It is actually some place between 27 and 28 years. I have taught in 5 states, at a variety of levels and have been fortunate to have been around many people far smarter than I will ever be. Ask away.
The first first time I walked into a gym my goal was to be a fighter but, when I saw the guys teaching boxing, it was the most fascinating thing I had ever seen. The man that I saw was Tony Cerda and I would watch him, then go home and teach my little sister and the neighborhood kids what I saw him doing. So he was my first favorite. When I started teaching it seriously and reading about the great trainers, I began to develop my own ideas and practices. I was about a dozen years in when I first heard of Jack Hurley and what I read of his philosophy and his way of teaching was so similar to mine that it was uncanny. He has been my favorite for about 15 years. You learn from everybody, though. I think that my partner in the boxing game is as good a trainer as anyone out there today. My personal preference is for trainers that are more teachers than cheerleaders or conditioning coaches.
how do you think boxers from other eras would have done with some of the current scientific advances as far as pre workout and recovery supplements that these strength and conditioning coaches bring to the table for modern guys? clearly whoever handles that aspect of reynosos team is onto something as alvarez continues to look stronger and so did garcia and valdez.
What is emphasized has changed over the years. It used to be that, once you learned the basics in the gym and acquired the foundation of your conditioning in the gym, you polished and honed both by fighting regularly. You fought yourself sharp. The emphasis now is on gym work because even guys coming up have pretty long periods of time between fights. So you have s&c guys devising conditioning programs that try to prepare you to fight, and, instead of fighting a 4 or 6 or 8 round fight every week, you go hard in sparring every week. I don't see how it would have hurt the old time guys to have access to to these things but I don't know if it would have made a difference either. There is such a big difference in the approach to training and preparation when you are fighting twice a month as opposed to fighting twice a year.
What are the most common mistakes noobs tend to make? Once somebody has the fundamentals down and aren't prone to those same glaring errors what are the most difficult techniques to teach and improve upon?
The biggest thing that almost every single person makes when they start boxing is trying too hard. They tense up and that makes everything much more difficult than it needs to be. Another thing that takes time is accepting that a punch has very little to do with the hands and arms and much more to do with transferring weight on your feet and turning your hips. I spend a lot of time on that because I teach that the motion of slipping punches is the same motion as throwing punches. For example, slipping inside a jab is the exact same movement as throwing a right hand. To take that a step further, the motions you make to block punches are the same (without the moving of the arms) as throwing punches. Two examples...your opponent throws a right hand and you turn your body like throwing a left hook and pick up your left hand; you have just deflected his shot off your shoulder and set up your right hand. He throws a hook and you turn your body like you are throwing a right; you block his punch with your right shoulder and set up your left hook. That's my long winded way of saying that all of those things are very basic fundamental parts of boxing. And it goes into how I teach "advanced" moves. Because boxing is a simple game in that even the most advanced move is just a couple simple things strung together. If you are doing something and it is difficult to do, or physically demanding, you are doing it wrong because you are looking for maximum impact results with minimal expenditure. What is advanced is the thought process and the mental energy that is required to set up the moves I teach. If you are relying on reflexes or luck....it is much easier to avoid getting hit and to hit him if you know what he is going to do. So the most difficult thing to teach and improve upon is the mental aspect, to get a guy into the habit of always thinking and planning and setting traps.
Do you think it's better for a newbie to spar pretty much at the beginning, or do you think its better for him to train a few months before doing so?
My preference is that the fighter train for a few weeks first, so that he is comfortable with catching the jab, blocking a right hand. Some catch on quicker than others. When I was in Oklahoma City one of the amateurs that I helped out- I showed him how to put his hands up- learned fast and worked hard. In 6 weeks he could move forward and back, circle in either direction, had a reliable jab and right hand, and he could catch a jab and counter, and roll a right hand and counter. He had sparred probably 10 rounds, that I saw and most of those were very structured.
