What cons does a high guard have?

Do you find it easy and fluent to punch with your hands high?

 

Can't see ****, hands in no position to punch. It can be used, but you need great reflexes to get off as soon as you feel a punch hit your guard.

Even then, you can't see **** so you don't know what's coming next. It can work but it isn't ideal and it's boring as **** to watch.

 

Much more difficult to move the head.

You may think it's not such a bad trade-off, as your hands will protect your head, but it's more than just the difference between slipping or blocking punches.

Maneuverability of the head is vital in baiting (setting up counter punches), feinting and finding angles.

Depends what you're best at.

 

Lots of guys shell up when using it. It can be a hugely beneficial guard though. It's great to use when taking a breather in amateur fights. I used it a lot as a short guy but I like to keep my arms more relaxed most of the time.

 

My thoughts exactly. It's really up to your style, what suits you best. You have to try different ones before you find what works. High guard is easy to adapt at the beginning when your defensive movement is not very developed. There's pros and cons to having a high and low guard, so it all depends on the individual style.

 

Very effective in the ametuer scoring. Look at the Olympic footage of De La Hoya, Mayweather, Khan etc.

It's never good to use it as your only guard, but mix it up some. I usually hold my right hand high in the same place (near the temple), but constantly change up the look of the lead hand.

 

From my experience you protect yourself very well with a high guard, not a lot of punches land clean on you so you dont get caught as much however as someone stated earlier it limits upperbody/head movement and appears to be stiff, unless your a peek a boo fighter with your hands in front of your face, shoulders and hips squared up and fighting from a low crouch. Try to avoid standing straight up with a high guard, keep the hands high with a bend in your knees. Also its easy to become just defensive from this position make sure you throw back and dont just curl up

 

your able to block the punch and hit him back with your own punch at the same time

 

Don't like it my self just leaves my body way to open and brings down my head movement. but it does seem to be affective if your a short fighter.

 

Vision is the biggest problem especially if you have been use to using a cross guard most of your life. You have to learn to be able to see through your gloves. I'm not saying it so much as x-ray vision but the ability to see through the gaps and know what is happening despite limited vision. This wold be called preconception. Your minds ability to catalog and understand what it is seeing in the gaps.

As I often relate this to my other sport football it is not dissimilar to what a quarterback does. A quarterback doesn't see over the line. He sees through it. He sees through the gaps and develops a mental image of the field based on the limited data his brain has been given.

Some people have this skill some do not. Some are born with it. Some develop it. Some weren't born with it and fail to ever develop it. It is the same in boxing.

 

I was thinking about this the other day and there is a genetic component to it. As I said before in a thread about boxing vision. They eye has two kind of vision receptors cones and rods. rods make up what we consider periferail vision. They are color blind, sensitive to movement and light(meaning they provide out night vision as they need little light to function). The cones are our focused sensory receptors, they are precise for better focused vision, see color and require significant light to function.

People are born with different ratios of rods to cones. For someone who has a lot of cones they will usually be bothered when they feel that their focused vision is obstructed. For someone with many rods and the excellent peripheral vision they provide as well as the sensitivity to motion this wont bother them.

I say that you will see a preference of chosen defense based on how a fighter is genetically predisposed to see. For instance I would say the Floyd has a lots of cones given how his eyes focus on the target when in his cross guard and how when he employes the high guard he likes to frequently open the guard so he can see.

 

A bit harder to initiate offense against same to lower height opponents. Body shots must be "set up" with punches versus just body positioning.

The more speed and timing you have though the easier it is to be highly effective out of the high guard, see prime Winky Wright, Josh Clottey, and JMM.

 

It's not an easy guard, fighters drop it while yet think it's still up which can be dangerous and a weakness. fighters need to be constantly reminded to keep it up. it's requires a lot of conditioning when doing it properly, also requires conditioning and athleticism while throwing decent volume of punches from a high guard.

 

There's this one guy at the gym who has quick feet, he bounces in and out with feints and is able to counter while moving/stepping out.
I usually use a high guard for a round or two until he gasses out a little. He gets a bit frustrated and his tempo is more predictable then.