Tomorrow will be Jens last day training with us as he’ll be heading out on Saturday morning to Florida for his WEC fight next week so I thought I’d give my thoughts on his camp and his future. When he first arrived a few weeks ago, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I had only briefly met Jens once down in Vegas for the US Pride show while I was walking around with Sakurai, whom I had trained to fight him a couple years back.
I knew Jens was from around this area but I didn’t really know why he had left to train in Iowa or much else about him other than what I could learn from watching his fights. He seemed like a tough fighter who gave it everything he had in each fight, but after seeing him beaten by B.J. and Urijah I wasn’t sure what his future in the sport could be.
After working with him for the past few weeks and watching him train with Matt, I have to say I think his best days in the cage are still ahead of him. He is a hard worker, a quick study, and his wrestling background lends itself very well to the new fighting style he’s working on learning with Matt. A lot of times veterans who have been around for a long time tend to be set in their ways and reluctant to embrance something new, but this has not been the case with Jens.
Ever since he’s gotten here he’s been eager to learn and committed to getting better. He’s also said he will be training with us for every fight from now on and he’s excited with the potential he sees in what he’s learning. In the short run, you always run the risk an athlete like Jens who has been used to fighting a certain way for so long will have a difficult time transitioning into a totally new approach and overthink and overanalyze everything rather than just letting his hands go when it comes fight time, but in the long he’s going to be a whole new fighter.
Sakurai also just called me a minute ago and said he’ll be fighting on New Years Even in Japan and wants to come back out to train. Hopefully we can get together a training camp with Sakurai, Jens, and Spencer in the near future, it would be an awesome camp! Anyway, I’m excited to see Jens throw down next wednesday but more importantly I’m really looking forward to continuing to work with him as he gets more comfortable using everything he’s learned and more explosive as I’m able to improve his overall power.
This camp has mostly about just getting him in shape and learning how he responds to training, but in the future we’ll have much more time to get him much faster and more explosive. I think this is something he can really improve and it will certainly make a noticeable difference in the cage.
Jens has got a great future ahead of him and his best fighting is yet to come, just wait and see.
To hear more from him directly on his training here you can listen to his interview from tonight on Tapout radio…