I tend to be known as “the jiujitsu guy”. And that is fine because I do love jiujitsu, and I heartily believe in what all can be gained from training in it. However, while I have been doing BJJ for 32 years, I am about to enter my 42nd year of training martial arts and hand-to-hand fighting. I tend to not throw my resume in people’s faces all the time so it is a bit understandable if they can be lazy about how they think about my lane. And every now and then I need to let others know that the depth and breadth of my experience is more than just rolling around in pajamas with sweaty dudes.
Case in point is my long love, study of, and training in Boxing. I was championing boxing as a martial art and a great fighting system in the early 80’s, and I have spent a lot of time working that methodology. I have even fought in a couple of smokers (essentially unsanctioned “gym” fights for pay) when I was at a gym called Top Level run by a great coach named Paavo Ketonnen. I have had a deep love for this system for a long time.
I have a big collection of boxing books including of course history and stories and biographies of fighters, but the ones I have read the most are the instructional. I have a ton of them, going back a long time. My earliest edition is form 1887, and I have some original first editions of instructional from 1903 and 1906. I have spent a great deal of time going deep into them all, and hands down the best one I have ever seen, is Boxing by the US Navy from 1943.
It is one of the very few that actually teaches the concepts behind the punches and truly gets the principals and techniques across as well as can be presented by the printed word (there will always be things missing that can only be seen in actual movement) and is pretty comprehensive.
Unfortunately, as with many great books, it is long out of print. However, it has been reprinted multiple times and sometimes a copy of one of those can be found online used. If you get the chance to own or even just read an edition, take it! You will not be disappointed.
Is there a book that you highly recommend for BJJ?
My go-to baseline BJJ books are Mastering Jiujitsu by Renzo Gracie and Jiujitsu University by Saulo Ribeiro. Between those two, there is a lot of good info to get someone started.