The shadow boxing videos will provide an aerobic workout like no other and teaches easy speed, easy power and functional strength. This is accomplished using unique body rotation movement and the rapid transfer of body weight. Jim Hoover’s ultimate boxing video is a must for all forms of fighting for it teaches balance. Maintaining balance and keeping your opponent off balance is fundamental for success. Hoov continues to extend a one million dollar challenge to any top ten ranked heavyweight boxer able to stay in the ring with him.
As promised to Ripper, Hoov is now offering personal training on a limited basis out of Las Vegas, Nevada. Hoov is an efficiency expert at hand to hand combat. Bring him your style, and he will make the simple subtle changes that will take you to the next level. Simple works best and Hoov will show you how to chain together simple effective techniques. These techniques will bring you to your full potential whether it is for sport or for battlefield survival. Read the following first chapter of Hoov’s life story The Dance of Death and you will understand what separates him from all other fighters and trainers.
The Dance of Death
My legs quivered with fatigue as I struggled to keep my mouth and nose above the sewer water. It can’t be much longer I thought before the guards will start bringing the water down again, unless they are going to drown me. I was in the hole, a six-foot wide, eight-foot deep, concrete cylinder torture chamber sunk into the ground. For the next ten days I would be in total darkness, except for the few minutes when I was fed four meals that consisted of a quart tin of extremely hot cayenne pepper water.
When I was first thrown into the hole the sheer terror of the moment sent a numbing sensation of inevitable death screaming into my mind. Why me? How could this be happening? There was no light and no sound. It was total sensory deprivation. Shudders of fear streamed up and down my body as I quivered in the darkness. I stood there for what were probably a few minutes although it seemed like hours.
Suddenly a cockroach ran across my face and into my mouth. The fear I had felt a moment earlier was replaced with rage. I bit down on the little maggot crushing the life out of him and then spit him into the water. That cockroach saved my life. Anger had replaced fear. Fear leaves you weak and willing to accept your fate. Anger fills you with the desire to fight no matter how insurmountable the odds seem. I suddenly realized I wasn’t nearly as afraid at that moment as I had been before the cockroach found me. I smiled an evil smile as I imagined what I would do to my tormentors.
Revenge is such a powerful motivator. I felt an adrenaline rush as I began to believe that I was going to live. If I was going to escape the hole I knew I had to keep myself strong and angry. I started to think about what Ripper had been telling me for the last six months in training. “Kid, you’ve got to learn to breathe.” Breath control is the key to controlling your mind and making it work for you. I’ve got to get control of my mind, I thought, as I started to do a set of breathing exercises. Then the thought hit me that changed my life. I’ve got to free my mind and let it grow! Free your mind and let it grow. They could capture my body but not my mind. I took another deep breath and felt a new sense of confidence with that simple thought. I could feel my body start to relax as I began inhaling and exhaling in five-second intervals. I sucked in more of the stale air and got a nose full of the filthy water. I cursed as I choked and spit the water out.
As I stood on my tiptoes I flexed every muscle in my body for an instant and then relaxed for a moment before flexing again. I did this a hundred times and the desire to live and crush my kidnappers was getting stronger with every muscle contraction.
The water slowly drained out of the hole in the center of the floor. I began to shadow box as the water slowly slipped past shoulder height. When the water got knee deep, I sat down against the wall and held a wall chair position until my legs started to quiver with fatigue. The last of the water drained out and I began doing Ripper squats followed by Ripper pushups. I thought about bridging exercises to keep my neck strong. I could feel the rough concrete floor on my bare feet. I knew the floor would tear my forehead to shreds if I had no packing to cushion the impact. I was butt naked so I decided to pass on the bridging exercises. Instead I rolled my head in a circle 100 times in each direction. The human head weighs between 15 and 20 pounds. I could feel these exercises making my neck stronger with each passing day. I popped up into a handstand against the wall and did a few hand stand presses.
I sat down on the floor and shivered as I drifted off to a troubled sleep. I lost track of time. I awoke as the water began to rise again, creeping into my mouth and nose. I spit the water out as I struggled to my feet. I started shadow boxing again as the water crept slowly up to my chest. Every punch I threw I imagined crushing one of the guards.
When the water forced me onto my tiptoes I began flexing and relaxing every muscle in my body for another hundred times. I knew if I worked out too much it would weaken me since I existed on only cayenne pepper water. I needed food to train harder. After the water drained out again I sat down on the cold dark floor and my belly growled with hunger. I am so hungry I can eat anything I thought. I remembered my dad taking me to an open house at Kansas State University. The professors had talked about how grasshoppers and earthworms were great for human consumption and loaded with nutrition. I figured cockroaches must be a close second.
I sat in the dark and listened. When you are in total darkness and silence your senses get razor sharp. I could hear the cockroaches crawling. Bam! I snatched up a couple and threw them into my mouth. Not bad I thought. That night I slept with a full belly.
I made a game out of sitting in the darkness and listening for movement. I snatched the little roaches and threw them into my mouth and then laughed with glee. I remembered how Ripper had told me to see things in my mind if I wanted to make things happen. I listened for the cockroaches and imagined seeing them as if it was as bright as day instead of pitch black. I spent hours sitting and listening and visualizing seeing the cockroaches and then striking out at them with the speed of light. I laughed like a mad man every time I caught one. Laughter really is the best medicine. For a brief moment in time I was happy. Once again the cockroaches saved my life by breaking up the monotony of my daily existence.
My mind flashed back to my training days with Ripper on boxing and catch wrestling. I remembered how Ripper said to program the mind to work for you as you sleep. Whenever I felt drowsy I would tell myself I would awaken stronger and more alert after each nap.
I heard the guards talking and suddenly the steel doors at the top of the hole swung open. The guards’ flashlight lit up the hole as he threw me another quart tin of the hot cayenne pepper water. My throat and stomach burned from the fiery fluid, yet it raised my spirits and fueled my rage to live. The guards laughed and cursed at me as they closed the steel doors shut. I was alone again in the deadly silent hole. But now I didn’t care. I was alive and I could feel myself getting stronger and more focused on living with every passing moment. I am going to make it, I thought, as I swallowed more of the fiery water. Some of the hot fluid splashed into my eyes and I screamed in rage. The burning cayenne water set my eyes on fire. Painful minutes passed. The burning stopped and my eyes felt great. I decided to splash my eyes with cayenne water every time I drank from the tin. I had no idea how good the cayenne pepper was for my eyes, however I knew that even the moment of intense pain would help break up the lonely, dark, deadly silence. My life for the next ten days consisted of training, meditating and catching cockroaches.
I lost track of the days as time slowly slipped away. I figured that I had drunk between 35 to 40 quarts of cayenne water. I was guessing I had been in the hole around 9 or 10 days, if the guards were giving me a quart of cayenne water every six hours
I started developing open sores over my entire body. My body ached from the burning sensation I felt every time I moved. The flesh of my body was rotting off the bone. I knew I had to get out of there or I would die from gangrene.
I began to formulate a plan of escape. Every time the guards opened the steel doors I would appear weaker and weaker and slower to get the cayenne water. It was my plan to fake death. When the guards fished me out I would attack them. The water drained down the hole and I sat down on the floor waiting for the guards to find my seemingly lifeless body. I drifted off to sleep. The steel doors finally opened and the familiar voice of Sgt. Brock yelled down at me. “You made it kid. You’re in! You’re in! You are now an official fighter for the Dance of Death. You broke the Ripper’s record. It has been over ten days and you are still alive. Welcome to our world.” I looked at him with hate filled eyes as I realized my 10 days of total terror had been nothing more than a test arranged by this sick s.o.b.
I wondered how many people had died in this hole before me. I suddenly realized I had spent 10 days smelling the stench of death. It was a devastating blow to be betrayed by someone you thought was your friend. From that moment on I never again believed in heroes.
They took me out of the hole and placed me in a hot tub of garlic and ginger water. I lay in the tub for 8 hours drinking chaparral tea and waiting for my body to start healing. As I lay in the tub I realized that I would hate Sgt. Brock or whatever the man’s real name was until the day he died. He died this past February. I doubt if anyone is missing him.
My life as a professional fighter started 41 years ago. I had just flunked my physical for high school sports, because of a heart murmur. The doctors told me I could lead a normal life, however I could never play competitive sports again. I was determined to find a way to play sports again.
I got an after school job at a plumbing shop. That is where I ran into Sgt. Brock; the man that got me involved in bare knuckle fighting. He saw me doing hand stand push ups against a wall in the back room and asked me why I wasn’t playing high school sports. He convinced me to give bare knuckle boxing a try and one month later I had my first fight a few days before my 15th birthday.
I will never forget that first fight for as long as I live. I was scared to death. I looked across the ring and saw a full-grown man that out weighed me by a full 60 pounds. I was trying hard to think of how I could beat him, yet the most overpowering thought on my mind was “What the hell am I doing here?” That was a real test for the human fight or flight syndrome. I wanted to leave, but the thought of being branded a coward by Sgt. Brock was far more powerful than the fear of taking a beating. Sgt. Brock saw the look of fright on my face and said “Kid, getting your nose broken doesn’t hurt near as much as you think it would.” I looked at his broken up face and thought, “Well, you should know!”
The fight started. I threw a left jab and he countered with a perfect overhand right that crushed my nose. At the end of the round Sgt. Brock said, “ See it didn’t hurt that much did it?” I said “No it didn’t.” The fear was gone and I have never felt fear again while fighting. I lost the fight yet I felt like I had won because I had also bloodied him up a little.
Sgt. Brock gave me DMSO to take away the swelling and pain and a steel contraption to stick up my nose to straighten it out again. It was more than a little painful but it worked.
I lost my next 13 fights, yet with each fight I was slowly getting better and better. Sgt. Brock didn’t seem to be in any rush to teach me anything. I ran a lot and hit the heavy bag but got little instructions from him. I was learning on my own. I used to look at his beaten up face and think, maybe he doesn’t know anything. He looked like a human punching bag. Anyway, I wasn’t going to quit until I had won at least one fight.
When I had my 15th fight I knew I was going to win. I looked across the ring and saw a 54-year-old 5’8” 150 pound black man. His soft belly hung over the top of his trunks. There wasn’t the least sign of muscle tone anywhere on his body, except for his powerful looking legs and enormous neck. I heard someone from the small crowd of men yell “Bust this little piss ant up Ripper!” Ripper glanced over at the man and smiled with a very calm look on his old, weathered, black face.
Ripper, I thought, hell I’ll crush this old man and get my first win. I looked at Sgt. Brock and winked saying “I am going to kick this old man’s ass!” Sgt. Brock looked at me and laughed saying “Sure kid, that’s the spirit.” It was the worst beating I had ever taken in my entire life. I never once laid a fist on him. He twisted and turned me and punched and elbowed every inch of my body. For 3 rounds I punched at him and got only air. At the end of the 3rd round he had me sprawled over the ropes headfirst. The blood was running out of my broken nose, given to me by one of his many head butts. He was literally giving my butt a brutal beating with elbow after elbow combinations. Some of the men in the small crowd were laughing so hard they almost fell on the floor. I had never heard so much laughter at a fight in my life and it was all directed at me.
Sgt. Brock mercifully stopped the match. As I left the ring the tiny crowd roared with laughter as I limped back to my dirty, little dressing room. I was still more determined than ever to win at least one fight before I quit. I sat my banged up swollen ass down on a shaky old chair and began to think about my not so impressive 0 and 15 record. I need to learn how to fight like that old man, I thought. I need a real trainer. At that moment the stained curtain in my dressing room slid open and there stood the Ripper. “Kid you have the heart of a lion and the technique of a maggot. You need to learn how to fight. We did a background check on your family and your dad has a cousin that was a real fighter. He was a ripper. I know him. I’m going to train you for the next 6 months. If you’re tough enough to show up tomorrow, listen to me, and do exactly as I say you will never lose another fight again unless you have to for one reason or another.” Ripper laughed and said, “Bring a pencil and some paper. You’ll be drawing stick man figures of the techniques you learn. If you can’t draw it you don’t know it.” I learned his techniques perfectly and every day I drew the stick man figures. He was right. I haven’t lost any of my over 350 bare-knuckle fights in the last 40 years.
I covered my body with DMSO to take away the pain and bruising and went home. The next morning I woke up so sore that I couldn’t move without pain. The DMSO had helped with most of the swelling and discoloration, however my butt was still swollen. I walked down to the training center with the slow, short steps that resembled a ninety-year-old man’s walk. When Ripper saw me stumble into the gym he roared with laughter. “What’s the matter white boy did some old man kick your ass last night?” He said as he flashed a huge grin to show off a set of perfect white teeth that contrasted beautifully with his rough black face. “Now,” Ripper said, “before we get started I want to show you something.”
He pulled up his shirt and grabbed the loose skin on his stomach and pulled it around to the middle of his back. It was one of the grossest things I have ever seen. He looked at me and laughed at the sick look on my face. “Do you know why I did this to myself?” asked Ripper. “No.” I replied with an uncertain look on my face. “It’s simple,” Ripper said. “It’s all a part of deception and keeping your opponent off balance. It worked on you. You looked across the ring and saw a feeble looking; loose-bellied old black man and you knew you could beat him. My loose belly gave the impression that I was not a well-conditioned athlete. You saw me and knew you could beat me. But, it didn’t turn out that way did it? If you listen to me you too will also have to use deception to keep getting fights because you will out grow your competition. So you will need some form of deception so your opponents will think you are losing your skills and they will be able to beat you.”
Ripper then went on to tell me how he got the idea to stretch his skin by reading a National Geographic magazine and seeing pictures of tribal women of Africa that placed huge saucers in their lips to deform them. They slowly increase the size of the saucer until they achieved the results they wanted. Everyday Ripper pulled on the skin around his waist until it got to the point that it hung over his pants a good six inches. It looked like he had been a fat man that had lost 300 or 400 pounds and the former weight had stretched his skin beyond repair. Ripper went on to say that every successful fighter or businessman learns how to keep the competition off balance in one way or the other. “Now come on white boy.,” laughed Ripper as he looked at the stunned look on my face. “Let’s train.” Ripper called me white boy a lot, but it wasn’t meant as a racial slur or derogatory comment. Every time he said white boy it was accompanied by a big grin. We took an instant liking to each other even though we were as different as Mutt and Jeff. Ripper laughed as he watched me try to get my battered, bruised body to do all the exercises he started to teach me on that first day.
I was so sore I couldn’t do one Ripper squat or a single Ripper pushup. “Pathetic kid.” laughed Ripper as he quickly did 200 of each exercise. Then we started to shadow box. It took me more than a second to throw one jab. Once again Ripper laughed at me and started to mimic my pathetic performance. His old man movements were so hilarious that this time I also roared with laughter. Man did that ever hurt my sore cracked ribs.
At the end of the workout Ripper sat me down for a serious talk. “Kid,” Ripper said. “You are going to be a great fighter someday. I knew it when I saw you come into the gym today. I have beaten the hell out of hundreds of men in my lifetime. Every one of them that were able to speak I’ve offered to start training the next day. Not one of those men has ever showed up. You are the first. I am going to show you things no one else knows. I will make you a master of this sport. I want one thing in return. You stay alive and forty years from now when you are my age you write a book about the two of us so we will both live forever.”
“I have no family. I am the last of my kind. I can teach you things that you’ve never even dreamed of knowing. I’ll teach you the basics so well that you will be able to figure out the rest yourself. I’m going to teach you every technique I know through stick man drawings. Once you can draw the technique for yourself you will know the technique. My trainer taught me this way and it is the best way to learn. If you can draw it you know it. You are going to be like me. You’ll watch other men your age grow weak and feeble while you get stronger and stronger. The body does not rot away as you age it atrophies from lack of use. I’m giving you the fountain of youth. Use it wisely and people will come to you begging to know how you did it. One more thing. You will never earn any real money from these people. They will make promises and talk about the huge purses. You will make them millions and millions of dollars and you will get crumbs. I know because forty years ago I was you.” Ripper paused, took a deep breath and looked at me.
Finally he continued. “You need to follow a few simple rules that will make life easier for you. Go over them every day for the rest of your life. Here they are. 1. Keep it simple and use stick man drawings to explain your techniques.2. Anything complicated is really a group of simple things chained together, which look complicated. 3. Keep learning until the day you die and life will remain exciting. Now don’t ask any questions. Go home and I will see you tomorrow.”
As I walked out of the gym Sgt. Brock gave me a strange look and walked over to the Ripper. It wasn’t until years later that I learned the Ripper had given Sgt. Brock his battered up face.
Ripper trained me for 6 months and taught me more about boxing and catch wrestling than I have ever learned from anyone. The Ripper died in a car wreck 186 days after our fight. Anyway that is what I was told. I never heard anything about him again. It was as if he had never existed.
Every year on my birthday I think about the Ripper and how old he would be if he were still alive. This year he would have turned 93. He taught me the breathing exercises, advanced hand stand push up training, wall chairs, Ripper squats, Ripper pushups, bridging, flying knee and shin strikes, elbow combinations, double wrist locks, arm bars, leg locks, arm and leg wraps, toe holds, neck cranks, heel hooks, head butting, and every thing else under the sun. I have spent the last 39 years refining and expanding these techniques.
I had six fights while the Ripper trained me. I now had a six and 15 record. Life was good. Ripper constantly kept telling me “Attention to detail. Attention to detail.” That is the key to success in every walk of life. He told me something else that I never forgot and always do to people who don’t know me. Ripper said when you are learning something from someone, whether it is fighting or business let the person teaching you be the expert and you be the student. Ripper always said “ If the teacher thinks that you are totally ignorant about his area of expertise he is more apt to give you all his secrets because he is not at all intimidated by your knowledge and wants to impress you with his vast secret knowledge.” This has served me well.
It was Sgt. Brock that told me Ripper had been killed in a car wreck. I cried like a baby. My mind flashed back to the last time I saw the Ripper. “Kid” he said. “I’ve got to go. Remember what I’ve taught you. Keep it simple. You’re going to be good. I saw the fire in your eyes when I gave you that beating. The man that taught me the foundation named me the Ripper. Take my knowledge, build upon it and pass it on. See you again kid one way or another.” Those were his last words. He gave me a hug, flashed his big grin, and was gone. I loved that man. It was like losing a brother. It has never been the same without him. Sgt. Brock seemed to enjoy the pain I felt with the death of the Ripper. I’ve always felt that he was some how responsible for the Ripper’s death. Sgt. Brock set up my next fight in Mexico. That is where unknown to me I would spend the worst 10 days of my life in a death hole!!
To be continued...............
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Jim Hoover, the world’s most devastating puncher and reigning heavy weight bare-knuckle boxing champion of the world.
Bare-knuckle boxing is combat fighting. It is a combination of free movement, standing clench and ground fighting. Fighters can use any part of their body to knock out or submit their opponent. Any form or style of unarmed combat is allowed. Bare knuckle boxing is the most explosive style of fighting that includes all forms of free movement, clinch and ground fighting. The Dance of Death technique is based on one simple phrase explode....trap and wrap, twist, push, pull, snap! Hoov is a master of deception in the simple subtle changes that determine the outcome in combat fighting. Simple always works best in the chaos of unarmed combat.
