Any advice on fighting this kid would help me out a lot. Workout, techniques, moves, anything that I can learn or improve on in the remaining time...
I'm no expert by any means but here's my 2c worth of arm chair boxing advice anyway. From my limited experience I prefer to fight someone slightly taller than me than someone slightly shorter than me. The reason being is that I find it is easier to get under the gaurd of someone who is a couple of inches taller than me (I'm 5'9") and go for the osophagus/ribs/kidneys than to get under the gaurd of someone who is a couple of inches shorter than me. Fighting the guy a couple of inches shorter than me I pretty much have to concentrate on the head but fighting the guy a couple of inches taller than me I have a choice of head or body shots (as long as he isn't so tall that his head is out of range). Just saying that a couple of inches height advantage on you isn't necessarily all bad.
Also while his reach advantage means that he gets first shot as you come within his range before he comes within your range at the end of the day what it mainly means is that his comfortable fighting distance is different than yours. If you are close enough to get a good shot then you are within his comfortable striking range, that is too close for him to get a good shot (i.e. he can't extend his arm fully to get a good shot and that is frustrating for him). What I mean is once your inside his ideal punching distance but at your ideal punching distance you have the advantage not him (unless it turns to grapling that is - I'm talking from a striking point of view).
Also by and large punching with an unarmed hand/fist is generally an ineffective way to hurt people and one hit knock outs are rare for two similarly matched people. In other words even if he does land the first blow (due to his longer reach) as you close range on him to get within his range you will more than likely survive and then your within range to hit him. That is he only has the advantage with the first blow (if you manage distance right) and you will likely trade several).
I should hardly have to tell you this if you're a boxer but don't waste shots going for well muscled areas if you can help it .i.e. don't wast energy punching arms, stomach muscles, pectoral muscles (he won't feel it in the fight with all the endorphines released in his blood - likely neither will you). When doing a body shot go for the asophagus the ribs or the side of the rib cage at the narrowest point of the waist. The head can take a fair few blows to, don't waist time trying to break his nose and push his nose into his brain (that **** doesn't work), again he won't feel a thing if he's sufficiently hyped up. Rather go for his temples i.e. the soft bits on the side of the head near the eyes, that is the best place to concus someone and no amount of pain killing bloodstream hormones can protect the brain from concusion. (If you are a boxer you will also be familiar with the idea of levering his jaw to twist his head and knock him out). In general blows to the side of the head are probably better at concusing him than blows to the front (people can smash bricks/concrete slabs with their foreheads).
From my limitied experience street fighting (and for that matter taekwondo tornament fighting) your brain not being stupid (if its anything like mine) will shut of its normal perception of pain during a serious fight meaning that a hard wack to the nose which is normally an absolute show stopper in play fighting or just normal life may not be felt at all (I've had my nose fractured by two very hard blows to the nose and felt not the slightest pain myself on the nose or anywhere else for that matter until an hour after the fight was over).
Even if you aren't lucky enough to have your brain do this his probably will. What I'm getting at is that normal martial arts techniques to disable an attacker by causing intense pain (like a kick to the shins/punch to the nose) do not nesesarily work well in real life (the purpose of feeling pain is to cause you to rest a body part in order for it to heal - your brain is not stupid and unconsiously knows that feeling pain in a life or death fight is counterproductive to its own survival so very fortunately releases endorphines/pain killers to prevent the perception of pain in a life threatening situation).
I'm not saying that you can count on it happening to you but it may well happen to him. In other words to disable him you may not be able to rely on pain alone disabling him but rather you really need to concus him such as a blow to the temples (as the brain has no defence against being concused) and being concused really slows you down (thats how I got my nose fractured I was already concused from the first fight with the guys mate who was quite a bit taller than me but I won anyway (judging by the fact that he ran off bent over clutching his ribs) but unfortunatley the concusion meant I had slow reflexes during the second fight.
I was concused in the 1st fight because I felt I had already won and so was goin easy on him, I let my gaurd down and was sort of semi bear huggin him to restrain him, feeling I didn't have to trade any more blows (he was taller but I far out weighed him and was continually pushing him back) then suddenly out of no where BAM an attampt at a martial arts throw (which didn't quite work thanks to my superior weight as I only bent over at the waist) but it was combined with a blow to my temples which really did concus me (only my much greater weight saved me) and I recovered to respond with blows to his ribs (being bent over I was in an ideal spot for such a shot).
Lessons I learned from that fight 1) The fights not over until the other guy is really disabled don't let up and go easy on to him until you've really finished him off. 2) theres no substitue for being bigger than your opponant in mass (even if he is taller than you). 3) fighting tall skinny people is easier than fighting short stocky people (then again I was already concused after fighting his taller mate) 4) You body shuts of all pain perception during a serious fight (I didn't feel a thing during the whole senario until an hour latter and then all I felt was a slightly saw jaw on the side but I did have a very sore nose from it being fractured and a sore hand from being fractured too but didn't feel it till well after the two fights where over. 5) Being concused really slows your reflexes down.
The blow that fractured my hand was the last blow traded in the fight - I don't know what I hit because I wasn't looking where I was punching (on purpose) as I had worked out that he was telling where I was going to hit by watching my eyes (something I'd been taught in martial arts too) so I looked away to the side and then BAM out of nowhere punched at where I though he was (this was after he'd landed two very hard blows on my nose). My fist collided with something very hard which fractured my hand - though I didn't know there was anything wrong with my hand at the time. (He said "who told him I was watching his eyes?"). One of the by standers also said to him "you wouldn't have got him if he was fresh".
Anyway we parted ways, him saying "whose going to pay for this damage?" and me walking off saying "you can" with blood streaming out of my nose but feeling strangely invigorated (I guess I was feeling in touch with the warrior with in lol) but I somehow knew I shouldn't continue the fight even though I wanted to get revenge on him for making my nose bleed (in hind sight it was the right decision as I actually had a fractured nose and hand at the time but didn't know it) - I had just kicked in the side rear panel of his mates hatch back with a flying side kick as it moved off (it looked like it had been in a car crash - the rear wheel was completely bare) after I heard his mate threaten to rape a girl who he had been arguing with who he had nearly run over at a crossing. If I'd been more of a DJ at the time I would of picked up the girl I had just defended as she wanted to take me to a medical center but I kept insisting nothing was wrong with me its just a blood nose. (I didn't want anyone including the girl to know my contact details or where I worked for fear of latter being tracked by the police for the car damage). So I parted ways with the girl too (I was on my way walking to work at the time). At least I got the rest of the day of work.
Incidently on the car panel kicking thing I only did it after being in a stage of rage and seeing he was about to get of scot free and after the guy standing next to me at the crossing also in a state of rage kicked his car door first but he only put a little ding in it so I wanted to do the job properly.
I box too.
