Dear sir, hope this finds you well and arrived at your destination. I watched your video on how to select a boxing gym today. It was on Dominic's channel. He's done a lot of great videos lately. By coincidence I have been in a couple semi public Mexican boxing gyms in the last few days, and, as you said, they have every kind of bag, but only a couple heavy bags and no thai bags.

Of course a lot of them just want to have fun with their hooks and completely refrain from throwing any straight punches.

The primary job of our coaches is to teach them to jab their way in. Some of the more talented ones have great jobs. The obesity problem with Mexican boxing prospects in the golden gloves is so extreme, that the coaches at my gym usually plan on spending six months getting the promising kids in shape and on weight.

Most lightweights weigh between 175-200 lbs at under 5-5 inches.

There are some talented kids who are on weight and skilled hardworking boxers but this would be maybe one out of ten. They are all great sports and while some look like murderous thugs, they're actually very polite and mannered. There's just not a lot going on in their heads.

There is one kid in training now who is of Tarahumara extraction. He is a great runner. I see him running on the edge of the expressway, while enroute to the gym, and then he is always in motion in the pendulum step while in the gym. He hits very hard for a 125 pounder and he was actually doing really well against that coach who warned me off from inside fighting.

Paul,

This seems to be a great training ground for you.

I am so proud that you have stuck it out through the punishment and most of all the lack of attention to your technical needs, which is always the case in a gym that has more than five fighters. It is a sport that requires 1 on 1, and ideally 3 on 1 coaching. Good job wading through the muck to get to firm footing.

james

On the subject of hands, I wasn't really concerned about fighting bare knuckle until recently, when I bloodied the Marshallese chap’s nose to prevent him from genially killing me.

My first jab caught him on the bridge of the nose and the tip of my fingernail inside the glove was impacted, numbing and rattling it severally, almost beyond use for several days. I was gloved but damage to the thumb now seems the greatest danger of bare knuckle to me. Am I off or on track in this assumption?

Paul, you are correct.

In a bareknuckle fight the thumb is the chief concern.

i will go over this at our meet in Saint Louis. One's punch rate needs to be lower. My idea is to do it historically, on grass, with golfing cleats, with the clinch work and social structure authentic to 1800. Jabbing with the thumb up to the targets higher then the chin protects the thumb but shortens the jab by an inch or two. The Mexicans who hook a lot would be ideal for practicing that “sneaky jab."

Train smart and fight smarter, my friend

j

James,

I am a slow learner as you may have noticed, so one thing I focus on is teaching other slow learners in subjects I excel in. Teaching teenage boys, I have noticed a decline in grip strength handling tools. There were simple tasks like cutting nail ends with a clipper that I could do at sixteen that sturdy farm-raised boys struggle with, today.

I think a good piece of this is mental. Young teenage boys with a good raising and good parents are still quite feminine and lacking in a masculine spirit to do things with all their might. Consequently their strength doesn't increase because they don't exert themselves to the fullest.

Paul, this is a hard truth that includes reduced hand size among young men. i have had young women become obsessed with my hands because they are thrilled by being touched by hands that are twice their own hand mass. My hands are slightly large for a man my size and age and are slight compared to old carpenters and such. It is a facet in the reduction of mating between young people—that the extreme attraction of extreme opposites do not occur on the primal basis. There seem to be many social factors. Being a selfish man of bad character, i am content to take advantage of this deficit by heroically throwing myself into the yawning breech!

Most men in their twenties that I train lack the grit to break a sweat. I have met a man who fought in Brazil who is dedicating his time to training young men in grappling, boxing and fitness. He is a leader like Sean, which is the only answer, i think, for this problem. Positive, gritty personalities, leaders, rather than sideline coaches, who step up to push and pull weaker men, will make stronger ken.