How To Train Yourself To Box (In a way)

Not being an *******, I'm being realistic.

If you feel you've improved then good for you, but you're in for a shock if you ever join a boxing gym. "Sparring" with your friends and thinking you're improving is completely different to sparring in a gym that's all I'm saying.

 

lol....I think you can expect a lot of sarcastic responses here. It's almost like going to a forum meant for certified auto mechanics and asking for advice on DIY backyard auto projects. With all due respect, there IS a lot to know that you will never get outside a proper gym with proper equipment and coaches. It's understandable that people get a little defensive or "snooty".
Now what are your goals? I think that's not too clear here.
Are you intending to become a legit boxer and/or trainer? or is this just some sort of hobby that you and your friends want to do recreationally and without traditional training/coaching?

To be honest, I think many of us are cautious to even support anything outside of a gym. Look no further than YouTube to see countless examples of idiots either hurting themselves or each other with awful techniques that will probably wind up injuring someone without teaching any useful boxing skills.

Even many of us can attest to seeing bad technique WITH formal coaches and training. It takes a lot of time, repetition and instruction to get it right. The longer you use bad technique, the more natural it becomes and then it is extremely difficult to correct.

 

Actual contenders ha ha

 

I would say you need a trainer if you want to be pretty good at an amateur level for boxing. learning the basics from a trainer just to build some momentum is good and just to make sure you know how to throw the most basic version of hooks uppercuts jabs and crosses with each hand, keep your hands up while doing so, and being able to move your head in between punches in combinations. learning to punch forwards, backwards and while moving laterally would be good to learn with a trainer also. Going with any approach to learning boxing needs consistent sparring with challenging opponents who would be consistently sparring with the learning fighter. This is the most important thing. I would say it is also very important to spar with people you have never been in the ring with before frequently as well to avoid being stuck in the same old routine. Once the fundamental skills of being able to punch in many different ways and the associated consistency with the trainer which allows both the fighter to learn from and adjust to the trainer and vice versa, that would be the optimal situation for a growing fighter.

A lot of times though the trainer reaches his or her limit and cant really teach the fighter anything else so they basically end up stuck in the same old routine with no additional advancement. This happened to me. What allowed me to continue to advance after that (with absolutely no help from a trainer), was consistent sparring, watching professional boxers who's styles i would want to imitate or take one particular thing from, watch certain movements and weird angles those fighters would throw punches from in particular situations that arose during their fights, and try and copy those movements during shadow boxing.

People always try and say pretend like your actually fighting when your shadow boxing. I never fully agreed with this statement. I always found the best results in observing particular situations that frequently come up in sparring due to the way that I fight, finding other, better fighters than me who have been in similar situations, watch how they handle those situations, painstakingly imitating them in shadow boxing, then applying the movements that have become comfortable to me through shadow boxing in sparring. Because of this approach that i take, I have been able to consistently improve for 3 years now with absolutely no help from a trainer. The most important thing for the improvement of any fighter is sparring. Everything else has obvious importance as well and I am not by any means saying that that is all you should do. However, if for some reason you were only allowed to do one thing for training, it would have to be sparring. No matter what kind of training you do, after you have a solid enough foundation built off of the fundamentals, sparring sparring and more sparring is what is so important.

 

Finding yourself a good coach is the best way to start off learning boxing in my opinion.

Before I started boxing I also did my own training so I would know some background before starting, but after I went to the gym all the stuff I thought myself was basically bad habits that took a long time to get rid off. In the end I learned the proper technique for jabbing, blocking, head movements, and etc. I also have a good coach so he started me off with fundamentals with foot movements, jabs, and etc.

Best advice is to just get trained by the coach.

 

Once you get the fundamentals down and you find out what works for you and what doesn't, then you can start working on your 'moves' and then a coach necessarily necessary, unless you plan on being a dedicated pro.

I guess it varies for different people, but it takes a few years. And not every style works for every fighter.

For instance, I taught a guy to fight by emphasizing counterpunches and more of a slick style of fighting with a lot of footwork, but he was too hittable.

It wasn't working right. His frame was too boxy or something. He kept walking into jabs, but then again it had only been a year.

He had to use the hands up defense, but then agian, if I'm going against taller fighters and I can't dicate from the outside, or when they eventually figure me out and get their timing down, especially if they fast and got a great jab, I have two different methods of getting inside.

He used the hands up method, but even then, I feel like he wasn't getting low enough.


Some mother ****ers got it, some don't. I know a guy who was just slick as mother ****er, fast as ****, and could make your ankles spin when he hit you.

You can't teach that ****. Now, he didn't have no work ethic, so the guy that didn't have as much tallent made it to golden gloves instead of him, but if the mother ****er would have listened, and he would have trained harder, man, you'd be watchin him on TV.

He was a slick southpaw Tommy Hearns that could fight both ways. My only issue is he kept that mother ****in hand too far out to catch punches. And I told him he would get caught with some feints, but he was so damn athletic, that he barley got caught.

Anyway....

My point is, after you get down the punching if you stay conditioned, you can pretty much hit up a gym, get some timing down on the double end, and go right into sparring and you should get your timing back quick, so in a way, you are right.

If you you are serious about boxing though, you probably should join up with a squad.

You don't wanna be that guy that goes from gym to gym around the city just lookin to spar, although if you are that guy, I respect you.

 

You cannot train yourself.

 

You'll end up with bad habits you've ingrained in your execution, not any sort of fundamentals or advanced techniques. You can try complex counters all you like in front of a mirror imitating ATG technicians, meanwhile a kid starting fresh in a gym is going to be told straight away not to flair their elbow out when they jab by a coach. The latter will do better once he's in a ring.

 

I don't know. I learned a lot from B HOP. I could teach a kid in a day one particular trick, I guarentee it will work.

 

Showing something to somebody else is not the same thing as teaching yourself the fundamentals (and inevitably failing) and then trying to copy top boxers.