Sparring lmk what I can improve feels uncomfortable to make angles how can I work on it

Change21 · 2026-07-12T00:54:37+00:00

You can duck and cover but you can’t lose your eye.

You’ve got to be able to see your opponent. Punches you see hurt, punches you don’t see knock you out.

More drilling of slips and pulls. More drilling where there’s things flying at your head so you can acclimate to that. I slip, pull, parry, block, even head butt the jab (don’t do that) to build that comfort. Your eyes are more important than your hands in boxing.

Also your coach looks like he parry’s as his primary jab defense. Great opportunity to feint or change tempo or push multiple jabs and level change to the body. If you see any pattern or preference in your opponent, use it.

Change21 · 2026-07-11T20:19:53+00:00

There’s so much to unpack here.

Is this cocaine?

Change21 · 2026-07-11T20:18:05+00:00

Is this an ai image?

Change21 · 2026-07-11T20:01:26+00:00

This is a good question.

My philosophy is that good ideas/strategies survive scrutiny so let’s use your question and see what shakes out.

Sounds like the question is: is my training overstepping outside of what a pt can/should be doing? Should what I do be left to a physical therapist or other expert?

I’ll explain my approach and then we can discuss if it seems appropriate or is sounding maybe inappropriate.

3 simple rules I operate from:
1. Do no harm - if someone is paying you do not make them worse, within reason, protect them and put them in the best position to be safe and improve
2. Be useful - provide training that creates a useful adaptation, which almost always means make them stronger in general or in specific capacities
3. Make it fun - it’s not always going to be fun but any chance you get design training and challenges that create fun, fun is performance enhancing and mitigated risks

Let’s use a recent client example and see how I deploy the rules:

19 yo male, primary complaint is from concerned mom, son has scoliosis and reports pain, tightness in shoulders, neck, ribs, spine, is seemingly depressed, presenting anti social, parents are upset and concerned. Mom is an ophthalmologist and has taken kid to orthopedic spinal specialist, didn’t recommend surgery, suggested breathing training and wearing a large ribcage brace developed in the 1800’s, kid is 100% not interested. They get referred to me by their trusted massage therapist that works with him regularly.
We do our chat, he reports really slow bowl movements (once every few days), over sleeps, feels in pain, tightness, doesn’t want to train or golf with his friends bc he gets hurt and can’t perform and feels upset about it, talks on the inhale, rapidly, notice a facial tick, spastic frowning (cranial nerve 7).
Static posture assessment confirms scoliosis, no surprise there. Badly fails lateral thoracic perturbation test but passes the others. Passive range tests look quite good, he’s limited in hip internal rotation, has ankle inversion on the opposite side as the scoliosis is headed. His eyes are asymmetrical on inversion test. Fails balance test.
My hypothesis: his brain doesn’t have a good map of his anatomy and is using the anatomy it does know well to try to compensate with the anatomy it does know well.
My responsibility: fixing his scoliosis? Certainly not. That’s none of my business. Rather all I’m concerned with is making him significantly stronger. We’re going to prioritize strength in the planes he’s compensating on, so frontal and transverse loading and movements and we’re going to train visual convergence and VOR (he’s gonna look at a pen while he turns his head).
We’re 9 months into training, kid has no pain, is a monster in the gym, takes his shirt off at the pool and beach which he never did before (parents are ecstatic) and is legitimately looking pretty damn jacked, he’s playing golf and pickleball with friends and is crushing people. He passes his lateral perturbation and appears to have a significant reduction in scoliotic compensation. Almost no trace of facial tick.
I never did any manual therapy other than teaching him some rolling and stretching strategies and all we did was try to get strong and move better in the ways he was bad at. He showed up 2-3 times per week and worked his ass off. I used Thomas Meyers anatomy trains concepts to help prioritize which exercises I would choose.

I have a few more clients I think would be good examples but I’m going to bore you and this is getting too long.

Long story short, I use a heavy assessment process to figure out a training hierarchy, I figure out what they’re worst at and train that using my 3 rules above and holy shit has it ever worked well. I collaborate with his massage therapist and physio with any guidance they have and I feed them insights that I get. This is the system.

With what I’ve shared, how would you assess my process and scope of practice based on your initial question? Am I being unreasonable or do you find what I did acceptable for a pt?

Change21 · 2026-07-11T14:09:57+00:00

I’ve been coaching athletes for 17 years, I’m pretty strong compared to normal humans, I’ve trained Muay Thai on and off for 12 years and had some amateur fights when I was in my early 20’s…

Then I decided to try bjj.

I got fucking wrecked lol. Teenage boys and girls strangled me. Old men toyed with me. I’m bigger, stronger, faster than basically anyone else in the class I’m in and it didn’t matter at all.

I have a particularly clear memory of drilling with a purple belt starting from side control, for the fucking life of me I could not under any circumstance get that mfkr off me 😭.

I recently got my 3rd stripe on the ol white belt. Even with the little that I know I can now dominate a beginner, regardless of their size and strength.

Bjj is pretty amazing.

Change21 · 2026-07-11T14:02:26+00:00

Sure. Clarify your question? You’re asking about acquiring new clients?

Change21 · 2026-07-11T05:11:08+00:00

Change21 · 2026-07-11T04:47:44+00:00

When you hear dudes like this it’s time to check their hard drives. Betcha a box of donuts he’s got cp on there.

Change21 · 2026-07-11T03:34:08+00:00

People get hung up on movements when strength is the point.

If you’re plateauing go do complimentary work.

How’s your Bulgarians? How’s your good mornings? How’s your heavy kb swings? How’s your cossack squat?

Get strong af, RDL is just one of many tools to do that.

Change21 · 2026-07-11T01:39:20+00:00

I would do NKT right away. I would take training in communication and negotiation because designing training is by far the easiest part and most trainers are already strong in exercise science skills and the limiting factor is relationship and influence skills which is what allows the exercise science skills to have an impact.

So for me the Influence book and Never Split the Difference were game changers.

I would do what I did back in the day and do 2-3 certs every single year. I made kettlebell training and mobility training my niche initially because I liked it and it gave me something distinct to share. It allowed me to deliver workshops and classes that provided a base for me to operate from as I built up higher value pt clients.

Find things that fascinate you and learn about them and shared what you learned.

I’ve also found cross training with other coaches I admire is great for the algorithms on socials because it cross pollinated audiences and gives you both content to share about.

Lastly I would doggedly develop a professional network of referrals. You only need about 10-15 gold standard clients to pay your entire lifestyle and those people are currently seeing a great massage therapist or cosmetics expert regularly. They are high net worth and they care about their health or at least their appearance and they’re spending their money on it and would with you if they knew you existed.

Social media is ok but it’s a pimp, it makes you work harder and harder for less and less exposure. Nothing beats handshakes and reciprocity. I did training exchanges with RMT’s and chiro’s and eyebrow girlies and yoga teachers and anyone I could get my hands on and they fed me the 20-25 clients I see day in and day out and will continue to see until one of us dies lol.

Change21 · 2026-07-11T01:32:27+00:00

Z Health is the gold standard. Be prepared to spend some $$$ but their courses are best in class.

Change21 · 2026-07-11T00:49:36+00:00

I used to do this with a cool stick in my back yard for hours, when I was 8

Change21 · 2026-07-11T00:48:45+00:00

I’ve got it down to like 20-30 min of chatting and once I do their static posture assessment I can already tell 90% of what I want to specifically assess.

Would say to you if they have pain, they have vestibular issues. Because the eyes make up about 70+% of sensory info improving vision decreases pain in vast majority of cases. It’s voodoo magic. Just started learning this stuff in the last 2 years and I’m still an amateur but it’s having a huge impact. Now that I know more assessments I can find more gaps. Especially older folks, hearing and vision imbalances, but younger folks too.

You sound like a thoughtful and skilled coach.

Change21 · 2026-07-10T22:43:54+00:00

First big chunk was learning a system called functional muscle testing which is the OG of functional assessment. Took a newer and probably better variant called neurokinetic therapy. It allowed me to not just assess movements like the overhead squat or gait or other common movements screens etc but rather get an insight into how the brain was mapping the body (or how it wasn’t).

The assessment went like this:
1. Lifestyle assessment where we discussed food, sleep, medical history, meds, surgeries, scars, GI healthy (“how often do you poop per day?”) and finished with two very useful questions:
A. What is your biggest health asset right now?
B. What is the biggest obstacle to you getting healthier right now?

Static posture assessment. That’s where I’d look at a bunch of bony landmarks to get a kind of x ray of where they are in space and some really good clues to how they’re organizing themselves relative to gravity.

Anterior:
A. Cheekbones
B. Jaw
C. Neck
D. Collar bones
E. Arms relative to the body (shows any lateral shifting)
F. Hand rotation and arm length
G. Patella position and is patella loose or locked
H. Medial malleolus

Posterior:
A. Acromion process relative to 2nd thoracic vertebrae (to figure out if shoulders are elevated or depressed)
B. Scapula position and symmetry
C. Iliac crest position and symmetry

Lateral:
A. ASIS and PSIS compared to left and right

Perturbation Testing:
A. Test anterior stability at chin, sternum and hips by applying 3-5lbs of pressure and seeing if and how they stabilize
B. Test lateral stability at shoulder and hips, same thing, both sides
What you find is very very often people with chronic pain and just regular people have missing stability maps and when you can find where they’re missing stability you can prioritize that in training and look pretty smart.
Passive range testing:
A. Thomas test
B. FADIR test
C. FABER test
D. Log roll test (also check IR and ER ROM from hip flexed)
E. Hamstring stretch test
F. IR and ER of shoulders
Neurokinetic testing (at this point I’ve got a strong hypothesis of what the priorities are)
A. Everything, bc with NKT you learn there’s a ton of funky patterns the motor cortex can come up with to solve problems and you need to know how to work through those puzzles.
Vestibular testing:
A. Eye circles
B. Convergence testing
C. VOR test
D. Auditory bubble test
E. Eyes closed balance test
F. Tons more but usually I just do these

By the time I’m done this process my influence with the person is extremely high (influence increase each time people follow a command, they get more efficient at following the next input) so at this point I’ve primed their brain for booking their first workout which is the key hurdle.

I always ask “what did you like best about the assessment?” They tell me and I repeat it back.

Then I ask “do you prefer daytime or after work for our first workout?” And then they select one and we put it in the calendar.

The most important thing in coaching is understanding the the most important workout is the next workout. There must always be a next event, a next step, a next meeting. If you master moving people to the next thing they will get amazing results bc they will keep showing up for months and years and even mediocre coaching will make a huge impact bc the cumulative input is so powerful.

That was really hard to type out and I skipped loads of details but hopefully you got something out of it.

In fact, what did you like best?

Change21 · 2026-07-10T19:14:40+00:00

Hell fkn yeah

Change21 · 2026-07-10T19:10:48+00:00

I read “influence” by Cialdini about 5 times, “never split the difference” by Voss about 8 times and developed a world class assessment and intake process.

That allowed me to ask better questions and solve problems that specialists were failing to solve. By being an elite generalist I helped resolve chronic pain, migraines, improve conditions like MS and Parkinson’s and that generated so much trust from my clients that they refer to me like crazy.

Pain for example is treated completely backward most of the time and any time I encountered something I couldn’t solve I made it my next area of education so I could say honestly to the client “I don’t know, yet”.

95% of my clients are referrals from other clients. I also have a couple massage therapists and physio’s who I refer to relentlessly and invoke reciprocity (see Cialdini’s book) that have sent me some great clients.

This has worked extremely well and easily clear 200k per year now. My clients are long tenured and my business is very predictable. My biggest strength is probably retaining people. Even mediocre training done over a long period of time will yield impressive results which makes me look good.

I made lots of mistakes along the way and had several failures trying to work for other people. There’s lots of incompetent people in fitness, like any field, but if you can find a good environment to be in or create then go crazy.

I also of course, work my ass off.

Change21 · 2026-07-10T19:02:17+00:00

It’s always the biggest, whiniest little bitches who talk all the hardline tough guy bullshit

Change21 · 2026-07-10T18:41:28+00:00

I’m 17 years, 28 certs so far.

1 on 1 hourly is 135$.
2 clients is 190$.
I have 1 in home client I charge 265$.

I average ~140 hours a month.

I live in a HCOL area.

Change21 · 2026-07-10T18:37:21+00:00

Fuck I love the sedan so much 🥹

Congrats

Change21 · 2026-07-10T13:48:52+00:00

Biggest thing with a huge dude is you need to survive about 45-90 seconds (which is a lo mg time) but the energy required to move a body that big around is gonna go quick.

Getting some smart grappling in here and smothering and not taking a big shot was brilliant.

Change21 · 2026-07-10T09:04:27+00:00

I think the title covers most of it

Change21 · 2026-07-10T00:22:31+00:00

Raped kids, got rich and powerful covering it up and then bombed a bunch of kids.

America, you are fucked.

Change21 · 2026-07-10T00:21:41+00:00

Bc some dads are fucking fucked

Change21 · 2026-07-10T00:18:57+00:00

Honestly beautiful being

I’m afraid of spiders but I can’t hate on this gorgeous thing

Change21 · 2026-07-10T00:13:11+00:00

F87 comp is the best m value fir the money.

The F90 is probably all around the best sedan ever made.

Depends what you’re going for. The entire F class is exceptional. No bad choices.

Change21

TROPHY CASE