u/immarked

Neither, I've really always been a ball of my feet runner.

So I enjoy running marathons, I'm not very good 4 hour average. I've been working on running one in every state and a few years ago I ran the Long Beach Marathon. The winner was wearing Vibrams and he let me try them. I was instantly in love.

Since then(about three years) I've done 40 marathons in them and I don't think I can ever go back. I've tried Altra, Hooka, succany, and a few others but I really enjoy the vibrams. I wear them everywhere and get "looks" but hey I'm almost 40 and really don't care anymore.

If you're interested, I picked up all mine from Ebay ($10-$30) and if you're interested in trying them I would go that route. They make a toe sock for them that I would recommend for long runs. intuit, I think is the brand I use.

I tore a ligament years ago and my knee has basically had a dull throbbing from 18 years old to when I tried them out (33 or 34), and since using them I hardly feel any knee pain. I do Martial arts and Jiu Jitsu as well and I've really noticed that although everything else I do is sub par in the fighting world, my balance has been insanely good.

So I guess I'm a convert. I hate...and I mean hate the way I look in them, but they feel amazing. I hope this helps.

Patrick Sweeney

There are a lot of assumptions being made about me here. I never said I can't find a girlfriend or that my life is awful. I'm happily married, I have a great job, I'm in pretty good shape, and an all around happy guy. None of this really started until I accepted that this is how the world looks at me.

What I did say is that someone my height is starting out at a 30-40% deficit compared to someone of above average height. That's true. I started pulling articles for all you cite sources people but then I stopped. You want sources go to google it's literally every study, and I want you to do this because I would like people to actually learn how hard it is to be a short male.

If a minority or gender were treated the way short males are treated the SJW would be having a field day, but because we are an unsexy demographic, no one cares. Read all the comments that say buck up little guy. That's like telling a 20 year old black male, don't worry the cops pull you over just smile more.

The point is, it's an unchanging thing in the world. I work in human services and this is something I see every single day. From dating to employment to social interactions short males are treated significantly worse the most if not all other demographics.

It's a big part. There are hundreds of studies that back that up. Being 6'5 you will never understand and no matter how many studies prove it, you also won't care and just say we need a better personality or site some other anecdote. Just like I will never understand what it means to be black you won't understand what it's like to be short.

It's a simple breakdown. If we start out the same but you're above average height and I'm below average your life will be statistically 30-40% better in all categories.

As a short guy, this is the worst. Women are basically trained by society to dislike you. It's really disheartening to think no matter how hard you try or what you do, some guy, three inches taller, is considered better then you.

Thank you! This was tough because their was not a single stand out fight, so I threw in a lot of great knockouts.

Good catch, thank you.

At this time Lewis had just become a "name." He wasn't being avoided yet; however, I promise to address that next week, because it is an important upcoming issue.

This is a tremendously broad question to the point where countless books have been written to answer, and even most of them would disagree with each other.

There are long and short answers, in a nutshell Ali didn't actually have a "style" in any certain sense of the word, Ali was a tremendous combination of well executed fundamentals. He used his amazing physical skills to determine much of what he did, his long arms and amazing reflexes gave him a sensational snapping jab, while his footwork allowed him to move in and out almost like he was floating...his famous quote is actually a definition of his "style".

I had not seen that documentary, but I'm watching it now. Great suggestion, thank you!

here it is for everyone else: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9627aEPgbYw

Orthodox.

You start here, then build. Learning a "style" without knowing Orthodox is like trying to play the piano without ever touching the keys.

Foreman was the greatest slugger in the history of the sport. He was simply a monster. Young Foreman is to me the scariest fighter in the history of the sport.

Little background: He grew up very poor, and even at a young age he was really a street thug famous for beating people nearly to death. He didn't have anyone to look up to when he was young, so he admired ex-cons, and people that "may have killed a man." That was his thing, hitting people really hard to hurt them. He didn't even think it was wrong, just what you do to survive. Basically, he was like a wild animal.

He joined the Job Corps thanks to a Jim Brown ad, and there he got into a fight that was so bad it took several people to try and stop George. Thankfully one of them was Doc Broadus, he is the guy that showed Foreman the basics of boxing and helped him get into the Olympics. This is important to understand because it really shows how Doc just gave him the fundamentals enough to allow him to do what he did naturally and that's punch very hard. Because of his limited background his style was pretty orthodox, it was designed to keep his guard lower (because no one was really taller then him) so he could protect the body. If the fighter came in he would hook to the body in such a devastating fashion it seemed to crush their soul. Then he picked them apart. Truly a terrifying fighter.

All that being said George is a wonderful human being who has devoted much of his life and money to saving kids that grew up like he did.

Lots of hours with a heavy bag. I would honestly suggest boxing by numbers. It isn't pretty, but neither was I. When you hear "putting together combinations" it makes more sense when you think of it like combinations for a lock, the right combination unlocks it. There are 7 different punches and you use them in different formula's to reach your goal. I typically tried to get off first, under or around a jab, all in order to expose the body as much as possible or to hook into the chin.

For example, If he lead I soon learned my number one and three of a three punch combo was most likely going to the body while two was going the head. If I failed at number 1 then 2 would be a body and three a head. If I lead I basically reversed the process.

Pretty easy to figure out if you're my opponent. However, I had zero instincts, heck I still don't have any, this helped me to put a formula behind my madness, and more importantly it kept me from panicking, which is a huge problem when you get in the ring.

Wow, first off, thanks for all the kind words from everyone.

I'm pretty short which is why I used it, that and everyone in the early 90s wanted to be Mike Tyson. I think it works well because it let me get inside and under the jab without eating too many punches or at least deflecting them.

The problem is if you get too close fighters can put their body weight on you. Tyson always seemed to get close and there are countless videos of taller boxers putting their weight on him.

I think your weight class plays a huge role, if you're a smaller fighter you are most likely to be at a lower weight class. I think a small accurate fighter is going to shut you down quickly if you use this style, think Clottey vs Pacquiao.

I love MMA, and Diaz is a great MMA fighter. However, they are two very different styles. He would be fighting at middleweight or super middleweight(mma weights are different then boxing), and his hand speed seems much slower then most major names at that level. His footwork is also suspect, again that is from watching his MMA fights which require different techniques. But if you watch his Carlos Condit fight you can see that any touch and go fighter would do very well against him. Also I really wonder how good his inside game would be without take downs.

That being said, I believe Virgil Hunter has worked with him, if that's the case I think there is a good chance he could do well. He is at the very least a physical monster.

The pros of this fighting style is that it is very easy to understand and implement, it drills in and allows three punch combinations, all designed to move the opponents hands out of position depending on where the fighter is targeting, usually the head of the opponent. It also allows strong fighters to get a lot of leverage in their shots. Because of its easy style young fighters can get very good very fast with this format.

Cons, it is easy to implement, easy to dissect. You know the number system so you can figure out how a fighter is going to come. "Is the head shot second or third in the combination?"

Movement can shut this style down as well which is why it isn't used as often in the lower weight division, the speed of those fighters will allow them to dig in with angles and get out before this style becomes effective. This is also because it limits the fighters own ability to use a lot of footwork. This seems to make it hard to through a lot of punches, but the punches are thrown with conviction.

Fighters with long range and skillful jabbing seem to also negate this style because it seems to take a little more time to throw from the peek-a-boo position.

Finally, I think that it takes a lot of arm strength to hold your hands in that position for so long, and have them, absorbing so many punches.