Israel Adesanya & Coach Eugene Break Down Elite Striking | Bangtao Seminar (Pt. 1)

At a recent seminar at Bangtao Muay Thai & MMA, former UFC Middleweight Champion Israel Adesanya and City Kickboxing head coach Eugene Bareman gave a masterclass on the subtle art that separates good fighters from great ones: Feinting.

Most beginners think fighting is about hitting. But at the elite level, fighting is about lying. It's about convincing your opponent you're doing one thing, so they open the door for another.

Quick add: Open "Feint Jab - Feint Jab - Outside Low Kick - Lead Hook" in FightFlow.

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1. The "Golden Ratio" of Fighting (7:1)

Coach Eugene dropped a statistic that changes how you look at striking.

Most fighters spend 100% of their training time hitting pads. But in a fight, if you just walk forward and hit, you get countered.

"The very best fighters in the world, the ratio goes up to around 7 or 8. That means the top 1% of the elite are feinting 7 to 8 times before they actually do a hit." — Eugene Bareman

If you watch Adesanya fight, look at the "dead time" between strikes. He isn't doing nothing. He is twitching a shoulder, stepping a foot, or flashing a hip. He is feeding his opponent constant "junk data" so that when the real data (the punch) comes, the opponent's brain is too overloaded to react.

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2. Feint vs. Fake: Know the Difference

This was a crucial distinction made during the seminar. People use the words interchangeably, but in the City Kickboxing system, they are two different tools:

The Feint (Low Risk)

• Where: Done OUT of range.
• Purpose: To gauge a reaction, freeze the opponent, or disrupt their rhythm.
• Risk: Near zero. If they swing, they miss.

The Fake (High Risk)

• Where: Done IN range.
• Purpose: To force a hard commitment or draw a specific counter.
• Risk: High. You are in the fire.
• Key Rule: If you fake, you usually have to commit. You don't "fake and wait." You "fake and go."

"A fake is something you do in range. It gets you the deepest reaction, but it comes at the highest risk. If I fake a double leg, I might eat a knee. So I have to be huge confident in my read." — Eugene Bareman

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3. "Selling the Lie" (Energy & Intent)

A bad feint looks like a twitch. A good feint looks like a knockout blow right until the moment it isn't.

Adesanya emphasized that your feint implies intent. If your real jab has 10/10 intensity but your feinted jab has 2/10 intensity, you aren't fooling anyone.

"If you jab like this [lazy], and you feint like this [lazy], they're not going to believe it. It needs the same energy. Same speed. Same intensity." — Israel Adesanya

Your body language must scream "I am hitting you" even if you aren't.

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Try the combo in FightFlow (most important)

You can't master this by just hitting a heavy bag for power. You need to train your brain to separate the "lie" from the "truth." Feint Jab - Pause - Jab - Cross is the fastest way to drill this rhythm. Open the share link and add it to your FightFlow library:

Open this combo in FightFlow.

Tap the link, then choose "Add Combo" when FightFlow opens to save it to your app. If you only do one thing after reading, make it this.

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Final notes

If you want the full detail and energy, watch the full seminar on YouTube. This write-up is a training-friendly summary, but the pacing, demos, and Q&A context are best seen in full.

One last reminder to save the combo before you leave: Open "Feint Jab - Feint Jab - Outside Low Kick - Lead Hook" in FightFlow.