Email from Cultured Thug Paul Bing Ham:

Rooms are booked. We have the four rooms booked at this time plus conference room we used previously.

My question is how much time do you recommend devoting to the slip bag. I set a timer and do 6-10 minutes daily now and it seems to be helping a lot.

Thanks.

PS: Tyler from Canada just texted me and is thinking he will be coming.

Paul,

A Slip mag or maze ball, should be used, by short fighters like you, for one round each training session that you will be fighting. Use a 3 minute timer.

My basic recommend is 3 rounds each:

-Shadow

-Maze Ball

-Double ended bag or reflex bag

-Heavy bag

-Skip rope

-Speed bag

-Rope/wall/corner check and slide drills

That, sir, is 21 rounds. I like that as a basic, twice a week.

Once a week just work the heavy bag for 9 rounds in cycles

#1 Slow, form checking, one punch at a time, with motion. Every punch is used to improve position! Ever punch, with a slide, weave, fade, check slide, rock slide, roll, safety pivot, etc.

#2 Moderate speed combination with movement.

#3 High speed combinations with movement.

Repeat this cycle two times. If the shoulders, elbows, etc., are still good, do a third cycle. I like this only 1 day a week. Also, try doing the first cycle as slaps, the second cycle with light bag gloves, the third with old competition gloves.

Weekly Training I Like

2 days the entire cycle

1 day 6 to 9 round bag training

1 day should just be shadow with the maze ball

1 day just sparring and shadow with the maze ball.

That is 5 days, enough for a working man

peace,

j

Second Email

How to fight someone who fights similar to Sean but obviously with less experience.

So I'm in charge of hard sparring with the promising amateur prospects as they learn to jab and lose weight to their normal weight class. I actually successfully mugged this guy in light sparring, this past week. Got completely behind him and very lightly tapped him with an uppercut directly to the spine. Just a touch.

But he is a very wily guy who learns quickly and has good coaching and lots of shadow boxing. [Lots of shadow boxing—the shadows are your friend, you cagey Injun. The maze ball can be part of every shadow session by moving around, slapping it to get it to move, work on getting in and out of trouble and back to the mirror or shadow reference. Use heavy bags for shadow as will, check it and let it swing and box around it.]

Two days later in heavy sparring, his lateral movement improved and he was walking me down and cutting the ring off. He is fat Hispanic orthodox version of Sean. Thank goodness he hasn't learned to switch hit yet. When he leans down he will probably fight at light heavy weight. He has a good cross guard but when I caught him with left hooks twice he kept up his high guard very well after that.

I think he represents the type of fighter I still have the most trouble sparring, very relaxed, doesn't blink and is somehow hard to hit when he's pressuring. My takeaway from that sparring session was that I needed to throw more combinations. 1-2-1s and 1-2-3-1s have been my go to, since man weekend, using the high blind right which you recommended.

[Lets go 1-1-2-1 your three ones being blind, sneaky and power]

I have frustrated multiple Mexican pressure fighters with the 1-2-1 over and over again by following your instructions and drilling the rear hand jab as the coaches let me basically use them for target practice because they are trying to teach them to jab their way in. More recently they no longer allow me to spar with the Hispanic fighters unless they outweigh me by ten pounds or more (still under 200 pounds).

[Sir, that is a compliment! I love the inherent racism of boxing!]

Update: Second heavy sparring session.

He was doing well until the junior coach, who is a golden gloves champion, but still a young amateur, decided to give him some advice, (he's not allowed to coach the adults). He told the big Mexican to stop walking me down and make me come to him.

[This guy must be black.]

That was a stroke of luck for me. I jabbed him into countering, and rattled his teeth in three consecutive exchanges with the right hand you recommended, followed by a shovel hook to the body.

He went back to walking me down.

I got on the inside and we did some wrassling but somehow it was him landing the sneaky shots though I did get some off at close range.

[You tend to stall in the clinch, probably from wrassling those horses. Do not clinch in sparring until you work with Sean and I again.]

Until next session I must drill and practice to stop him walking me down. He has a block head and until he loses another twenty pounds of fat in it, my punches definitely hurt him but they don't incapacitate him like the smaller fitter middle weights and light heavy weights. Any advice you can offer would be much appreciated.

Best

PB

Coaching Tips

Good job dealing with a bad assistant coach. Power jab—power, hard, three-quarter fist jab. Set it up by throwing the blind jab like you are fearful of him, to get him to walk into your power jab. Throw the blind jab and make sure it does not score. Then, throw the sneaky jab, thumb up, at his nose, falling short. By now you should have your lead foot, because you move it with each jab, with 70-90% of weight on rear foot, calibrated.

If he stands there, hit the power jab to the chin/nose.

If he backs up “chase” him with the sneaky or blind jab. Use these two based on range. One is longer than the power jab, the other shorter. The power jab is the middle range, it is walking in artillery: solid shot and grape shot, to fix his position for the canister.

Ideally he steps into your jab and you nail it, then step off.

If he does not step in, then pester him with blind jab touches, short high sneaky jabs that rise. Don’t hit him lightly with the power jab. Let him walk into it. So long as he backs up or side steps, set up a score with the sneaky jab and get to his side. When he is moving to his left, be there waiting with your left. Catch his jab with your right and slam him with the power jab. Get better at calibrating your lead foot and weight shift then use this to walk him into your jabs. You want to power jab him when he is punching or moving in.

No wrestling! Slide around. You score sneaky jab, that sets sneaky right, rising punches for the chin and nose, than slide to his side and shovel hook left and chop with the short right.

Do not hit him with the three-quarter power jab, except when he steps after you, so that he does not get the range. Practice blind and sneaky alternating jabs as you slide to both sides, as you fake, feint, advance and retreat. Do go straight back, so that he eats it. Then, go side stepping and pepper him.

We will work on this in Saint Louis.

Peace & Punishment.

J