as bad as not doing enough. The point is that you shouldnt just train just for the sake of training. Train smart.

A constantly moving head not only can be timed, but it also wastes your energy and clutters your mind making it harder for you to think because of those frantic movements your being busy with. This is bad because over time it slows your reaction time and ability to think on your feet; all that frantic motion. How soon then before you start eating punches you shouldn't even be eating in the first place?

[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']the things i see is most fighters will waste so much energy when fighting. i see all kinds of slipping punches that arent even there and wiggling of the arms, randomly bouncing around the ring: this kind of thing does have a price and you will start to feel it sooner or later no matter how conditioned you are. look at joe louis and notice how much energy he wastes. the answer is none. people like to say he moves around like a stiff zombie but he really is just being economical. in this way, joe could probably box 70 rounds straight since he is so smooth out there.[/font]

my point is, the style in which you guys box with these days is the cause of your stamina problems. your style uses up so much energy in order to pull off that you absolutely have to excerise like a triathlete. i tend to just stand in front of my opponent, not bouncing, not shaking, selecting my punches and specfic defensive reactions carefully. sure i look boring (thats what im told) but i can go longer than most and think with more clarity since im not occupying my mind with all kinds of crazy movements for my body.[/font]

Once again Thomas is right on the money: if you take the time to read up on and study the old-time greats and how they fought and, more important, how they thought, you'll learn that efficiency in motion was a prime consideration. You only slip punches that are thrown and then only when you intend to do something. You throw punches to land them and any judge that gives credit for punches thrown and missed is a detriment to the sport. [/font]

Watching Fights:

well i honestly think watching tapes are essential to the development of any fighter. for one they bascially plug boxing directly into your brain by way of seeing how things happen in the ring, what fighters tend to do, what fighters tend to excel at, and when (and how) they make mistakes. this sort of thing is invaluble; learning the logistics of boxing, as often and as much as you can.

if i may be allowed to give a little promoting here (my check arrived in the mail) go back and read grey's posts on the matter of boxing. nobody has the logistics of boxing down quite as well or presents them in an understandable manner. i myself try but i go off on a bunch of theory type stuff. check his forum out.

[quote=ThomasTabin;42466]mostly i would learn from every tape and every silent film i saw and not from any one boxer. the mystery of the sport is hidden inside every bout you see from leonard dorin to barney ross. you must look closely.[/quote]

but i am reminded now of the time when as a boy i met the profoundest chess player that there was around my way. whenever i would play him he would violently tear me to shreds with an ominous kind of calm that i had only seen at the end of old west shoot out movies. he was sharp. even in times that i had captured more of his material and was (at least i assumed so) in the seat of power - maybe a rook here, a few pawns there, perhaps even his queen - he would out of nowhere swoop down like a deadly hawk and defeat me every time without fail. for a while i used to think he was some kinda cheat -- i mean how does he suddenly beat me as easy as he does even when i would seem to be ahead -- but the man was no cheat, he was simply that sharp. i only played him a few times and never saw him after those bombardments but the questions of how he did this to me would spin around in my mind for years. i would later come to find that in truth every move that i would make was not made by me but instead by him. yes i would take my bishops or whatever and move them around myself but only ever because he would draw me out to do so. he would leave open say a rook for me to take from him (and i would like a dummy) or put a bishop in the line of my queen to make me move around my pawns in front to make her safe (and i would like a dummy) and by way of this he would deliberately manipulate my distribution of material to ultimately make a defensive lapse for that one final blow. every move i made was shepherded by his invisible hand and he would walk me into invisible traps i had no idea were even there. this lesson i would translate to boxing but also for the many other facets of life. because truly life is like boxing and boxing is truly like chess. this i think is the real prize to take from the sport, not the fame or money, but the revelation of strategy.