Huge respect for this man. And his advice on mastering that one technique echoes Bruce Lee's 'fear the man who practices that one move thousands of times than the man who merely knows a thousand moves'
The point about sparring is spot on. I learned to generate power, but because I didn't spar (much) I continually threw punches out of range. Ironically, as un untrained little kid this didn't happen because the desire to hurt was at the front of my mind. Learning to "throw punches" can cause you to lose sight of "punching someone".
I take geoffs words 99.9% as gospil . Your on too a winner with this man. And he's great to meat in real life. A true fighting man but 1st of all a Gentleman. I guess a few of Geoffs fight victims may well disagree with him being gentleman, But he's changed his life around since is savage fighting days on the doors.
The truth and nothing but the truth! One good, hard punch and a good and fast choke like RNC are all you need if you use the tactic to attack first and very hard. If the punch doesn't do the job you go for the choke. Mr Thompson is the best coach in the world! Take care and be safe.
And there's weights in the room. 2/3 is weights so you can lift your opponent and drop him on his neck, only 1/3 is boxing. I filled up my punching bag with cement but I've also toned it down since I'm not training to be a professional. When I hit that bag I learned to use gloves and I don't crack it as hard as possible either.
Geoff used headbutts alot. So there isn´t punches vs headbutt. Its the technique YOU can make work that matters. If you have to fight, attack first an be ferocious as Geoff tells us. I personally prefer slaps for pre emptive strikes because its effective (search for "slap ko" on youtube) and it won´t hurt my hand. greetings. :-)
"Heavy sparring" is far from essential for managing confrontations and finishing the guy with a premptive shot but if he doesn't go down, or he beats you to the punch or his mate wades in from nowhere, the ability to slip or eat a shot and go right back at the guy is vital. Like ground fighting, it's a backup but a bloody important one. Heavy sparring or milling isn't just physical either, it builds the mental toughness to get you through a confrontation.
I always preferred milling to sparing. No scoring points, no reciprocity, just keep going no matter what he throws. With the newbies, we used to put the headguards on even though we didn't allow strikes to the head or below the belt, strap on the boxing gloves and just have them go at each other for 30 seconds. Inevitably, they were huffing and puffing at the end of it and had a smile from ear to ear like they had just gone five rounds with Tyson and Won. We'd up the time and include head shots as people got more experienced but for getting people through fear of fighting, I know of no finer exercise.
baldieman. I totally agree. We 'mill' in our club, but from now on will use headguards as well. Took advice off my surgeon (had detatched retina) Milling is a fantastic 'Leveller' no matter what belt you are. So good for you mate and your club. I used to train with Geoff in the 90's he is a fantastic coach and a gent
Been there, done that. Caught a finger that tore up my retina. Three surgeries so far. Still have damage to the muscles behind the eye and no sight in the left of my right eye's visual field but it's the knackered knees that stopped me training. I only trained with Geoff at one seminar when we were affiliated to the BCA and wish I'd taken more time to make use of the resource that was only down the road in Coventry.
