Adam Haniver [00:00:22]: Okay, so I've got Tobias Horn, who is a striking coach from La Familia Fight Club based in Erfurt in Germany, if I said that correctly. Erfurt in Germany and also the host of Philosophy of Fighting on Instagram. We sort of stumbled upon each other quite recently in fact, and found that we've got, I'd say a lot of alignedinterests in how we coach and what our thoughts are about how we coach around combat sports. Welcome, mate. And would you like to just give yourself an introduction even better than I have? Tobias Horn [00:01:02]: Yeah, hi, yeah, as I said, my name is Tobias. I'm from east side of Germany in a place where combat sports is rarely found. We don't have a good infrastructure in the state of Germany. Mostly I'm doing kickboxing since 13 years I think now I've been teaching on and off some days now. But now I'm teaching full time since I think around two years ago, teaching kickboxing and striking for mixed martial arts. I have studied philosophy, got a master's degree in philosophy. And that really influences my way of looking on combat sports in general and coaching. Adam Haniver [00:01:45]: We had a conversation recently, a week ago, maybe slightly over, just around ecological dynamics and why that appeals to you. So why are you using ecological dynamics more and more now when you're teaching striking? And second part of the question is why the change? Tobias Horn [00:02:02]: I think I can answer both parts of the question with a story. When I studied philosophy in my master's program, I wrote my master thesis on the works of Ruth Milliken, American philosopher. And she works on functions, functions of structures, of behaviours, of biological structures and stuff like that. And for her it's really important to see you can only understand the function. There are many different things that are important but in context to the environment and only there no, if you, if you isolate behaviour, you leave you lose touch to what is the function of this behaviour. So, and when I started teaching full time, I came right out from, from the studies and I wrote in my notebook, okay, you have to understand the things we do in striking in the context of the environment to find what it's the function is what the function is. And so you can teach it better. If you know what's the function of a behaviour, you can teach it better because you can, you can explain it better. So probably, as you see, this is half a step inside the ecological dynamics. And I think I stumbled on Reddit on a thread in the, in the BJJ Ecological Dynamics, Ecological BJJ, whatever these guys call it. And I was interested in it. So I study started researching it and it clicked for me intuitively with, with the things I thought about in studies. Adam Haniver [00:03:38]: So what, so what was that click then? So what, what do you see in your coaching which clicks that you've gone, wow, I think I can really apply a lot of this theory into my coaching practice. Tobias Horn [00:03:48]: I always had the problem. I was really technical coach, if you want to say that and give the guys and girls really in depth explanation what I want them to do and let them do it. And then I try to see this behaviour in sparring or competition. And it's never quite clicked, especially with the beginner guys. So I started teaching, Hey, I show you a combination or a movement, stuff like that. But this is only one way to do it because we want to have to change our environment basically. So you can, if you want to manipulate somebody's attention, you can go to the head, to the stomach and then to the head again to lower the guard. But there are tons of different combinations that have the same function. And I try to explain then, okay, the function of a jab is not only to hit somebody, you can measure distance, you can manipulate tension, all that stuff. And when I first read about ecological dynamics and invariant features, it was like, okay, it's like analysing a concept in philosophy. So what are the things that are that never change? If you look at the concept at the behaviour at my thing was in studies was truth. So what are the things when we're talking about sentence or truth? What does it mean? So what is on an elemental level to say about these things? Adam Haniver [00:05:17]: So we had a giggle about this last time, didn't we? That you can just look on Instagram and watch any boxing demonstration instructional. I think a lot of the Americans call them instructionals around this. And it's. It's a sequential thing of things that they say must happen for this to be correct. This must happen. This must happen. This, this must happen. So a kind of very sort of linear seven things must happen for this to be correct. And as we know, when it actually does happen in competition, you can see all these things aren't apparent. They aren't in place yet sometimes there still is success. So why do all these things kind of need to happen? So, so we. You mentioned invariant features. So things that always must happen. So let, let's take a bit of a dive into this. What would you say are, and obviously there's lots of different strikes and targets and lots of things that affect it. What would you say are invariant features of a straight punch? For example, if you're going to throw a jab or a straight backhand, what are the invariant features that must happen? And the rest is fluff. Tobias Horn [00:06:22]: Yeah, I think I can tell you what I think. And I think it's not just invariant features for a straight punch or a hook. They are also the invariant features for a kick, for most kicks, for uppercuts. Whatever you do, you have to do these three things I believe to be true to have an efficient strike. And it's. You generate energy from moving your centre of gravity, either rotating it or moving it in a straight line. Whatever you, you have to move your centre of gravity. So you ou generate kinetic energy. Then to transfer this energy from my body to your body, to your face, to your stomach, whatever, to your neck, we have to build a stable structure. Structure that is so stable that energy vectors don't go in different directions. So that's the reason I think we mostly turn in the hips and shoulder because we take our joints and build a stable frame. And the third part is concentrating this energy on a mostly small space to concentrate it to make damage. So that's the reason why we hit with the knuckles and why we hit with the shinbone and on the knee. Whatever ruleset you're fighting on. Adam Haniver [00:07:42]: So concentrating the energy within what you're striking with. It might would be my knuckle machine, elbow, whatever the sport is. Okay, so one, centre of gravity and the movement of the centre of gravity having a stable structure and three, directing this energy into a small space to transfer that energy onto the target that you selected. Okay, so they're your three when striking invariant features, things that can't change at all. So let's. So let's have a look at those then. So centre of gravity move. And I'm thinking amateur boxing now. Well, actually, I'm just thinking boxing in general. The amount of time, excuse me, the amount of times I see boxers falling over their front foot. So the centre of gravity is coming over their front toe, over their front knee, and leaving them in a position where they are simply having to recover their balance before they can even think about defence or attack. So they're in this kind of negative transition period of not being able to do any. Is that quite prevalent in your sport as well, this loss of balance? Tobias Horn [00:08:40]: Yeah, loss of balance. The, the invariant features of a strike that we talked about. Now I think they are backed up with three invariant features. Maybe not invariant features in a dynamical system sense, but more in a tactical sense. So to deliver a strike with these three variant features we just talked about, you have to have control about your balance. So if you lose control about your balance, and by control I mean you can shift your centre of gravity wherever you want at any given time. So it's not just standing there and not falling over you. You have to have the ability to change the position of your centre of gravity. Ducking, pivoting, side steps, whatever. Adam Haniver [00:09:23]: Sure. And so, and I think that depend on the physical capacities, capabilities, whatever you want to call it, for the boxer, that centre of gravity can move a little bit further away from the centre of gravity. That kind of, I suppose you might call it degrees of freedom, whatever you might call it, away from that centre of gravity still remains optimal, but it's for that person. When does it become no longer optimal where they are now going into a position where they're trying to recover balance as opposed to moving into a more favourable position? If that's what I'm hearing correctly from you. Tobias Horn [00:09:56]: Yeah. Adam Haniver [00:09:57]: Okay, so, right. So obviously boxers need to, I'm thinking boxing again now. They need to slip, they need to roll, they need to duck. You know, a lot of this probably comes from trunk defences, as we call them, or head movement. That centre of gravity, you know, the tree is swaying side to side. So there's more pressure on, on the centre of gravity and the roots. So there's more set. So when, so how would you go about when you're teaching something like maintaining centre of gravity or that kind of degrees around where they can move their centre of gravity? How do you go around sort of coaching that so boxers or athletes understand where that limit is where they're starting to actually lose that balance? How would you go around coaching that? Tobias Horn [00:10:39]: Yeah, I have a game for my beginners and I really, I play that every, every session as a warm up, a warm up game as well. Both, both guys or girls move around together. They allowed to work with their lead hand and one of the guys or girls puts down their guard and the other person is allowed to push them against their shoulders. And if they, their front foot has to move, that's an indicator for, for that they lost their balance. Okay. They are allowed to work with their back foot to push the energy out, but the front foot has to stay where it is. So, and if they lose, they lose their, their control. They have to do a penalty burpee or something. So on a basic level, it's just, can you absorb energy from a push? Okay, Your stance is nice and you have a feeling for, for a dynamical movement against the punch or something like that. And later on when I, when I show them how to duck or move, I tell them, don't move your centre of gravity on its own. Let the feet do the work. So as long as your feet do the work, your centre of gravity is mostly to stay in the middle between your stance. Adam Haniver [00:11:56]: Okay, like that. So, so you're actually introducing in perturbations to the system. So basically, rather than saying your feet need to be here, your balance needs to be here, this is how you need to stand. Well, how do they know that when someone's actually trying to move, push them off balance, lean on them, they need to be able to feel that move and they need to be able to adjust against those perturbations all the time. So actually having someone, again you're coupling someone who's trying to be uncooperative to get them off balance. So now it's about, okay, how, how do I get myself as balanced as possible when someone's actually other job and other purposes is to make me off balance. So how do we do that? And I think, I think we probably lose a lot of that, don't we, in traditional coaching where it's just, here's, this is what you need to do. Please keep to that. Or actually someone's trying to keep you off balance, they want you off balance as much as possible so they can strike and there's more opportunities for them to, or affordance to them, for them to act. Yeah. So I really, I really, really like that. So that makes a lot of sense to me. How do your athletes respond to that type of practice? Tobias Horn [00:12:58]: Most of the guys and girls really like that. Some are really interested still in traditional, more traditional way But I think it's a healthy mix. But most of the all the guys I work with and I prepare for competition really like this approach. So it's always live some different games and stuff like that. Adam Haniver [00:13:14]: Okay, great. So do you bring the kind of striking element into that quite a lot as well. So almost a way of making sure that you're trying to put boxer A off balance athlete, A off balance. But then at a certain point they do need to be able to strike to score. I've seen lots of games things like, you know, when the whistle goes, you've got a punch. And I'm not entirely sure that's great in terms of perception action because it's a different cue of course. But I do think there are elements there of it shifts their attention to "I need to be balanced all the time" because at the moment I might hear a whistle and I've got a punch. So I don't think it's the most representative of things that we could possibly do. But I do think there are ways of being able to draw attention to what are my feet doing? Where's my centre of gravity? You know that first invariant feature that you mentioned, the centre of gravity. And I just, I think we probably miss that a lot. We miss out that what's happening in my structure at the moment. Am I ready to attack and defend at any moment? And I like your game because I think it, it does bring that element of attentional focus. You know, you're shifting that attentional focus all the time to Am I ready? Am I ready? You know, so you're not boxing like a house of cards. Tobias Horn [00:14:28]: Yeah. And also it's nice for beginners because the one who gets pushed gives the starting signal. So they have to put their hands down. So it's not total chaos. They get pushed all around. They move around and then put your hands down. Now I get pushed. The guy who gets, gets pushed gives the starting signal. It's really nice to scale it down that regulate the chaos. Adam Haniver [00:14:52]: So they're still outward focusing, aren't they? They're still focusing on their opponent and seeing okay. It's not when they can act. Right. I think I understand that. Great. So love that number two, stable structures. Yeah, so stable structures being able to. So I suppose we get a little bit more biomechanical, if that is the right word to say how we generate force from the floor through the body onto the target area, which is obviously the third part sSmall spaces, stable structures. Tell me a little bit more about stable structures because I find this part fascinating because I'm really tall. I'm like 198 centimetres, so 6 foot 5. I'm really tall. So maybe my structure typically might not be as stable as a Mike Tyson type of structure. The centre gravity is low, that kind of stuff. I tend to have a bit more of a longer stance because I want to move my feet in and out and keep that gap as opposed to a wider stance where I'm moving laterally all the time. So I find this quite interesting because it's very person based and what their body type is like. So in terms of stable structure, what, what are you looking for with a stable structure? Tobias Horn [00:16:00]: Not much. In particular when I, when I give them cues, I mostly give cues for the upper body and when I talk to them about the lower body stable structure, I say it's, it has to be. You need a regulated or a dynamic, better dynamic tension in your lower legs. If you're hard as a rock and standing there, it's easy to push you over and if it's easy to push over, you're not. If you can't take the energy, you can't put the energy out efficiently. Right. So there as well. I have a game where I put a spot on the ground and partner A has to defend the spot, stand over it and partner B is moving outside the range and comes at any given time in a straight line to partner A. And partner A has to stop them with a fist or open palm, whatever, against the chest. If you can stop him or her. Okay, fine, you replay the game. But if he is able to run through your stretched out arm because your structure is not, not very stable, they conquer the spot on the ground and then they change positions. Adam Haniver [00:17:06]: Love that. Love that. I can see. I mean, obviously I'm watching you now. Everyone else will be in a podcast. I won't be able to see this, but I love that now. So I can see this attention shift into my feet. Need to be solid on the floor. I need to rotate, keep my arm as long as possible without falling forwards. As soon as you come into my range, I've got a solid base that's going to stop you invading my space and invading my balance. Yeah, a bit like a Dalek if you watch Doctor who. Tobias Horn [00:17:32]: Yeah. Adam Haniver [00:17:33]: So they're kind of like arm out there. Exterminate as you come in. Tobias Horn [00:17:36]: Right. Adam Haniver [00:17:37]: So keeping that nice and strong. Yeah. So I love that. I can see that very visually. That would work again, how do they sort of respond to that, your athletes? Tobias Horn [00:17:45]: For the beginner guys, they really love it. They really like it because they are in the, in the situation and it's really easy for them to understand. Okay, that is my range and that is how I deliver a strike efficiently. Because after that I typically play games around finding the range, long punching and that with my more advanced guys. I usually scale the game up to not defend the spot on the ground. But person B on the outside has the task to tag them with their feet on, on their feet. So step on the toes. So they have to move around, be light on their feet. But they are allowed to push against the chest to bring them off balance in the right, in the right distance. So they find their range and the stable structure in a moving context. Adam Haniver [00:18:33]: Brilliant. And they're not just moving their feet in and not worried about getting hit. They realize they've got to bring their feet in and worry that I will get caught if I'm not deceptive and moving my feet and not jumping in from too far out. Little things like that. Okay. So yeah, I love how that transfers. So I like the fact that you mentioned about the scaling part as well. So you can then go to your competing boxes or more experienced boxes. Right. I'm going to add this in but you're scaling it maybe to some lower level boxes a bit more beginners. You can take away some of that complexity and scale it down a little bit so that, that makes absolute sense to me. So yeah, I think that's fantastic. So would you use that game in the kind of like almost like a warm up and then progress it into kind of a technical spa or condition spa as the situation goes on? Tobias Horn [00:19:15]: Yeah. Adam Haniver [00:19:16]: Okay. Tobias Horn [00:19:16]: And I sometimes I bring in, bring in some warm ups, some warm up games that don't connect to the lesson as well but that have basic parts of striking that we need to have in mind. Like you said in your in your short episode be effective about warm up games. Here are all the basics we need for striking today. We talk about range management or whatever, but I want you as well to remember if somebody walks in a straight line at you, move out to the left or the right. Never, never go back in a straight line so you don't get into ropes and stuff like that. Adam Haniver [00:19:53]: So there's always, there's always invariant features in what you're doing anyway. It doesn't really matter about what your session outcome, if that is the right word to use what you're trying to do in that session, it doesn't matter because there's still invariant features that you're practicing within your warm ups. And that first part. So it's still related? Tobias Horn [00:20:11]: Yeah, it's still related. Adam Haniver [00:20:12]: Yeah, it's still related. It's always going to be in whatever movement solutions the boxes are finding. Brilliant. So third part, small spaces. And so directing that energy into small spaces. Tell me a little bit more about that. Tobias Horn [00:20:25]: So when we are talking about the 10-9 system, maybe not an amateur boxing per se, I would. But in all most other 10-9 point systems you have damage at the highest scoring category. Right. So we want to make damage. That's, that's the thing. Hit and don't get hit and deal damage. So basically and if you concentrate energy on a small space, you, you do more damage basically. Additionally to these small spaces you have to hit, hit them with a structure that, that don't break very easily. So the first three knuckles of the fist are the strongest bones in the, in the middle hand, I think I, my shin bone is much harder than my toes. Both are small structures but my shin bone is harder and doesn't break that easily. So I choose my chin bone to kick you and not my toes. There are possibilities to kick with the toes, don't get me wrong. But shinbone is probably safer. Adam Haniver [00:21:29]: And I'm thinking more out towards your neck of the woods now. So you know, and then going out towards kind of Eastern Europe as well. So if you look at the Russians, the Ukrainians as well, and I know there's an influence with Germany here as well is if I'm thinking about a long lead hook and I know this might sound a little bit possibly over technical but if we're talking about small spaces. So a long lead hook and again you can see everyone else can't. Is that turnover the shot. So you're making sure that you're hitting with the knuckle part but my, that this knuckle here, the one nearest to my thumb. So for those who try to picture this, I've got my left hand, my left thumb and the knuckle next to that. I'm not sure what that knuckle's called. It's like that's going first to ensure you're hitting with the knuckle part of the glove. And I know that I've seen a few Ukrainian coaches Talk about this, about ensuring that that hits the target first because it's a very small space on the glove. Ensuring that energy is traveling through a small space, therefore less wastage. It's very efficient and going through the target. And of course, the rules are hit with a knuckle and you hit. Still hit with the knuckle, part of the guard. Big problem in amateur boxing, probably all over the world, but I've seen it in this country is slapping. Tobias Horn [00:22:35]: Yeah. Adam Haniver [00:22:36]: So they're all going to slap in and you could almost have a bet. How many times is a referee going to warn someone or caution someone. Warn or caution someone for fouling with a slap. The slap part of the glove in a fight. And it always happens. I'm going to a show tomorrow. I might actually count how many times the referee pull someone up for a foul on slapping always happens. And I think a lot of that is if they understood I need to get more energy into a smaller part. Maybe that eradicates that problem. The other thing I saw about Ukrainians as well, Tobias, is that I've seen a coach talk about with the knuckles, in England, we say just line everything up, so forearm knuckle. The Ukrainians, don't they drop their knuckle ever so slightly to ensure that it goes into the there. And I was very sort of taken back when I first saw that, because I thought, isn't there a few issues? There were kind of, you know, wrist extensors, wrist flexors, all that sort of problem. Bit of a problem for injury, you said. But this guy said, yeah, but you're getting more energy into this, and if you train this part of your arm, it's gonna not be an issue. So I found that quite interesting. What are your thoughts about that? The kind of almost turning of the wrist to get that smaller space. Tobias Horn [00:23:43]: It's funny because I thought about this thing last week as I saw. I don't know what fight it was, some amateur fighting in on the Internet, whatever. And I saw people do this. Must be Ukrainians probably, or Russian guys. And I thought, yeah, I understand you, you, you, you. You expose the knuckle better for hitting. But I'm not sure how stable this structure is. As you, I think you have toalign the middle hand bones to the. bones of your underarm to have a stable structure. Maybe you can do something. I don't know about taping. Maybe there are different. Different ways to wrap the hand, stuff like that. Not sure about it. But as I said, I see this could damage the hand, but I'm not sure. Probably then, then the East European guys do this and they won't hurt themselves. It will probably work. Adam Haniver [00:24:37]: Yeah, I think you're right in terms of that. The taping of the hand. So when you have that little bit of tape that goes through the knuckle and then to the back of the wrist and down to the. Yeah, down to the wrist almost to start. Really start with your hand pulled back so that when it does go over it and you're trying to turn it in, it's not going to cause that issue. But I also wonder, if you're aiming with the knuckle and you're turning and you're flexing your hand downwards in a boxing glove, does it make much difference because it's rounded anyway. If it was like a bare knuckle punch, I could see how that damage would cause more dam because it's really pointy and again, more efficient. Yeah. So maybe it's a trade off between injury and impact on your opponent. Yeah, perhaps. Tobias Horn [00:25:18]: But to be fair, as you mentioned bare knuckle, I'm not a big fan of it, to be honest, but I wouldn't recommend to punch this way either. In bare knuckle. So probably they, they always, these guys always break their hands. Sounds to me like it would go. They would break much easier if you. If you tilt the hand that way. Adam Haniver [00:25:38]: Yeah, absolutely. But I'm also thinking along the lines now of like Bernstein's Hammer. Tobias Horn [00:25:42]: Yeah. Adam Haniver [00:25:43]: So for, for those who aren't aware of Bernstein's Hammer, essentially we are talking about how to. A hammer a guy making sure that as he's striking, he's making the material more malleable, he's denting it, he's changing it however he wants to. So as he throws the hammer, different parts of there's different angles of the elbow joint, the shoulder. Howihe does that very skillfully and he can, and he can change and manipulate the material he's working with. So similar with boxing. So if we apply Bernstein's Hammer to boxing, how you change the angles of your shoulder, your hips, even the wrist, perhaps, if that's not an injury problem, but there might be small changes and how you sort of pronate and things like that. I think the greatest boxers are the ones who can change the shot. Tobias Horn [00:26:31]: Right. Adam Haniver [00:26:31]: The less the novice boxers are the ones who choose how to throw the shot and then don't change it, it stays. They've said, this is how I'm going to throw it. And as they throw it, it stays how they've decided. Whereas a more skillful, adaptive. That's what skill is. It's adapt adaptation. Are able to change the angle of the elbow, the shoulder, the wrist, whatever it might be during the flight. So they haven't quite made that decision. Well, they may have made a decision but then they've changed it due to their perceptions. So it goes a little bit into the predictive process. Predictive process and sort of stuff, doesn't it? Versus ecological dynamics. And I don't know enough. That's way above my pay grade on that. But I do see that there is, if we have an understanding of how we change angles to get different results or even to get the same result when we throw shots, I think we make a more adaptable boxer. And my problem with just doubling down on technique stops the Bernstein's Hammer Adaptability, degrees of freedom to find the target. Right. That's a lot of talk there. What are your thoughts about what I'm saying, what I'm talking about there? Tobias Horn [00:27:37]: I think you're right. I think you're right. There's an interesting connection. As we talked about injury prevention, there are studies out there that if you're able to change small things in your, in your technique, in your strike basically and not always do it in the same way way you prevent from injury because the, the damage on your, on your joints is not always in the, in the same place. It goes all over the place. So your body has probably chance to heal and stuff like that. It's super interesting and I think what works is fine, but actually. Adam Haniver [00:28:09]: Being much more, being much more dexterous in your movement and having a lot more degrees of freedom around a shot in the long term is going to stop you getting injured. Yeah, because you have strength, range of motion in the joint, a bit more proprioception and understanding of what are the limits of your movement and what aren't. Whereas if you throw it in one way, you don't have that proprioceptive feedback in your body, in your joints as to that's going to injure me. But this allows you that a little bit more range to do that. Tobias Horn [00:28:36]: Depending on talking about strikes, there are I think 100 different ways to throw a hook. We just talked about 2. The long short ones, you can do it as a hammer. You can bring your centre of gravity off the line with your feet and then it's more, more like an overhand like cross and yeah, it's but the invariant features of all the things we talked about - Moving your centre of gravity, find a stable structure, bring the force on small space, concentrate. Adam Haniver [00:29:08]: And those things are. Those three things are always in existence. They're always present in what you're doing. Then we've got a great chance. But then between those three things, we also have a lot of opportunities to go out there and explore as long as those three things. So as I mentioned at the start, we talked about Instagram and every single bloody coach in the world talking about this perfect structure. Tobias Horn [00:29:30]: Yeah. Adam Haniver [00:29:30]: But is there that kind of understanding of what are the non-. Excuse me, not non negotiables, but. Well, maybe non-negotiables. What are the invariant features of what needs to happen then everything else around that is adaptability and skill as opposed to this really overly constrained idea of what must happen. Because I can stand in front of a mirror right now and throw a jab and people could say to me, that's a really good jab. That's a great jab. Technically it is. But I remember, and I think I've said this a couple of times, I remember as a boxer thinking I had a very good jab. Right. Technically, pretty much spot on. You know, the elbow wasn't flaring out, turning over at the last second. Long, good extension rotation, not compromising my balance. But actually, how many times did I land it? A lot of times I wasn't being able to land it all the time because the other features that destabilize it. I.E. My opponent, weren't always there because I always practice it in isolation all the time. So this notion of technical brilliance doesn't often sit well. But I think having been able to repeat the invariance should allow me to then be adaptive if I just concentrate on those. So do we need to concentrate on six or seven coaching points where unless the boxer actually understands that perhaps there are three invariant features of striking, get those three things right and we're all good. So that, I suppose that brings me then to. Okay, so if the boxers have a really good understanding of that, then how do we go about exploring how a hook could look? Because you mentioned the hook can be thrown in, you know, a thousand different ways. Tobias Horn [00:31:00]: Yeah. Adam Haniver [00:31:01]: How do then go about setting practice designs where the boxer can explore a different way to throw the hook as opposed to "It's got to look like this", like my arms sliding across the table and grabbing a pint off the bar. Tobias Horn [00:31:13]: So typically I scale down a bit in terms of a liveliness of repetition, representation. I let them move around together, work with the lead hand. So it's, it's not a high level of chaos and the reliability. And person A has the task. Okay, show me a combination on the partner which has three or four parts, whatever, but one of these parts has to be a hook. Okay. And when you throw the hook, everything is alive until now. When you throw the hook to the head or the body, whatever, stop there, let it stand, and then try just to move your hips, your centre of gravity and see if your fist moves and if you bring the movement in, your partner just, just move that. If you're, if just your shoulder moves and not your hand moves, your, your structure is not stable. And after that you try it. Okay? Okay. Okay. Maybe you can, can talk to your partner. Put the glove down. I want to see where it would have hit if it would come through. And after that, okay, finish the combination, move out, and the other partner has to throw a combination. 1, 2, 3, 4. Give me a hook and then try. If you can transform the energy, however this, this hook looks, I tell them be in close range or be in boxing range, whatever. Find your range for different hooks and try around. Adam Haniver [00:32:34]: So you'd start off with that. Reasonably cooperative. In other words, Boxer A is trying that and Boxer 2 is still defending themselves, but maybe not throwing back at. They're not throwing back at this point. They're just. Tobias Horn [00:32:45]: Yeah, they, they work with the elite hand. Adam Haniver [00:32:48]: Okay. Tobias Horn [00:32:50]: A bit scale a scale down defence. But I try to regulate it, but always there is an uncooperative target. You have to close the range. You have to go through her or his punches and then deliver the combination. But stop. Then you, then you're at the part of the hook. Adam Haniver [00:33:10]: I think we missed that. I really do think we missed that. I think we start off so stripped back, so cooperative that then when the boxers then do try in sparring. It's too big a gap. It's too big a gap because they, they used to. It's almost like I'm walking up to you. You've handed me a menu. I start reading the menu. Well, what am I going to order? I'm going to order this, right? And I'm going to try it. But in reality, at that point there where you're deciding what to throw, I would have been hit 10 times. Tobias Horn [00:33:38]: Yeah. Adam Haniver [00:33:39]: So it becomes ineffective because it's too cooperative. So there needs to be that little bit of destabilization, some sort of perturbations between it. So something's got to come back. So I like the fact that Boxer B can throw the jab because they're not going to give it to you. They're not going to give you those shots. But it's only a jab. So then I'm assuming you might scale it up a little bit as well. To. Okay, now they can use the backhand as well. More success Boxer A gets, they can use the backhand, little things like that, just to, to scale it up. Okay. I think that's brilliant. That makes a lot of sense to me. I've got a lot, I've got a lot of light bulbs going off in my head about sessions that I can run next time I'm in my club and how to just change that up a little bit. Okay, love that. And, and so do you feel. So my next question I always ask, do you feel that is transferring? Do you feel that your boxes are able, your kickboxers are able to be a bit more dexterous and adaptable now with, with their punching? Tobias Horn [00:34:30]: It's anecdotal for sure. It's not a statistic, but I would say yes, but maybe, maybe an example. When I was active as an amateur kickboxer, I used to train with Michaela Michl. She's, she's now an A class kickboxing fighter in Germany. She's at our club and now I'm working with her. I prepare her for fights. Tobias Horn [00:34:52]: She had a fight for her world championship belt and she lost it to an English woman called Hannah Turner. And for her first fight, we didn't work together. She, she mostly had a camp with traditional ways, sparring pad, work, conditioning, stuff like that. And Hannah beat her fair and square all the five rounds, I think maybe, maybe less. Whatever. Don't want to talk about scoring. The next, in the rematch. Michaela worked with me and we, we had eight weeks of CLA coaching games, game planning, implementation, always life games, task -based games. Talked about invariants, what invariants we have to destroy for her to make it a better fight for us, stuff like that. Tactical stuff. In the rematch, unfortunately we lost the match again, but it was a much, much, much closer fight. Michaela took much less damage than in the first fight and was much closer. Hannah still won fair and square, no bad blood. I really like her way of fighting. She's a brilliant fighter, but it was a much closer match. So it's, it's not a statistic or stuff like that, but I saw the behaviour that we worked on in the ring and I see that with my amateur fighters as well. Stuff we're working on with, with constraints, led approach I see that behaviour in the ring. Adam Haniver [00:36:22]: So a lot more, a lot more attuned. One, one thing you said there, which I found really interesting, is that you spoke to her. So the second fight, you spoke to her about the invariant features. Yeah, about herself, but also about how you compromise the invariant features of your opponent. Tobias Horn [00:36:39]: Yeah. Adam Haniver [00:36:39]: So how you compromise centre of gravity, able structure and small spaces, maybe that's a bit more harder to control. Yeah, yourself. So how do you go about that means? How do you. If you identify. These are important for us. Every time that we strike, we must have these things, so must the opponent. So in other words, how do you stop the opponent from having these things? How do you stop, how do you make them lose their centre? Gravity, stable structures. Tobias Horn [00:37:01]: These three things, as we said, are invariant features. But to deliver these invariant features efficiently, we have to, I think, switch on another level. And I'm not sure if these are invariant features in itself or just foundations of striking or good strategy, but not invariant teachers in itself. I'm not sure about this, but I think the tactical foundation on every striking sports is control of balance, the control of the room at a space and control of the attention. All these things. When I say control, I mean am I able to adapt myself to the things around me? Somebody's kicking me. Do I lose my balance? Okay, I have to work on that because I need control over my balance. Am I not able to make my footwork work? Okay. I have to work on the control of my balance at first to move around efficiently. And if I'm always getting pushed in the ropes or the corner, I have a problem with the control of the space. And if I always get hit with, with feints. Adam Haniver [00:38:10]: So when they pretend to do something, but do something else. Tobias Horn [00:38:13]: Yeah, yeah, right. I have a problem with the control of my attention when I don't see where the punches come from, a problem with the attention. So this means if I'm able to adapt myself to the, to the, to the situation around me, with these three things in control, I can manipulate them in the other person. So these are maybe local invariants, tactical invariants. I'm not sure if they are invariants at all, but I think that's the foundation for, for me for striking. And these were the things we worked on, so we tried. Okay, she's moving around, she's working with feints. Okay. Control the space, manipulate the space, bring her off balance so she doesn't have the opportunity to use her kicks that efficiently, like in the first fight, every time. A simple example. In kickboxing, we're moving around, we're hitting each other. Every time somebody kicks you, they have to stay on one leg, right. And in that moment, they lose a bit control over their balance because they're standing on one leg. Okay. You can use that to block the kick and give an answer with a strike. That's the traditional thing. Everybody in kickboxing knows that stuff. But you also can use it to close the distance, take the kick, make a step in, and then work with them at a much closer range there. They can't kick. So every time somebody kicks, I have an advantage. If you talk about balance and the room and space. Right, sure. So that was the thing we work with. Okay. To make it less efficient or to make her less efficient at kicking and moving around, we have to control space and manipulate her balance. Adam Haniver [00:40:01]: Okay, that makes a lot of sense to me. So I like that. So with an understanding of balance, space, and attention, I think a lot of those things are balanced. Are also feed into ecological dominance in terms of perception and action as well, don't they? So if you are off balance, then your ability to perceive is diminished and to act both is diminished. If you have space, then you have more time to perceive and act because you're not constrained by lack of space, therefore being dictated to by your opponent. And the attention part, of course, as well. If you have the ability to see things, spot things, see the cues, and then we're able to act quicker. I mean, that is perception, action in a tease. Those three things, to me are very ecological. They're getting the. The athlete to tune into what's happening around them as opposed to "I've got to do this with my feet, I've got to do this with my hip.I You know, it's very external being sort of one with that. So perhaps you're. Sorry, what was her name again? The lady you were working with? Michaela. So perhaps Michaela was a lot more attuned to her. To her. She was a lot more externally focused as opposed to internally focused. Yeah, I must do this correct. So she just tuned in a lot more. So it was a lot more successful the second time around. I really like that as a structure. So I'm thinking now as a boxer. So if you decide to lead off with a big right hand, you're orthodox and you want to throw that big overhand, right? Tobias Horn [00:41:28]: Yeah. Adam Haniver [00:41:29]: Let's be honest, an overhand does have is high reward, but it's also high risk. Tobias Horn [00:41:34]: Sure. Adam Haniver [00:41:35]: So why would it be high risk throwing it? If I think about control, space, attention. Just put that question too. So why would an overhand right be. If we think about balance, space and attention? Tobias Horn [00:41:45]: Yeah, sure. Adam Haniver [00:41:45]: Why would it be risky throwing an overhand right? Tobias Horn [00:41:48]: Because it. It's the rear hand. You have to. You have to adapt your stance to not lose control of your balance. Right. And as well in kickboxing or in terms of kickboxing, MMA, Muay Thai, whatever, you open your liver and your easy, relatively easy to counter with with the left knee to deliver. And typically, it's not your longest weapon, so you have to go. You have to go in. Adam Haniver [00:42:16]: Okay. So as you, so as you're moving your feet, you're compromising your balance slightly. Anyway, this is slightly depending on how you do it. Because I think a lot of people in boxing, I think a lot of people move their front foot in to find the range. Then they throw the right hand over the top, but their rear foot is left behind. So when you throw it, you either land it or you miss. And if you miss, the journey of the hand goes past the centre, far off to the left, and then there's this kind of wheeling movement of bringing yourself back to your centre of gravity and then back to your front. The front foot comes back again. That's a long time to be off balance. Whilst I'm also thinking with your definition, the other person's taking space back at that time. They're readjusting their feet, getting into a better position and probably then starting to punch before you get yourself back to that balance position. Okay. But also with your definition, the attention as well, it's quite difficult to then plan your next shot. What you, what are you looking at? What you're attending to when you're just trying to recover your balance for the, you know, to save your life. I've missed. I'm in a bad position here. So you're rolling and moving your feet. So I haven't got a plan for my next strategy, my next phase of attack. Tobias Horn [00:43:26]: And that's the reason why we prepare combinations. We have to, to manipulate the attention of the opponent. We work for our lead hand. Easy, easy, just fencing around. And then when we manipulate the space or we manipulate the attention to manipulate the space and to deliver the punches and probably leave the range again. Adam Haniver [00:43:48]: Yeah, absolutely. Have you seen Canelo do it? Have you seen Canelo do it? Kind of lifts his rear hand up to throat and he leans over to show an overhand right. Here comes overhand right. So their attention switches to that. But then he turns it into a left uppercut. Tobias Horn [00:44:03]: No, sounds interesting. Adam Haniver [00:44:04]: Yeah, I think you'll, you know, if you just type it in somewhere. So he throws it, it's like, look at my right, I want your attention on my right hand and I'm going to show it to you. So of course, what the boxers and do is, so if listeners can picture this: as he's looking to throw that rear hand - the boxer then just pulls her elbow up and pulls her hand up, you know, into this position here. So an elbow block or a salute, whatever you want to call it, but there has to be rotation to do that. So then that leaves this middle part open. So I think he's very, very clever as setting traps for the next punch. So he's directing their attention to where he wants it, knowing that he will open up another target area. And the other thing, going back to what you said, number three, small spaces directing enough energy into small space. When Canelo lands, it's just like someone putting a plug in a socket. Bang. It goes and sits there. There's no movement. It just goes bang. Almost like a magnet. You don't see it wobble. You don't see the wrist wobble. You don't see the shoulder wobble. You see nothing wobble. You just see this. It's like a statue hitting you. And every single ounce of energy just goes into that small structure. So he has that. Whether he understands it or just innately understands it, whether he understands it in his brain or just understands it, you know, in his body. It's embodied cognition. I want to put as much force into a small area as possible. He's really, really good at doing that. Yeah. I'll see if I can dig out a few videos and send you that. You'llbe able to find it, I'm sure. Can I ask you a question? Pad work? Yeah, it might be going off piste a little bit, but I don't think it is going off piece. What's your ideas? What's your thoughts around pad work? Tobias Horn [00:45:43]: There is a time and a place for it. So the most thing you can get out of pad work is, I think is for conditioning and fitness stuff there. It's super useful. You move around, you're in. You're doing the movements you have to do for striking so it's super nice for cardio. If you have someone who's good at holding the pads, you can, you have super nice cardio workout and good athletes I think can visualize what they have to do. That's really nice. I think there are some things in terms of skill development you can get out of pad work just for the, feedback. Okay. How does it feel to punch hard? How do I have to move? Like an explosion. I don't want shove people. I want to get my punch faster the further it moves. Right. It's an explosion. Not. Yeah. But I'm not a fan of letting beginners do pad work because they're getting attuned to different cues in the environment. They try to hit the pads and I think holding reasonably good pads is a skill in itself. So when I pair two beginners with Thai pads which are bigger than boxing pads. Adam Haniver [00:47:07]: The long ones that go down your body. Tobias Horn [00:47:08]: Yeah, the long ones. Right. For kicking. They hurt each other. They kick against their elbow. They hold the pads. Right. They hurt each other more than in sparring. So there is a space for pad work but I tune it down. Not much pad work for my athletes I think. Adam Haniver [00:47:24]: Okay, so probably more along the lines of if a couple of your guys want to pick up some pads as part of a warm up. Not a problem. It's, it's a supplement as opposed to the main thing. Tobias Horn [00:47:36]: Yeah, it's a supplement. And in my team I'm the only striking coach working, working with constraints led approach. My bosses are more, more old school guys and so we, when we prepare fighters for competition, it's always a team effort. One of us coaches is, has to work out the game plan and is cornering the guys. But I'm doing constraints based games with them. Daniel or Mavic, my boss is doing pad work with them or sparring with them and then we rotate so they get the best of all experiences that we have as coaches. Adam Haniver [00:48:12]: Okay. Right. So yeah, we say in England you're hedging your bets. Don't know if you heard that one before. Yeah, so. Okay. And I've heard that as well from Ben Stewart, the army coach. British army coach. Okay, that makes sense to me. Yeah, I'm, I'm in similar camp I think sometimes. Yes, I agree what you're saying. I think the cues are very different. My problem with coaching and we are creating a coach, a padwork course at the moment it's going to take a long time because I want to make sure it's right. Is that, yeah, the cues are different. My problem is when does someone tell you what to throw? So in terms of why would I tell you what to throw? Why would I take away the decision? Why would I take away the perception? Why would I take away the ability to try and act to see the target when I'm just giving you that answer? And that if I throw a jab on a pad from day one, it probably doesn't look a million miles different from when I throw it on day 500. It doesn't look much different technically. Technically, I'm doing the old inverted things. It might look better and it probably would be more effective on day 500, but I don't see much difference from what a pad can offer that. Anyways, the problem. I do do pads quite a lot. I'm going to be honest, Tobias, I think mainly for the reasons you said. I want them feeling sharp. I want them feeling like they can hit a moving target. And I move my feet a lot. I don't just stand there and let them hit a target. Any idiot can do that. And I just think because it's such a tradition in boxing, people want it and if they love it and enjoy it, I don't think that's a bad thing. People love pads. I used to love pads. So why take that away if it keeps them engaged and happy? Why? But there are ways to manipulate the pad. Work with rules, games, sequences that can just make it a little bit more representative of what we're trying to do. So perhaps a lot more skill transfer. Which, which I will talk about in the, the course coming up. But I'm in the same camp as you. I don't think it does what we think or hope it does. Tobias Horn [00:50:09]: Yeah. Adam Haniver [00:50:09]: In general. Do you? So I know Scott, Scott Sievewright talks about this, doesn't he? So from day one he has him sparring. And when we say sparring, like shoulder taps, touching to targets from day one. Do you have a similar sort of approach then, considering your approach to pad work? Tobias Horn [00:50:24]: Yeah. Adam Haniver [00:50:26]: So gone there with that. What would day one look like then for Adam Haniver walks into your gym in Erfurt into La Familiar. What would day one look like for me? I'm a beginner. Tobias Horn [00:50:35]: One would look like you're stumbling into class. You're. You're doing the warm ups with us, the warm up games we talked about earlier. And then I will probably depending on where we are in our curriculum. What the topic of the Lesson and where is is the lesson in, in terms of okay, at the end of the topic or at the beginning of the topic, I will let you work with the other guys, give you some different constraints or some different goals, scale the games a bit down. But I let these guys work and when it comes, I don't do it all at all sessions. But when it comes to light sparring, I ask them, do you want to join? Okay, I give you a training partner who you can work with but if you're not happy with it, talk to me. We have a look, I explain things to you, but if you want to, fine. Mostly for the, because the new guys don't have a mouthpiece, I say okay, don't, don't hit to the head just at the front of the shoulders and stuff like that to keep it safe and keep them from blinking and being, being scared. Adam Haniver [00:51:39]: I think there's, you mentioned about blinking and being scared. I think that's really important as well because you could. If we go traditional and do pads for a month, you know, they pad work each other for a month. We're missing, are we missing opportunities to build that confidence of how we actually handle the fear of someone trying to make contact with my body, trying to put me off balance, etc? We miss all those opportunities where if we're doing shoulders and things like that, they're getting into your space a little bit, they're making you a little bit more uncomfortable, but it's just getting a little bit more easier. And I think, I think a lot of people still have that flinch reflex, the look away flinch reflex months even years into training because everything is being quite clean and safe, whereas we need to layer on a little bit of, well, this is what's going to happen. So you need to be comfortable with that. So do we, do we miss that out by everything being pad work and shadow boxing for the first month, two months, three months? Tobias Horn [00:52:38]: Yeah. Adam Haniver [00:52:38]: What do you think? Tobias Horn [00:52:39]: Yeah, I think, I think you have to be honest with people. This is what you want to learn, this is what you want to do. There is a moving target who is punching back at you. We can scale down the chaos. I can give you instructions, I can give you goals, we can gamify it, but in the end of the day it's hitting each other so you don't have to hit them in the head. That's not a thing. But you have to be fine with that much contact. And I think this is one of the reasons why sbmission grappling BJJ Lutalibre whatever is so common nowadays because people can spar from day one. So you can put them in purple belt, whatever, say, here, train with him, be careful with him, don't kill him, show him the ropes. And they can roll from day one without the fear of head trauma. And they are always in control, like with, with tapping out. And I think that's one of the reasons why submission grappling is so common nowadays. And I think we can make a culture like that in a boxing gym. I always tell the guys, hey, if your partner is flinching or moving away, you do it too hard, you do it too fast. Scale it down. If you think your partner is hitting you too hard, I don't care if you're a really hard guy with tattoos and stuff like that, tell him, hey, that's too hard. Scale it down for me. I want to learn stuff. I repeat that over and over again to make culture in the room that new guys can spar safely. Adam Haniver [00:54:15]: Sure. Yeah. And I think everyone understanding that culture and living and breathing that culture, and if they break that culture, having those conversations where, okay, well, you're not going to spar. If you can't trust you, that's not going to happen. Yeah, that's. That always is a challenge for me. That always is a challenge, that one. Especially when the target is mostly going to be the head. Tobias Horn [00:54:32]: Yeah. Adam Haniver [00:54:33]: You know, and let's be honest, that's dangerous. So that, that is a bit of a challenge for me as well. But I also think that there's an element of. So I love that. So, you know, you mentioned about purple belt, so I'm thinking boxing now. So if I get a boxer who's had 10 fights, 10 bouts, excuse me, 10 bouts, and Joe Bloggs walks in the gym, day one, why can't we do a little bit of touch touch here? There, There are insurance reasons for that and they have to be medical and registered and all that kind of stuff. If I just take that aside to. Just for more of a simplistic skill acquisition point of view, I think that's great. But I also think we can look at, rather than that person with 10 fights going, God, I've got to work with a newbie today. I've got to work the new person. There can be elements of. Right. Which defence? What defences? Perhaps do you get caught? I always get caught here. I always get caught here. Okay. Yeah, don't let him catch you there. So you're still scaling up for the experienced person, not just catering for the beginner because you know what happens? They all go, oh, God, I've got to work with him. I've got to work with her. So I think there's elements of that too. So, yeah, your culture, your culture dictates what those sessions look like and what. Tobias Horn [00:55:37]: You say is super, super important. When we do open sparring sessions, even with the advanced guys, I always tell them, you have to give yourself a task for that sparring. If you try to win a sparring round, you're wasting your time. And my. Because per definition, you can't win a sparring round. There are no judges and stuff like that. Adam Haniver [00:55:56]: You can achieve a task. Tobias Horn [00:55:58]: Yeah, you can. And you must achieve a task. That's your goal. If you can't find anything for yourself, talk to me. We will figure some stuff out. Set your own goals. It's super important. And that's the reason why I am not a big fan of these the old idea that only iron sharpens iron. So I think it's super important that even the really, really good guys spar and train with slightly less experienced guys. So they move. They have a few bouts so they know what to do. They move like boxers. It's the same perceptions we have with slightly worse guys. But the windows that you can get away with stupid stuff, stuff you're trying out, trying to learn, are much bigger than when you only play around with the professionals. Right. So I'm not a big fan of iron sharpen. Only iron sharpens iron. You have to train with slightly, slightly less experienced guys to learn new stuff. Adam Haniver [00:57:01]: Absolutely. Yeah. There's a lot of metaphors out there. And again, iron sharpens iron sharpens iron. I understand why they're saying it, I get it, but it's. Yeah, I think you need to look into that a little bit more and consider. Why does that have to be the case? Listen, mate, it's been. What's it been? An hour and 15 minutes of conversation. We could. This is going to sound so cliche. We could talk for hours. We could talk for 2 hours, 3 hours, 4 hours, 5 hours, but it is the case. This is ridiculous. There's so much conversation that could be had here. My general notes at the start were, I just wanted to talk about invariant features and go from there. But I think everything that we have talked about is still kind of almost related to that in some ways. It almost just feels like the invariance. So the invariant features are. Excuse me, American features are. If we look at these invariant features, Then everything else spirals off from that. Anyway, a bit like our conversation today perhaps if there's anything to take away from this for coaches it would be along the lines of what must happen when my boxers train. So what always needs to happen and what else? What is fluff that maybe we can discard. But then how do I then get them to be adaptable around those invariant features or add to that. But those invariant features are always the root of the tree. Then we can start looking about how many branches there are on that tree and how many leaves there are on the tree. But the roots and the bark is always the same. Doesn't change. Yeah, okay. Hopefully I've. I've summarised that reasonably well. Listen mate, it's been brilliant. We're gonna do. We're gonna do episode two. We're gonna do episode three. No doubt. If you're up for it. My other thoughts were let's bring Thomas La Cour into the conversation as well. I'm not sure if you've listened to Thomas's yet. Very like-minded, some great forward thinking ideas. So perhaps me and homas have a conversation as well. Might be could be round two because I know that he wants to have a conversation again. Tobias Horn [00:58:50]: Yeah, sure. Adam Haniver [00:58:51]: Sound good. Tobias Horn [00:58:52]: Sounds good. Adam Haniver [00:58:54]: Beautiful. Beautiful. Okay. Right. Have a great weekend. I'll speak to you soon. And yeah, thanks for the enlightening conversation. I really appreciate it. Cheers Tobias. Tobias Horn [00:59:06]: Thank you for the opportunity. Have a nice weekend. Bye. Adam Haniver [00:59:08]: My pleasure. My pleasure.