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 broke down feinting: how often the best fighters do it, how a feint differs from a fake, and how to make the opponent believe it.

A feint is a lie told with your body. You convince the opponent you're doing one thing, so they open the door for another.

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

Pad rounds drill the hit. Feints need their own reps, because in a fight, if you just walk forward and hit, you get countered.

Coach Eugene put a number on how much the best fighters feint:

"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)

Watch the "dead time" between Adesanya's strikes. He dips a shoulder, steps a foot, flashes a hip. He feeds the opponent constant "junk data," so when the real data (the punch) comes, they have to pick it out of the noise.

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2. Feint vs. Fake: Know the Difference

People use the words interchangeably. 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: Low. 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.

Drill it: Open "Feint Jab, Feint Jab, Outside Low Kick, Lead Hook" in FightFlow. Two jab feints, then the real outside low kick and lead hook. The voice says Reset before it repeats. If the share page appears, tap Open in the App. On the import screen, tap Add to save the combo.

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The video at the top of this page has the full seminar, with the demos and Q&A this summary leaves out.