[Music] I went from this to this [Music] my boxing Journey has spanned 18 months two countries two different styles of boxing technique hard aspiring than I probably should have done a lot of self growth and a few surprises along the way my journey started in December of 2021 in Athens Greece I'd stopped playing football which had been my career for the past few years and that with a combination of negative events in my personal life and the realization that something was missing led me to want to try something new and that something was boxing but I had no idea about boxing except that I knew I wanted to try it so I typed in the words boxing gym into Google Maps and just went to the closest one the closest one was actually a kickboxing gym and me having no idea just started going for a few weeks I also bought a very slow-moving Cobra bag to practice throwing punches in my garage I started to learn the basics of throwing punches footwork defending punches and keeping a high guard with your hands up I even had my first competitive Spa after about four weeks of training which went horribly looking back I was probably exposed to sparring a little bit too early and coming home with the odd headache every now and then was not fun but needless to say I was enjoying myself terrible [Music] until I started to have some issues with some staff at the gym now it wasn't the guy that was coaching me he was fine but the head of the organization itself was actually very rude to a family member and for me I don't tolerate that so I left now upon leaving I wasn't exactly back at square one but I hadn't made much progress either I realized that what I was learning at that kickboxing gym was just the upper body part of kickboxing and not real boxing itself and if you know boxing you know that kickboxing is almost completely different when it comes to stance distance management and a lot of the movements as well and when I realized this by doing my own research I realized I needed the real thing I needed to learn how to box for real now as I am Greek Australian when I was first getting into boxing the professional boxer who drew my attention first was George cambosus Jr he had just beaten tiafimo Lopez at the time and was on top of the world so going through his social media and watching videos of him training I stumbled across a video where he was actually in Athens a few years earlier training at this place called the Perseus boxing club or better in Greek I'd never heard of it but I immediately looked it up and I was impressed by what I saw it was a boxing gym that prioritized defense not only using the high guard but also the famous Philly shell popularized with brutal defensive efficiency by Floyd Mayweather and also I might add used very well by James Tony as well so I called the gym and to my surprise membership there was actually cheaper than the kickboxing gym that I was going to at first and not only that but there were more hours of training included in the membership it was the easiest and now looking back one of the best decisions I've ever made and on my first day I opened the doors walked down the stairs and everything from the layout to the other boxes training there to the belts won by their Fighters told me that this was a real boxing gym the coach there my nollis loved that kiss really took me under his wing he taught me a lot about boxing and even about life in general his ability to break down what world-class Fighters did in the ring and translate that into an actionable drill for you to develop that specific aspect of your Technique was simply incredible and combining this with realistic drills and Pad work as well as other professionals that were training and coaching in the gym such as Christina linardvato and Mike arnoldis made for an environment where it was literally impossible not to improve let's go now the learning curve was initially very steep but very rewarding now that I look back on it even though I had some hard times at the start I persisted and went to every session whether it was sunny raining or even snowing all right credit to this guy who still opened up his little shop in this weather and with two-hour sessions every day from Monday to Friday I started to make progress very quickly now for three of those days we did defensive drills focusing on how to counter and defend against your opponent's jab as well as how to throw your own jab effectively the other two days we focused on conditioning using other exercises and a lot of heavy bag work and on Fridays we would usually spa and two or three evenings per week I would run on the road to keep my fitness up as well I'm forever thankful that I joined this gym and it's also where I fell in love with the Philly shell guard now a lot of people hate on it but I just think that they never really have been to a gym that teaches it properly I'm not saying I'm an expert on it obviously not I'm still a beginner boxer but I do think if you go somewhere that teaches the Philly show you learn to get an appreciation for it the most obvious criticism is that it leaves you open for the right hand but when you apply it properly not only can you see the right hand coming but you can effectively counter it as well that being said I do think it's best to mix up your guard and provide your opponent with different looks because we know that a one-dimensional fighter can get figured out very easily if you give your opponent Too much exposure to any one thing whether that's inspiring or a competitive fight eventually they're going to figure it out and punish you for it but anyway I started to get into a good routine at Bitter cell and really found my roof I was Shadow Boxing in my own time [Music] and even got a heavy bag to really practice my technique [Music] and even in the snow I continued to run two or three times a week and this was also combined with some bouts of inter-club sparring now this is particularly aggressive because let's be honest inter Club sparring is basically a fight they belong s what it did teach me was not only how to take a punch but also how to train that instinctual brain response where you don't want to get hit with the same punch twice one aspect of my Improvement that I really want to draw attention to is Shadow Boxing however Shadow Boxing I think is one of the best ways to improve because you can slow everything down and work on the smallest details I took every opportunity I could to shadow box even when I was on the islands on holiday and I love slowing it down where you can make sure that every step is perfect every movement is perfect and every punch is perfect so that's how you can lay the foundations which you can then build off of with speed and power and an opponent later now Not only was this the period of my boxing Journey where I was enjoying training the most but it was also the period where I was dedicating the most hours per week this was largely because I prioritized boxing Above All Else But as you're about to hear this wasn't always going to be the case moving forward and as the realities of living life in Greece started it's a set in I'm not going to you guys I was starting to run out of money now I was doing some remote work on the computer and a bit of day trading I was covering my expenses but I had the foresight to know that this wasn't going to be sustainable moving forward especially since I want to build a future and eventually have a family combine this with friends and family asking and begging and pleading me to come back home at least for the foreseeable future to sort out my life post football and build my future more intentionally and I eventually decided to come back to Australia now when I did come back to Australia i attended some boxing training thank you but I was tempted to play semi-professional football again and like a sign from above I guess you could call it my body told me that it wasn't to be I tore my right quadricep off of the bone whilst taking a free kick in a friendly match and this meant no sport of any kind for the next four to five months and this was late 2022 early 2023 and my Sports Doctor even told me that my best bet going forward if I wanted to play football again was to become left footed now it's always tough to end something on a sour note and injury is about as sour as it gets but I decided that enough was enough or rather my body decided for me but me being me with the mentality I have decided to flip this switch and turn it into a positive and that positive for me was that I was able to return to boxing so after some extensive rehab through January February and March of this year I started to slowly return to boxing training on my own through Shadow Boxing it was during times like these where my motivation and discipline was tested on all fronts not being able to walk for weeks not being able to run for months and not being able to work or play sport it left me feeling a bit depressed to be honest but like I've said myself feeling depressed may be real that doesn't mean that you are confined to depression I believe that feeling depressed is triggered by negative life events and therefore by definition you can fix it by fixing your life I wanted to recapture that feeling of progress and accomplishment that I felt it better Sarah in Greece and I also knew that I wasn't yet good enough at boxing for it to make a significant difference to my ability to defend myself in a real life situation and these were my honest feelings at the time so I returned to boxing I started going properly to the gym that I first visited when I arrived back in Australia and that was West Central foreign gym with awesome facilities awesome people and also an incredibly high standard of training now the difference between West Central and betasair in Greece is not only reflected in the style of boxing that they teach there but also the contingent of Fighters that train there so at bercea in Greece we had a larger contingent of professional fighters foreign so these are guys who sit down on their punches a little bit more they don't bounce around as much in the ring and they fight longer fights so the punch volume is a little bit lower and they tend to pick their shots a little bit more they use the Philly show guard a lot more and fight a lot more off of the back foot now West Central has a lot more amateur Fighters and don't get this confused when I say amateur versus professional I'm not talking about a difference in ability or level or skill if you know boxing you know that there are a lot of high level amateurs that could beat the brakes off of a large contingent of professional fighters boxing is a sport where you can choose your involvement and anyone can register as a professional provider they pass a medical so again when I say amateur versus professional I'm not talking about the difference in ability or in levels I'm simply talking about the style but in terms of ability and skill between the two gyms I think the best fighters are roughly the same to be honest it's just the style that they choose to employ which makes a difference so anyway West Central had a lot of amateur Fighters and they use that in and out High guard High punch volume style that you usually see in amateur fights and this is because amateur fights are shorter and usually you need to get a lot more punches in in order to secure the points and win the fight and yet again now because of a different style of guard I found myself in a place where the learning curve was steep I wasn't used to the high punch volume of amateur Fighters and took a lot of hits and just like any other setback I had to formulate a strategy and execute I had to think what is the best move I can make on the chessboard here so I spoke to my coach and he helped me point out a few things that I should work on to improve and adjust to the style at this new gym and as my injury also recovered and we started to increase the volume of sparring I started to adapt my style and found that I was having a lot more success and to be honest learning the high guard and the in and out style has also been my Philly shell better not worse because I'm able to employ it at the right times now all things considered I'm not an expert by any means I'm not good by any means but I have found that adding an extra style to my Arsenal has improved me as a boxer at one gym I learned how to fight off the back foot and at this gym I'm also learning how to fight off the front foot [Music] and now I want to thank my Australian coach Peter lossage for his contribution to my boxing development his wealth of boxing knowledge and his ability to adapt to what a fighter could be thinking in the moment allows him to give the best coaching cues will allow you to flip that switch in your mind and actually understand what he's saying and apply it straight away to your boxing and because he also has knowledge of the Philly shell he's able to help me focus on how to adjust from only fighting off the back foot to being a more balanced fighter and I'm very thankful to him for that now speaking of coaches on social media there are a lot of boxing coaches so apart from the two that I've mentioned that I've personally worked with I think there are other coaches on social media who are also very good now both of the guys I'm about to mention are from the United States I haven't trained with them personally yet but I would love to one day and I plan to whether that's in person or via a video call the first one is Tom yankello and the second one is mustafa's boxing and if you love professional boxing then I'm sure that you will love what these guys have to teach and it's also definitely worth checking out the Instagram page for my old gym better sale and my current coach Peter lossage and I also want to mention that Peter definitely fits the bill of amateur boxer who could beat the brakes off a lot of professionals foreign but anyway I'm gonna list all the Instagram Pages I've mentioned in the description of this video so that if you want to check them out you can after you've watched them so there's a fight on the cards for me to be honest I'm not sure yet one thing is for sure and that is that I need to lose some weight first personally I'd like to fight at 67 or maybe 63 kilos for you guys in the states that's 140 and 147 pounds I'm currently walking around at 72 73 kilos or about 158 to 160 pounds I know right doesn't look like there's that much on me but I think it's from my football playing days where I was hitting the weight room very often and because of that I've built up a fair amount of muscle on my legs and my back now it is going to be hard to lose that weight but I'm gonna try and I'll keep you guys updated on that front over the next few months for now though I'm actually just about to head back to Greece for a short holiday and by holiday I mean training camp I'm going to spend about a week on a beach and about six weeks back at Purcell now I honestly can't wait not only to see how I've improved as a fighter relative to the fighters there but also to see how the new techniques and skills that I've learned here are going to help me adapt and fight against the other guys over there it's going to be interesting and I'm going to try and collect some video footage for you guys while I'm over in Greece especially from the sparring what I will say is don't expect me to be setting the world on fire but you can expect to be entertained regardless it's an exciting time and I'm glad to be able to share this journey with you now before I let you go I just want to say this the theme of this video isn't just about boxing the theme of this video is about progress I wanted to show you guys how I've evolved as a person as a man through boxing it changed my life for the better and I hope it does the same for you if you're considering getting into boxing yourself thank you so much if you've watched the video up to this point and remember guys in a world that tries to break men down I'm here to build them back up thank you and I'll catch you in the next one