Wow... thanks again... last night I went to my gym and really tried to put a lot of what you all suggested into practice. I learned a lot last night.

I think the two biggest things that I picked up on... was that:

1) When I was rolling under punches... while I wasn't necessarily looking down at the floor I wasn't looking up at my opponents hands or chest. I was basically looking at their crotch when I was rolling under. One of my friends kept yelling at me not to look down and in my mind I was thinking...what the heck... I am not looking down... and then for some reason in the middle of all of it... I remembered a fight I had recently watched where Tyson rolled under someones right cross and I had noticed he was looking up at his opponents chest and face... the next time I rolled I tried that and wow... what a difference. LOL... it makes a huge difference when you can see punches coming...

Landmine950 you said..."it's imppossible to hit and hurt a boxer (average) when they cover up"... that's basically where I have been at for the last two weeks. I am not getting hurt... and that's the turtle mode I am referring too... except for me it was extended and I couldn't get out of it.

2) The 2nd thing I learned last night was something that backs up a principal that I recently read is here in this forum somewhere... when I was in turtle mode all I was doing was blocking shots. Last night I had a guy get in the ring with me who is a lot faster then me, and who hits pretty hard and I told him that I just wanted him to throw left jabs at me... that he could go as hard as he wanted at me... but to only throw left jabs and I would do the same... Once again because of this guys speed and reach (he is several inches taller then me and definitely has the reach) I was still going into turtle mode just from jabs. He would hit me three or four times very fast and all I could do was cover up. However... for some reason on one of his initial jabs I parried his jab to the inside with my right and all of a sudden I had a huge opening that I could drive my left jab straight through. It was one of those moments when the light bulb comes on and all of a sudden something finally made a little bit of sense. When I was standing there moving around all covered up... I wasn't interrupting his combo's in any sort of fashion... as soon as I parried the jab it threw him out of sync. It was like... "hey look what I can do"... the next time he threw the left jab, I parried again, and then followed it up with a left jab of my own and I connected... it was a really good feeling...

Of course this is after he had already had my nose bleeding from a crisp jab in a previous round... but hey I'm learning so it's well worth it...

The only problem is... I doubt the parry thing is going to work on him tonight... he's not stupid...lol...

Dang this sport is addictive... lol...

Tonight will be much of the same... another five or six two minute rounds of pure defense in a shortened ring... and then five or six one minute rounds where we just work on a specific punch. Now all I have to do is figure out how to get inside of the right cross... there is no way in heck I am going to be able to parry some of these guys' right cross... way to much power...

Thanks so much again...
Blackvenom-2001