A good straight will take you around the block but a good jab will take you around the world, in that spirit, give me your best tips for the jab
Could go on forever. Theres different types of jabs too. Calf raises. You want a good jab and punches in general. Do these. Heavy and lots if reps. Do weights in general. All weights. You'll hit hard, explosive and fast. Leg weights like squats and dead lifts too. Bench press. Triceps push downs. All weights I'll say it again. Punches with weights. Shadow boxing. It's too in depth I cbf. Jab from in close. Jab from long range. Then you got to alter your steps. Practice slipping before jab, slipping after. The options are Limitless.
Snap your jab. There's fast jabs and power jabs and a mixture of both. Timing jabs. Could write 10 pages on the jab.
Exactly, 3 to 3 and a half pounds shadow boxing. But even throwing that weight in each hand... it's gotta be fast,
Develop a pawing jab like Duran. Those are the one meant to draw reaction, or prepare further punches. You really throw it away while focusing on what's happening next.Then the piston/stopping jab. You can put your shoulder and hip into it if you want. The aim is for him to feel it. Feint and move—the initial movement helps energize the hand and desensitize an opponent to the initial motion. Touch and cut. Don't just aim for the head. Touch and pin give, cut the guard at an angle. Hit whatever he gives you. You aim the same spot and it's easy to parry.
One thing we’ve done that seems to help behind the technical aspect of it is to have someone count jabs during sparring and try to get our fighters to throw at least 30 jabs per round. That’s just 10 jabs per minute, which isn’t a lot if you think about it …15 or more is way better but 10 is a minimum. So during sparring, we have someone count … between rounds if they are below the mark, ask them how many they think they threw — they almost always think they throw more than they do. Then tell them, ‘No, you only threw 18 jabs that round (or whatever). Let’s see more double jabs this round.’ I also like mixing jabs to the face with a few (especially when doubling) to the top of the chest, just below the neck. Great for range-finding and you are almost certainly going to hit something/make contact. If a guy is changing his level (bending knees), the chest jab will now hit his face. If he’s blocking/parrying, makes it easy to slip the right over it. If he’s slipping to either side, you make contact which is better than missing — this is the underpinning of how Sumbu Kalambay beat Mike McCallum in their first fight … mixing up the target just a bit between head and top of chest to keep him off-balance and guessing.
Push and pull. Push off the back foot as you slide the front foot and jab, then pull the back foot to the distance it was from your front foot before the jab. That will keep you in your stance with your feet right. When shadow boxing, working the bag, try to keep your fundamentals as perfect as possible. When you are in the ring sparring or fighting you'll have to make adjustments. Boxing is like most things, there are few secrets, the best just do the fundamentals better than the others.
If you are using the jab to maintain distance, to keep your opponent away from you, don't step with the jab. Because that step shortens the distance that you are trying to maintain. If he is trying to get close to you, let him step into your jab, then step back to re establish the distance.
Great call, and it reminded me of another one. I picked this up from one of the fights of Brian Mitchell, the great South African. Or maybe my brother did and pointed it out to me. Brian wanted to fight at more an outside distance and his opponent wanted to lure him into exchanges. So Brian ended all his combos with a jab to reestablish outside position. So 1-2-3-1 instead of 1-2-3, or 1-2-1 instead of 1-2. It always ended with him getting in his shots but not being lured into a slugfest because after he threw, he was back at his preferred distance. (If you ever want to watch an absolutely superb technician who was extremely versatile, watch Brian Mitchell.)
