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4.18.2018

Pruning the decision tree, retrieving the shears, and finding a point

Pruning the decision tree: The first drill we did tried to work skills to set-up reaction. If you use one or two longer range techniques, such as a jab, jab-cross, kick, jab kick, your opponent will either be hit or react. If you do it again they will typically counter. On your third application, you should then be able to pick up their counter and find the opening it presents. It is critical to move in, deliver your opener, and move out to read the response. The move in to deliver the opener and react to the likely response. The entire point is that, in a fight you have to create reaction in order to land effectively. You have to be brave enough to place the opening bet but patient enough to grow the pot. You have to cultivate your pitch before you seal the deal. In other words play the long game to find the rapid victory.

Retrieving the shears: The second drill we did tried to explain how to regain momentum, when someone is deliver their opener pushing you toward the ropes, how to recover the action. In it we tried to read the first opener and react to the second, pivot stepping or countering to shift momentum toward your opponent. Key to this is interrupting your opponents striking and striking to push them into the ropes. The fight swings on a pendulum the fighter who controls the angle and speed of it’s swing is most likely to win.

What’s the point when my technique fails: The point is to learn, to grow, to try something new, to realize the limits if your knowledge and work to develop to a higher level, to conquer fear, to realize the lesson inside the fight in the gym is not one of win or lose but how adversity can be challenged and we can become better complete human beings because of it. The point is that that job you want, that raise you need, and that girl you like aren’t going to punch you in the face (and if they do not with a fraction of the power I can), so go for it.