Bagwork critique

I stopped posting in this sub forum entirely as it appears that every thread is a Sin circle jerk or people getting resentful of sound advice that doesn't jive with his style.

Not everyone needs a 12 minute tutorial on how to make a fist, and truth be told, keeping your hands up can actually be really beneficial.

It's tiring.

Edit: I should add that this isn't a dig at Louis, the OP, or anyone else posting in the thread. It just seems that more often than not there is one accepted school of thought here and all others are dismissed, insulted, or turned into a running "keep your hands up" joke. Sin is a good coach, but he isn't the only good coach on the boards.

If you're going to imply that I have an iron-curtain of mentality around here, at least have the Courtesy to spell my name right. ;)

However, you might want to actually read the things I am a proponent of before deciding that there's too much me going on. This is one thread, there are plenty others every day that I do not post nor give any feedback in. I've never once said "keep the hands down" or anything of the sort. There's plenty of other approaches of fighting that I speak highly of on a routine basis. I've also refrained from suggesting things to people who are trained by others in that I do not want to step on other trainer's toes.

Just as apizur has every right to feel the way he does regardless of who disagrees, people have the right to like other approaches. Even ones I don't particularly teach. There's no sound reason to exile yourself out of any resentment.
 
Let's please bring this thread back to it's original purpose.

Discipulpopadopalous (that'd be your name if you were greek):

Have you played around with bringing your hand back to its starting point when you throw a double jab?

On some of your double jabs the hand is left out there after the first jab (i suspect you're doing this in anticipation of controlling the opponent and maintaining distance) but my question is have you tried to fire off 2 stiff jabs from the same starting position...and if so, what difference(s) do you feel?
 
If you're going to imply that I have an iron-curtain of mentality around here, at least have the Courtesy to spell my name right. ;)

Doh! My bad.

However, you might want to actually read the things I am a proponent of before deciding that there's too much me going on. This is one thread, there are plenty others every day that I do not post nor give any feedback in. I've never once said "keep the hands down" or anything of the sort. There's plenty of other approaches of fighting that I speak highly of on a routine basis. I've also refrained from suggesting things to people who are trained by others in that I do not want to step on other trainer's toes.

Understandable to a large degree. My comments were not about you soap-boxing in this forum, but more the heard mentality that follows whenever your name/style/teachings come up. Seriously, for a good 6 months I could swear the only thing anyone needed to know about boxing could be found in your tile exercise with all the comments about it! You mention that mitt work isn't a be all-end all, and one out of every three threads talks about a bad trainer that "only holds mitts". I don't know if you see at all where I'm coming from, but it really is the way of the stand-up forum.

Just as apizur has every right to feel the way he does regardless of who disagrees, people have the right to like other approaches. Even ones I don't particularly teach. There's no sound reason to exile yourself out of any resentment.

Not resentment, just doesn't seem worth dealing with the pitch forks and torches at times. Talking about a contrasting style here feels like talking about how great Sprite is in a Coke forum at times. Go as far as give harsh feedback to someone who has any sort of connection to your training at all, and forget about it!

As I said before, you're a good trainer and I don't have any issue with what you or anyone else does around here. Just seems that people can't get passed the idea that branching out beyond one coach's approach may actually provide some benefit.
 
I don't think there will be a lot of torches and pitchforks if any alternative methods make sense. At least, there won't be if anyone is actually LISTENING to me. I actually don't even want to be the only trainer at my own Gym, let alone around here.
 
Understandable to a large degree. My comments were not about you soap-boxing in this forum, but more the heard mentality that follows whenever your name/style/teachings come up. Seriously, for a good 6 months I could swear the only thing anyone needed to know about boxing could be found in your tile exercise with all the comments about it! You mention that mitt work isn't a be all-end all, and one out of every three threads talks about a bad trainer that "only holds mitts". I don't know if you see at all where I'm coming from, but it really is the way of the stand-up forum.

To be fair, this is not really Sinister's fault. Its just what happens when you have an echo...
 
Man, I came here to watch Connor do some bag work, and 9 pages later, I'm glazing over...:rolleyes:

Anyway, Connor, great work man. Looking good. Congrats on the weight loss, you're looking great.

Fight however makes you feel comfortable. Whatever you think works for you ultimately may or may not be a good fit, but that is your choice to make. It's a fun journey too.

Sorry I didn't catch it if you mentioned before, how long have you been at this?
 
Arthur Abraham always looked fairly stationary, though. But he was as tough as a tank and had a punch like an 8lb gun. So even though he lacked in evasive movement, walking guys down from behind his arms, waiting for them to tire out or make a big mistake, then dropping bombs on them worked out very well.

Thank you for the advice that will be my new tactic :)
 
It's kind of hard to justify both of those guys' top ten rankings at this point, so not the best examples.
Yeah it's really hard to justify a guy's top 10 ranking who's only loss is in the last 5 years is a razor thin decision to the guy currently ranked #3 in the UFC's rankings.

Delusional.
 
I think you should keep that lead hand up. You can still be a pressure fighter, you'll probably just get hit less often.
 
Man, I came here to watch Connor do some bag work, and 9 pages later, I'm glazing over...:rolleyes:

Anyway, Connor, great work man. Looking good. Congrats on the weight loss, you're looking great.

Fight however makes you feel comfortable. Whatever you think works for you ultimately may or may not be a good fit, but that is your choice to make. It's a fun journey too.

Sorry I didn't catch it if you mentioned before, how long have you been at this?

You're spot on about the dire need for more experience with opponents. I'm in talks with a few people right now about organizing some training sessions so that I can work on these things before tossing myself back into one of the local boxing gyms where they'll just have me spar hard. I'd love to be able to step into hard sparring and hold my own with this style of boxing, but I need to build up to that.

I think I've probably been doing this in some form or another for six years now.

Yeah it's really hard to justify a guy's top 10 ranking who's only loss is in the last 5 years is a razor thin decision to the guy currently ranked #3 in the UFC's rankings.

Delusional.

Rankings aren't based on a lack of losses so much as they are on wins, and it is hard to justify a top 10 ranking with one's best wins being over Nate Marquardt and Lim Hyun Gyu, both unranked at welterweight. And the Marquardt win was a year and a half ago.

I'm not dissing Saffiedine. I love his style. But he's not nearly active enough to be in the top 10 right now. He could easily be in there with another win over a top 15 opponent, but he hasn't done enough to earn it in the current welterweight landscape.
 
I gave my retort BECAUSE its a public forum. Your level of irritation is unimportant to me, what is important to me is when someone (you) make an erroneous assumption of something derived from me, and then implied that my approval of a technique should be ignored. This IS a public board, so if someone (you) is mistaken about a principal of mine, I'm going to say so. Don't like it? P.M. me directly about it. But this is not the first time you've ever come down on Connor specifically, and if you're going to on what I feel is a misrepresentation, or misinterpretation of something that reflects on me, then I'm going to say something.

Once again, let Connor take care of Connor's relationships. He's a capable, decision making adult.

You don't have to disagree directly with people, but running around behind them posting "arbitrary" posts about overlying theory that "disproves" what they have to say is a passive aggressive way of doing the same thing.

EDIT: If you're really bent up about this, go ahead and quote the part where I start off on this notion that reflects on you incorrectly... cuz nothing is coming to mind. Perhaps there's more misinterpretation than you think.
 
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I would say place performance over personal comfort. If you have to spar hard go in there and punish them, shoulder charge into corners and let out power combos. Mix it up if they really rock you man, leg kicks and elbows, stiff arms and head butts. Get dirty, because beating on someone without conditioning or experience is worse, sparring is supposed to be a learning tool you won't be learning much of anything just getting knocked around like a vaj.
 
I stopped posting in this sub forum entirely as it appears that every thread is a Sin circle jerk or people getting resentful of sound advice that doesn't jive with his style.

Not everyone needs a 12 minute tutorial on how to make a fist, and truth be told, keeping your hands up can actually be really beneficial.

It's tiring.

Edit: I should add that this isn't a dig at Louis, the OP, or anyone else posting in the thread. It just seems that more often than not there is one accepted school of thought here and all others are dismissed, insulted, or turned into a running "keep your hands up" joke. Sin is a good coach, but he isn't the only good coach on the boards.

I agree with this post. I have pointed it out in the past as well. Sin is a good trainer, but the herd mentality, worship, and parroting gets really annoying. Not all boxing needs to be backfoot heavy, hands low, straight posture, and strong hip shifts.

Connor: I'm going to give some different advice. I think you look way too mechanical in your movements. You are trying to do things too exaggerated that they don't come off as natural, and is probably the big reason why you have trouble using it in sparring. It's almost like you are doing Kata forms but of boxing techniques. You are so focused on getting full shifts to the left and right, getting full motion on certain techniques that it just looks completely unnatural. You should try and incorporate more flow and smoothness into your movements.

I also think you are too back foot heavy, but I feel the same way about most of Sin's guys. I think it limits your movement, the angles you can create, and your ability to bait your opponent.

Apizur: I think you have a serious bias against the low lead hand haha. I actually think that the rear hand glove, palm out, put over the face diagonally is enough to create a passive defense, you don't need both the left and the right.

I think the left is better off probing outside to stuff the opponents attacks, threatening with the jab, defending the body, and otherwise being sneaky from below.
 
I agree with this post. I have pointed it out in the past as well. Sin is a good trainer, but the herd mentality, worship, and parroting gets really annoying. Not all boxing needs to be backfoot heavy, hands low, straight posture, and strong hip shifts.

Connor: I'm going to give some different advice. I think you look way too mechanical in your movements. You are trying to do things too exaggerated that they don't come off as natural, and is probably the big reason why you have trouble using it in sparring. It's almost like you are doing Kata forms but of boxing techniques. You are so focused on getting full shifts to the left and right, getting full motion on certain techniques that it just looks completely unnatural. You should try and incorporate more flow and smoothness into your movements.

I also think you are too back foot heavy, but I feel the same way about most of Sin's guys. I think it limits your movement, the angles you can create, and your ability to bait your opponent.

Apizur: I think you have a serious bias against the low lead hand haha. I actually think that the rear hand glove, palm out, put over the face diagonally is enough to create a passive defense, you don't need both the left and the right.

I think the left is better off probing outside to stuff the opponents attacks, threatening with the jab, defending the body, and otherwise being sneaky from below.

Lol, I don't, I don't. I promise. I'm just noting the total lack of high guard. Even I'm trying to learn to use a low lead hand shoulder roll defense against the right, because I know it will open up different opportunities counter offensively.

I think your Kata analogy is dead on.
 
I agree with this post. I have pointed it out in the past as well. Sin is a good trainer, but the herd mentality, worship, and parroting gets really annoying. Not all boxing needs to be backfoot heavy, hands low, straight posture, and strong hip shifts.

I also think you are too back foot heavy, but I feel the same way about most of Sin's guys. I think it limits your movement, the angles you can create, and your ability to bait your opponent.

Apizur: I think you have a serious bias against the low lead hand haha. I actually think that the rear hand glove, palm out, put over the face diagonally is enough to create a passive defense, you don't need both the left and the right.

I think the left is better off probing outside to stuff the opponents attacks, threatening with the jab, defending the body, and otherwise being sneaky from below.

I don't get this. First of all, proper shifting and good posture aren't really things that you can argue aren't correct. If you aren't good at one of those things, then getting better at them will make you better at boxing period. Beyond that, even Sin doesn't go around saying weight back and hands low are necessary or best at all times or anything. I feel like his position is being misrepresented. Plus there are plenty of good posters who will disagree with him, argue or just simply prefer different styles and approaches. It seems to me that this is meant to be directed at a specific poster (probably nuke) or maybe a few ones and not the forum as a whole. In fact, I think it's insulting to the fighters and trainers who post in the forum offering unique insight on a variety of topics that connect to Sin in literally no way.

Maybe this comes from a few arguments that have taken place, specifically the one about lineage, but I think it's unfair. I'm not trying to say that there isn't a lot of love for him around here, but it seems like a couple high profile incidents and annoying posters are causing you to make inaccurate generalizations.
 
You are so focused on getting full shifts to the left and right, getting full motion on certain techniques that it just looks completely unnatural. You should try and incorporate more flow and smoothness into your movements.

In retrospective, it is probably the best advice in this thread ...
 
You're spot on about the dire need for more experience with opponents. I'm in talks with a few people right now about organizing some training sessions so that I can work on these things before tossing myself back into one of the local boxing gyms where they'll just have me spar hard. I'd love to be able to step into hard sparring and hold my own with this style of boxing, but I need to build up to that.

I think I've probably been doing this in some form or another for six years now.

I would suggest just getting more time in a gym in general. Be around the environment/ atmosphere. I generally don't recommend hard sparring unless you are getting ready for a fight. (Not sure if you are looking to get matches.)

Most importantly, get in a gym, find a guy/guys that are around your weight, and get lots of of light to mild sparring. Hard sparring doesn't really let you test the things you are looking to cement as part of your style. During light sparring, you can test stuff, work on defense, work on your offensive options while not being so concerned about getting hit hard. Hard/semi-serious sparring is the reason you shell up under duress, rather than confidently applying your defensive knowledge to the current situation.

Getting more time with an able body that is also under the understanding that development, rather than exposition of technique under stress, is the point of your sparring, is just really, really valuable.

Anyway, you are making me want to post videos of myself, but I don't want to embarrass myself hahah. I see a lot of talented guys on here and it really puts things into perspective for me... I have so far to go...:icon_sad:
 
I agree with this post. I have pointed it out in the past as well. Sin is a good trainer, but the herd mentality, worship, and parroting gets really annoying. Not all boxing needs to be backfoot heavy, hands low, straight posture, and strong hip shifts.

The funny thing about this is that the appearance of some sort of "cult" mentality is only furthered by the half of the forum that soundly rejects all of these principles out of hand. That adverserial attitude actually fosters a divide and furthers it once it has been created. People who parrot Lu (I hope I don't come off as one of these "parrots" even though I do espouse Luis' principles of boxing) are only as responsible for the situation you mention as people who feel an inbuilt need to be contrarian.

This should be a place where all valid ideas are welcome and discussed. I know that Lu's own gym is like that, and I spend a lot of time pointing out the value in techniques that I personally would never use in my work for BE. Open-mindedness is very important. That doesn't mean we all have to agree--what a boring forum it would be then--but we all need to be willing to listen to each other.

Connor: I'm going to give some different advice. I think you look way too mechanical in your movements. You are trying to do things too exaggerated that they don't come off as natural, and is probably the big reason why you have trouble using it in sparring. It's almost like you are doing Kata forms but of boxing techniques. You are so focused on getting full shifts to the left and right, getting full motion on certain techniques that it just looks completely unnatural. You should try and incorporate more flow and smoothness into your movements.

I also think you are too back foot heavy, but I feel the same way about most of Sin's guys. I think it limits your movement, the angles you can create, and your ability to bait your opponent.

Apizur: I think you have a serious bias against the low lead hand haha. I actually think that the rear hand glove, palm out, put over the face diagonally is enough to create a passive defense, you don't need both the left and the right.

I think the left is better off probing outside to stuff the opponents attacks, threatening with the jab, defending the body, and otherwise being sneaky from below.

I can see what you're saying about the robotic nature of some of my movements. The thing is, they've become that way because I've basically been teaching them to myself. Of course I've had lots of input from Luis and from other forum members, but literally the only in-person boxing instruction I've received in the last year amounts to "put your hands up." My last coach did point out that I looked stiff on the bag, and instead of helping me to fix it, mocked me for being an "MMA fighter," whatever the fuck that means, and then used me to build up his other heavyweight for an upcoming fight (he also made that guy miss a mandatory carpentry class so that he could be well-rested enough for an amateur bout that, ultimately, means nothing).

This is really why I'm trying to cultivate my own training environment until I have enough money saved up to go out and train with Luis in person, which is what I really want to do.

So, like I said, as soon as I get the chance to get some partner work in I'll post it here.
 
I would suggest just getting more time in a gym in general. Be around the environment/ atmosphere. I generally don't recommend hard sparring unless you are getting ready for a fight. (Not sure if you are looking to get matches.)

Most importantly, get in a gym, find a guy/guys that are around your weight, and get lots of of light to mild sparring. Hard sparring doesn't really let you test the things you are looking to cement as part of your style. During light sparring, you can test stuff, work on defense, work on your offensive options while not being so concerned about getting hit hard. Hard/semi-serious sparring is the reason you shell up under duress, rather than confidently applying your defensive knowledge to the current situation.

Getting more time with an able body that is also under the understanding that development, rather than exposition of technique under stress, is the point of your sparring, is just really, really valuable.

Anyway, you are making me want to post videos of myself, but I don't want to embarrass myself hahah. I see a lot of talented guys on here and it really puts things into perspective for me... I have so far to go...:icon_sad:

This is precisely what I want. I actually enjoy being in the gym, but the gym I was at just flat-out didn't have light or even moderate sparring. I was getting drilled in the head without even getting a chance to get reaccustomed to the environment. Coaches around here don't see any value in light sparring. It's all trial-by-fire, which I am not a fan of. I'm not trying to lose brain cells and not even learn anything in the process.

As for partner work, I'm trying to put this together right now.
 
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