Coach Ian – Week in Review 11/14/2021
Book I’m Reading
Damage: The Untold Story of Brain Trauma in Boxing by Tris Dixon
Thirty Dollars and a Cut Eye by J Russell Peltz
Run Streak and Running Goals:
Progress: As of 11/14/21, I’ve now run 1,338 miles for the year, while maintaining my 318-day run streak.
Canelo Alvarez vs Caleb Plant:
This fight went exactly as I expected it to, yet I still walked away impressed with Canelo Alvarez.
One of the themes that I have been focusing on with our fighters is defense while applying pressure. We often do 30-30 drills, where one fighter stays “offense only” and the partner is working “defense only” and they switch every 30 seconds. The natural tendency for fighters in this drill is to retreat when on defense and come forward on offense. I challenge our fighters on the defensive end of the drill to still continue to come forward while moving their head, and trying to get angles and put themselves in position to punch.
Like Shakur Stevenson two weeks before him, Canelo Alvarez spent the entire fight coming forward while staying defensively responsible. He applied pressure efficiently, cutting the ring off instead of chasing Caleb around in circles. While Caleb Plant may have won some early rounds, I had the same feeling that I did against Billy Joe Saunders – that Canelo would eventually wear his fighter down and score a stoppage. Unlike Canelo’s early days, where he could not effectively cut off the ring against Floyd Mayweather or Erislandy Lara, Canelo now puts pressure on his opponents without much wasted energy.
Even during this hilarious exchange between Caleb Plant and Canelo Alvarez, Canelo is quietly closer to Caleb Plant than he would like. Caleb Plant never really got to fight Canelo at the range he would have preferred – a little further on the outside and that took a toll on him in the later rounds.
It’s easy to look at the final left hook that staggered Caleb Plant in the 11th round, but the writing was on the wall earlier than that. A lot of times these beautiful knockouts are set up with the subtle things that are occurring earlier and building throughout the fight.
Related things to study:
Canelo Alvarez – Defensive Slips and Rolls on Youtube: Notice how Canelo is not “running”. He uses his defense, but is often still coming forward or remains in position to punch.
Willie Pep winning a round without LANDING a punch (Read the full caption!): The infamous story of Willie Pep wining a round without landing a punch. However, many people mistake this story for Willie not throwing a punch. He definitely threw punches, but purposely threw punches that were blocked and took complete control of his opponent in the ring. Willie Pep was a master of ring generalship, and I’m certain his defense and footwork would take him out of harms way, but in position to land counters. This is far different from spending the entire 3 minutes of a round circling and avoiding getting hit. Unfortunately, we don’t have any footage of this fight!
This Week at Dreamland Boxing:
Boxing Lesson of the Week: Throwing your Cross Off Rhythm
Health Share of the Week #1: $50 Off the Oura Ring!
Use my link above to get $50 Off the Oura ring and 6-months FREE Oura membership!
Health Share of the Week #2: Vitamin D supplementation and COVID-19
https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/113/5/1275/6123965
Coach Ian’s Classes:
As you may know, I am currently donating my time to host virtual online boxing classes for the members of our 501c(3) non-profit boxing gym, Dreamland Boxing. As an active member of Dreamland, you will receive the materials and video recaps of each lesson through my website under the “Premium Drills” section.
Dreamland has also increased its outdoor capacity to 16 students per class, and lifted limits on how many classes you can sign up for in a week. Join me for a class on Fridays at 4:30PM!
Our practices this week featured the following:
- Defense while putting pressure
- Rolling and closing distance
- Shovel hooks
- Footwork
- How to hold mitts
- Body weight circuits
- Balance drills
- And more!
You can view our full practices here.
Reminder:
You must be a registered member to sign up for a class, you cannot just drop-in! If you are a current member, you will receive a sign-up link to reserve your time slot every Saturday. Reserve right away because slots fill up quick (by Monday)!!
If no slots are available, sign up for the waitlist and you will be notified if any slots open up.
Visit http://www.dreamlandboxing.org or email dreamlandboxing7@gmail.com for more information on how to sign up today!
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