How To Use The Jab

Thanks for the invitation, @greynotsoold — I’ll give it a go with a few random thoughts:

1) The jab is the foundation for everything as far as I’m concerned. Yeah, if you’re Roy Jones Jr you can get away without it (but he also was very focused on countering his opponents’ jabs … Roy Senior’s guys in the amateurs did most everything off the opponent’s jab, and that’s Roy’s early learning). In our gym, I focused a lot of my teaching on it … first-day newcomer or veteran pro, we still worked and worked and worked on improving the jab. It sets up everything, it allows distance and pace control and it piles up pints to win rounds. I’ll take an average fighter with a really good jab over a really good fighter with a lousy jab (unless the really good fighter is several levels of class above, and even then the jab can keep things more competitive).

2) Beyond the mechanics of the jab is the timing of it. Knowing when to throw it is as much art as it is science. Some guys develop a good sense for it, others it doesn’t click. But one thing we taught a lot was when a guy tries to run a combination/flurry on you, break it up with a stiff jab. Usually it interrupts the spacing and rhythm of the other guy and ends to combo/flurry fight there.

3) I always like a stiff jab to the upper chest to set up a right hand. Often it will bring the opponent’s left hand out of place to swat it away and get his eyes looking down for a split second to create the opening.

4) For rangier guys and outfighters, I also tried to teach them to end combinations with the jab. So a 1-2-1, or a 3-2-1. Why? It reestablishes range. Now if you want to get inside, follow the jab and close the distance, but if you’re a guy who wants to be outside, don’t make the mistake of letting your offense take you into a closer-range fight with a guy who wants to fight inside or at midrange … finish the combo with the jab and you’re back where you want to be.

5) Once you’ve established the jab by landing a few solid ones, it becomes a great feint to set up everything else. Pay attention to how your opponent slips or parries the jab and it informs your offense — if he slips it to his left, feint the jab and throw the right hand to his left where his head is going to end up.

6) This isn’t scientifically proven, but I really think George Foreman was onto something. He believed (and articulated in his autobiography, By George, that when you snap a guy’s head back with a jab it sent a shock through his nervous system … down his spine to his legs. it’s what us old-school guys call ‘breaking a guy down with the jab.’ He might be sturdy early in the fight, but that head-snapping jab eats away at his resistance and weakens his legs to make him vulnerable to be stopped later. The right hand in the seventh round that might not have done so much damage in the first or second suddenly gets him in trouble, because his base isn’t as steady.

The first amateur I trained had a right hand that wouldn’t bust a grape and his hooks were average at best (probably below to be honest), but he had a shotgun jab. So we built everything around it. I’d tell him, ‘When you jab, I want noses bleeding, eyes closing, teeth loosened, women weeping and babies crying.’ He only had about I think five or six fights but he only lost one, and it was all down to that jab. (He later become a pro referee and worked in two or three states pretty steadily. He had some kind of surgery, I think a deviated septum iirc, and his doctor told him no more boxing so he went into officiating and got pretty good at it. Stayed involved in the game for a few decades that way.

 

Something worthy of discussion might be what can be accomplished by jabs that “miss” with a purpose.
You might use it to see where they go - Larry Holmes used his jab to probe and direct you into the right uppercut if you cut distance.
You have said of Gibbons writings he said to leave the jab there when you step back to lever the straight right that might follow you home.
I am sure I am only scratching the surface, this is all stuff you see or others have said but it might be a place to start.

 

I think that I may have found a good gym to start training kids at. The gym name is the same but they moved into a new building, nice set up.

The head guy was a good guy, running the none profit for years. He remembers
me from when I was reffing/judging the ams.

This may be a good fit for me.

I start tomorrow at 6pm.

These kids are going to learn to walk the ring and control with the jab.

I'm excited of the potential.

Wish me luck.

 

Give it your all. Make them better fighters, but teach right and wrong, life lessons they can carry with them far beyond however long they box.

 

I've noticed that when I drift my left hand and forearm into the furthest left side of my body (without actually lifting the elbow off my ribs), to the point that it's basically in front of my shoulder, then there's zero telegraphic motion. Your opponent just sees a sudden hand that extends from the shoulder with no wind up, literally just a straight line. You're just standing in front of a guy and his hand just becomes big, all of a sudden. Many ''up'' jabs are used when the hands are down, or they come from the chest like Holmes did it etc. But no matter how fast they may be, they can still be seen by a guy with good eyes, whereas you only need to extend your arm without even too much speed to hit someone the way I mentioned.

 

Angled. It would be really awkward and hard to do that squared. The more angled you are, and the more forward your lead shoulder is, the easier it is to make that jab harder to see coming.

 

Yeah, variety is key when utilising the jab. I'd probably use the ''motionless'' jab I mentioned when he is in range and when I can time him. I'm not going to limit myself to that way alone, but I think it is a great tool for startling your opponent and making him hesitate, since most of the time he probably won't know what hit him, and will concentrate on that. You can set up the rest of your offense with that, while he is thinking of what is going on with that weird jab.

 

I know, I just called it weird due to how weirded out the man on the opposing end would be.

 

I always liked teaching someone to double the jab. It ups your punch count and keeps the opponent less able to mount his offense.

But better yet, if you get the opponent used to seeing two jabs in succession, you can throw the jab, feint a second one and try to run him into a right hand. So instead of 1-1-2, it becomes 1-(feint 1)-2.

 

This is coming from someone with limited experience but during the first Shane Mosley and Oscar de la Hoya fight, Oscar was snapping Shane's head back with the jab to the point where it was causing major neck/ back pain he complained about in between rounds in the corner.

And then there was hasim Rahman, I think it was while training before the Kali Meehan methinks he mentioned that he was working on throwing the jab from close or far! It was a dominant performance by hasim. I agree with him that a jab is a defensive punch up close when you don't wanna get hit: pump that arm as straight as you can pressing the shoulder as close to the side of your head with your chin tucked so that the opponent can't land anything on you.

Terrence Crawford for the Errol Spence fight was using a strong powerful jab that he had been working on in the gym instead of a twitchy flicking jab. It worked wonders. I agree that a piston like left jab is better than a lazy one as it the lazier the jab, the easier it is to counter!

 

The jab can do about anything. Keeps the other guy busy, blocks the right hand, everything works off of it, if anything works at all. It amazes me when a tall, long armed guy doesn't develop their jab. Deontay Wilder. If I had been him I'd have tied my right hand up and not used it for a month or two and only used the jab. The right hand would always be there and a Larry Holmes like jab in front of his right?!
I never had a real tall guy for his weight class but I did have a guy about 5-7, 130, with a 74" reach. He had a nice jab too. When he used it a lot he was hard to deal with. We mostly had short fighters and had to teach them to work off the other guy's jab, to slip it, lift it, push it down, etc. We taught them lots of options to deal with slow probing, "range finder" jabs from taller opponents. There are so many counters to that, but shorter guys will get "hypnotized" and allow a tall guy to get away with it for a long time sometimes. And it's always nice to find a guy who brings his jab back low and not because he is trying to bait you, but because he doesn't realize he is doing it. Give him the top of your head and throw the right when he jabs. The jab really starts everything offensively and defensively unless one guy lunges and doesn't use a jab.