"MY LESSONS WITH THE MASTERS..." Ari Kandel's personal training blog. #19

Recently, I've gotten to experience some of John Perkins' "Combat Boxing" method.

In my view, despite the title "Combat Boxing," the method really has very little to do with Western Boxing. It's basically Guided Chaos applied exclusively through clenched fists and impact, as opposed to the "regular" Guided Chaos that uses the whole body in any way possible to destroy the enemy via impact as well as other modes such as pushing, pulling, breaking, off-balancing, gouging, ripping, etc. In other words, the "delivery system" is Guided Chaos, but the tools are limited.

From being on the receiving end, I can tell you this: Combat Boxing HURTS!!! Every impact, be it on your arms, body or head (lightly in training), involves an internal drop delivered through any part of the fist, forearm or elbow. It's not slow nor particularly flowing. The body remains "yin" to evade and generate force from any position through a solid yet mobile root, but every instance of contact is "yang," causing pain, knocking guarding limbs out of the way, disrupting balance and blasting through jaws and ribs. Incoming limbs are destroyed with hammerfists, forearms and elbows. Especially when John is doing it, there is no typical boxing stance or lead, as the whole body drops instantly from one lead to the other to thread collosal shots into tiny openings. Often a fast series of short, chopping punches and hammerfists paves the way and sets up the opponent (getting him off-balance and knocking his guard wide open) for a huge head-busting punch or three. Virtually every shot delivered with the internal drop to any target (even the arms) effectively "freezes" the recipient's body for a split second, allowing the next shot (and many thereafter) to come in unopposed, unless the recipient can remain very loose and "bounce" off the impacts to maintain balance, protect himself and counterattack. Combat Boxing is not about long-distance sniping, sticking and moving, but about blasting in quickly for the knockout.

John has begun teaching this method to Andre, a very talented Guided Chaos 3rd degree black belt whose experience as a boxing instructor makes him a Combat Boxing natural. It's very frustrating for me when Andre transitions into Combat Boxing during contact flow, because at my present level of skill, I'm left with nothing to work with. Every contact hurts and sets me up to fail. John demonstrates that the only systematic way to "defeat Combat Boxing" is to use high-level Guided Chaos to immediately smother the Combat Boxer's movements, sticking so closely that he is unable to pull off even the shortest shots. From there, the Guided Chaos practitioner can disrupt the Combat Boxer's balance, move in and end it. (Of course, I usually don't have much luck dealing with Andre's "plain old" Guided Chaos during contact flow. Even so, at least then I'm not in CONSTANT pain!)

With Andre's help, John is working on training methods to teach Combat Boxing. The August 25 Combat Boxing seminar promises to be something very special. . . .