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What I recorded when he came to Tyneside with Glenn McCrory and Tony Jeffries to explain his 'technical philosophy of the fistic art, that very very few are privy to' to a group of amateur boxers.
When you throw a punch, you're exposed. So the key is to throw the least amount of punches as possible. To do that, you have to make every punch count. That was my philosophy of accurate boxing, of skillful defensive boxing.
In regards to striking, it was letting the punch go at the right time. Imagine target practice - you're finger is on the trigger and what you've got is a moving target. Timing is apprehension, which comes from thousands of hours of sparring wars. It's striking just before or just after the attack of the opponent, of which when they are most vulnerable. That was my philosophy of skillful offensive boxing.
What one must do, to be a skilled practitioner of the art, is to blend those two examples, those two philosophies, into one. I'm trying to keep it simple, and I believe that's quite a straight-forward way to explain careful application of the art.
In regards to striking technique, speed is key. I say that because speed is accuracy. By speed, I don't the mean the speed of which the glove travels through the air. I mean the speed of which the glove travels to the target, which is all about unwasted motion. The sooner the glove reaches the target, the more likely it is that it is going to land.
My glove positioning, if you watch my fights, was based on that theory. If you fight with a high guard, you have to move your hands away from your face to throw a punch - wasted motion. If you fight with hands by your sides, you have to lift them in execution of the punch - wasted motion. That's why I held my gloves together at stomach height - it made it difficult for opponents to work out what punch was coming next, and when I struck, I would execute the punch with virtually no back-pull, and that made it very difficult for opponents to react fast enough.
Brain over brawn, it's how I won 97.5% of the fights. Brain over brawn... brain, over, brawn.
In regards to striking, it was letting the punch go at the right time. Imagine target practice - you're finger is on the trigger and what you've got is a moving target. Timing is apprehension, which comes from thousands of hours of sparring wars. It's striking just before or just after the attack of the opponent, of which when they are most vulnerable. That was my philosophy of skillful offensive boxing.
What one must do, to be a skilled practitioner of the art, is to blend those two examples, those two philosophies, into one. I'm trying to keep it simple, and I believe that's quite a straight-forward way to explain careful application of the art.
In regards to striking technique, speed is key. I say that because speed is accuracy. By speed, I don't the mean the speed of which the glove travels through the air. I mean the speed of which the glove travels to the target, which is all about unwasted motion. The sooner the glove reaches the target, the more likely it is that it is going to land.
My glove positioning, if you watch my fights, was based on that theory. If you fight with a high guard, you have to move your hands away from your face to throw a punch - wasted motion. If you fight with hands by your sides, you have to lift them in execution of the punch - wasted motion. That's why I held my gloves together at stomach height - it made it difficult for opponents to work out what punch was coming next, and when I struck, I would execute the punch with virtually no back-pull, and that made it very difficult for opponents to react fast enough.
Brain over brawn, it's how I won 97.5% of the fights. Brain over brawn... brain, over, brawn.
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