Achilleas got back to me quickly at the right time. I gimped up today and could not walk. So I let down three young boxers at the gym, 13, 12 and 11. Each boy is so different, that training them takes different roads at the same time. I find ways for them to work with me and each other, mixing and matching, maxing out with being able to handle five fighters at a time, before they start being left behind without a piece of information they need to keep growing. I have rarely been in a gym with more than five boxers. That is strange, something that only happens in what we called “white collar” boxing in the 90s and became fitness boxing in the 2000s.

Before I read this email, I will take a few shots of Jonah’s Curse over-proofed rum to render me kind, as, from your last email, I suspected that you were at a money making gym. You see, money making gyms don’t produce good fighters, they produce good profits. BJJ/MMA gyms are an exception, as amateur MMA fighters get paid more than pro boxers. If geared towards a specific sport, like amateur boxing, where it is just a point game and there are no rewards for hurting the man, money making can track with a good team if you have enough people. But to have a lot of people you need a lot of students who are not fighters to pay the bills. This can work in BJJ and used to work in TaeKwonDo, both arts were most can’t fight, are not fighters, but pay the bills and essentially sponsor the few fighters with abilities. I have no problem with that. I bet that is what Coach Agamemnon has in mind, a stable of “student” boxers paying the rent for his few fighters, who he will pimp out in some way.

However, being from the self defense perspective, and having been poor for all but 4 of my years on this earth, I am only interested in helping people how to defend themselves, and keeping the art of manly defense alive. My part looks like its done, can’t even spar with 12 year old 100 pounders, can barely walk, can’t demonstrate line drills. So, I will sit and sip and read and place comments in brackets that hopefully help.

…

Thank you so much Mr. LaFond! But now that I've read what you wrote I'm even more confused on how the coach of this gym is training me. 

[I was not confused, but was being diplomatic.]

The classes go something like this.

[Real boxing gyms do not have classes, unless they are set aside classes for nerds. How many boxers compete in classes, in a line? How many boxers compete alone, just them, the foe and the ref in the ring? Classes and their mindset, run counter to any kind of combat mindset except for spear & shield, pike & shot or musket and bayonet battle.]

We warm up (the warm up feels like an hour workout on its own, ha ha!) and then we do drills for forty-five minutes.

[Warm ups are to be done alone. This sets the warrior movement mindset. A warm up class is just slave mechanics and does nothing to loosen the mind for combat, but keeps it shackled to the coach’s ego. This format was developed for women in New York and LA in the late 1990s.]

But these drills (sparring) are always specific, meaning someone is throwing a 1-2-3 combo and the other guy throws a 1 (everyone does the same training).

[I bet he did not start you with a 1-1-2-1 combo. If you learn the 3 first day, first week, first month, through the door your time and measure will always suck, unless you are a prodigy. So everyone is the same age, height, weight, build, no left-handers, no injuries? So it makes sense that they all learn the same exact thing, since they are all 22, 5’ 10” and 145 pound, righties, right?]

Now, when one guy is attacking, we're told to keep our hands to our temples and block the shot - you're right to tell me about blocking being crude as I never did it back in the day. I would always move out of the way. I was trying to do the same thing in this gym only for a teammate telling me that "I was scared of getting hit" and that "I was fighting like a cat".

[Glove to temple has you eating the power on your balance center, where the glove is heaviest. Pros do this when they are getting KO’d and don’t want to lose an ear drum or retina. The way to do it is sliding the hand up and back and making the punch glance, or turning the glove in and catching the punch on heel of hand or wrist bone. That is much better, but still crude. Blocking is the worst form of defense in boxing. The best is a stop, then slip, then a parry, then a catch, then a roll. Blocking is dead last. But for point scoring, a block denies the point. In self defense, small gloves, professional ranks, it does not work. At 62 I am now reduced to blocking against young men because I am just a punching bag. It is like fixing bayonets and charging a machine gun, if the man has power.] 

I was also using elbow blocks (similar to Mayweather - obviously I can't fight like him but I was watching "tape" and tried to mimic his defence) only for two people to have their hands get hurt on my elbow (that is due to the athletes there not being able to change their hits mid shot) and me getting chewed by the coach for "letting my ribs being too exposed" and "not following the combos properly".

[This man is an idiot—more rum, oh, a beer chaser… It would be so nice to fight his team, as each man is exactly like the next as he can manage.]

Even though I almost broke the thumb of one of his 18-year-old amateur prodigies by just messing around. I take no joy in this but if someone steps into your martial arts gym and does that amount of damage by just blocking, I don't know what to tell you.

[Let them have your ribs, hands high, looking through cloves, then drop your elbows on their thumbs until he kicks you out of the gym. Break their hands. Go for it. Be nice, play stupid, but break their tender dew claws. These are lap dogs. Be the wolf. This gym has no redemption. Wreck it quietly—you already paid up. Your goal should be to get kicked out and bow respectfully and thank the coach and leave. If he shows thumb up punches to the body, his fighters should get their thumbs broken.]

Mind you, yet again, even the amateurs train and "spar" like this. There's always a mandatory combo. When I do the combos on them, they just have their hands raised on the top of their foreheads and they just take the shots. Even the "live sparring" they do is presented as a full force 1-1 combo. Each person can only throw one punch whilst defending.

[This is delusion maintenance so that they don’t lose enrollment. If he has good fighters that actually win, he works with them alone and shows them the real deal—if he knows the real deal.]  

I've never been to a boxing gym before and that's why I thought that all of the aforementioned were normal, but here I have been talking about a different martial art altogether it seems. It's one of those gyms that I got "punished" for stepping backwards. I had people actually telling me not to circle around them - which I naturally did due to my previous training - and just do the exercises doing a front step and a back step.

[In real boxing you ALWAYS try and get behind the man, as in any fighting. Why stand in front? Work a C step, a diagonal pass step, a U-hustle, simple side stepping. With these people, just always go in and try and move your head while you look through your gloves and either slide your glove up in the glass house shield or turn the wrist inward to do a hard parry, then drop a hand on the near shoulder and get behind him with that check, just like in kali. The best way to learn defense is to move in aggressively, stay on him, defend against his punches and mug him.]

You even get weird looks if you create some distance between you and the other person. You pretty much have to stay there and get hit with a hook to the head whilst blocking if the exercise demands it. At some point the coach literally told me "You have your hands out there, put your glove to your temple and block the hook for the needs of the exercise". 

[Look at 20 pro fights. How man men have their hands on their temples? The wining fighter either has his lead down, or he has it extended so it is faster—he is not waiting to receive the punch, but aiming to beat it and stick his man. Offense beats defense. He is keeping you standing in front of each other because that maintains floor space for additional class enrollment. Lots of kali and arnis and escrima teach triangle steps the wrong way for this reason. Boxers must cut angles, in and out and around. Backwards, avoid. Don’t retreat, except to lay a trap, fade diagonally away, side cut, pass cut, get behind. If you know what punch is coming, you should stop, slip, parry or catch it—not block it.]

Also, I've just realized from your comments why my neck is so tight and the area between the middle of my upper back is killing me - something that never happened to me before during martial arts training. I mean from what you're describing here, it seems all wrong. It doesn't sound like boxing training. Could that be the reason I'm doing well against his amateurs!?

[In a smoker, you would probably knock them out. That is why everyone is trying to control you. See how many of his men you can hurt with your elbows. If he says to block the body shot, don’t do it passive, but slide that elbow forward sharply aiming for the thumb or small knuckle. Break hands, respectfully.]

I can't wait for your response, especially after all of this information. Godspeed.

[You deserve a better coach. The glove to temple is hurting your neck. Put the glove thumb to cheek, sliding up against the hook and turning in against straight punches. Catch the jab with the palm of your rear hand—let it come. Turn the outside forearm bone into the wrist of his straight rear hand. Hooks to the head, slide hand up, to the body, drop and elbow on a thumb hard and snap that thing off! Get kicked out, Achilleas. Do not let Coach Agamemnon make you quit or make you bend. Make him put you out, and than him, Shake hands with the men on the way out and thank them for their time—thus ripping their souls out and leaving them slithering on the floor.]

Achilleas