1888 Boxing Training Manual

This is great Mike. Thanks for this. The fact is that boxing has not "evolved" as much as people think. The fact is there are only so many different ways to block a punch or duck a punch or move away from a punch. There are only so many different punches to throw as well. There are a finite number of moves and the fact is that boxing has existed for hundreds of years and they have known all of the different techniques far longer than we realize.

 

I agree I think stuff like Joe Gans invented the left jab is hype, he just had such a great jab it reminded people that the jab was a great weapon. The jab clearly existed before 1800 as Daniel Mendoza writes about and describes the jab in his manual.

 

Great find.

Not only are the techniques not new, but reading the training logs of old fighters you find that a lot of the modern conditioning theories are not new, either.

 

Bingo. Saying boxing technique is so much better today is like saying Beethovern and Mozart didn't know as much about music in the 1700s. Hogwash. The feel of music might change from era to era, but it is still effective music. Same thing with clothing - the style might change, but a shirt s a shirt and a dress is a dress. Effective fighting is effective fighting. Hit and not get hit has always been the sport. The look and feel might change, but good fighters are good fighters, plain and simple.

 

I have seen a couple of early boxing manuals, and they don’t differ much from the current ones. They sometimes suggest a different guard position, but this might simply be a matter of expedience, given the rules of the period.

I don’t think it is so much that boxing technique has evolved, as that the way fights are scored has evolved. Early officiators rewarded aggression much more, and in many cases did not score safety first punches, such as jabs. Unsurprisingly, this forced fighters to go about things differently.

 

Earlier participants were more compelled to be entertaining in order to get paid more. That certainly affected the style of the fighting and probably a lot of the scoring.

As far as technique, I can see lot of great things on film from fighters in the 1930's, seriously top level technique. But throughout time, we also see those physical outliers who win on brute strength, athleticism and/or resiliency. Technique only gets you so far.

 

Yep, Ever since man has been around that has been the case and war was the norm

 

I like Daniel Mendozas manual on boxing, it has many similarities to this, also I highly recommend Bob Fitzsimmons writings, not only is there some serious good advice but he is very entertaining, he tells a story of some big musclebound bodybuilder type who wanted to learn boxing, Bob told him to go away and come back when his muscles were lean and not all bulky and knotted up, the guy refused to go away so Bob said he could spar him to demonstrate his theory, needless to say the big fella hardly managed to walk out of there.

 

There seems to have been a bit of a shift in technique, late in the bareknuckle era. You had fighters that relied very heavily on grappling, and throwing their opponents, such as Sam Hurst and John C Heenan on the one hand. On the other you had fighters who tried to avoid grappling, and box more like a gloved fighter, such as Jem Mace and Tom King. The latter group seem to have prevailed, and they might have pushed for Queensbury boxing, because it was more suited to their strengths. In this case it really does seem as if the cart came before the horse!

 

good post

 

Hmm, not sure if film backs you up. Are those shorts corbett wore in the ring really shorts?

 

i guess a thong is just the shortest possible shorts.

 

Bump for visibility.

Some people need to see this.

Great find. Stored!

 

Are there any specific passages you find particularly noteworthy?