Why is it so difficult to find a proper boxing gym?

Sorry mate were you asking me? I had a few amateur fights for a gym in north wales, members of the public if you like were welcome to come and train to but had to join in the same training as what the boxers would do, skip, shadow box, bag work etc (then the people who boxed/wanted to box would also do pads, spar etc) Ive been in a few gyms like this. I do know other ones were they only accept people who are gonna box, or have like certain sessions just for people who box or are gonna box, but still anyone can attend these even for a low price if they show they want to do it/have some potential. I remember going our local gym in liverpool when we was teenagers, it cost us a pound for the week and we just all trained together with all the proper boxers, was good gets you into it. Just seems to be a lot of americans asking about gyms a lot is all

 

Here in Chile boxing isn't so popular, but still I think the problems may be the same:

1) Competition vs non-competition focus. As the owner of a boxing gym sometimes you need to appeal to amateur/pro development to win credibility and promotion OR appeal to mass classes to regular people to increase quantity (money) over quality of trainning as you need to stay in simple/not dangerous work and starting all over again as more new members come in.

2) False/incompetent trainers. Typically you can find a guy that do Karate or Kickboxing trying to act like they teach boxing (as they can sort of throw punches), or maybe you find some bodybuider or aeroboxing fan that do some workout that barely need of gloves or boxing skills. You can also find some that may know something but don't care of customers and leave you alone in front of the sandbag doing anything and not correcting technique.

I'm in charge of a boxing club and the coaches we have do teach proper boxing from the basis, adapt physical workout focused in the sport and integrate the newies progessibly (helped by the rest of club mates) while the competitors also do some extra workouts and sparrings. So far so good.

 

I was going to recommend Astoria Boxing Club in Vancouver, but looking them up now I see they shut down in 2012. Astoria was a Vancouver boxing legend, the one real boxing gym in the city. I grew up and boxed in the 90s in the interior but dropped in to spar at Astoria once. That used to be where most of the top boxers in the province were from. Since they shut down apparently someone has opened Eastside Boxing Gym, that someone else mentioned, but that looks like more a boxercise project to help DTES youth than a gym that offers proper training, towards competition. The other two top gyms in the Vancouver area 20 years ago were Queensborough in New West and Port Kells in Surrey, and I see they're still running. I'd hope at least there you could walk in and train and spar as a boxer, with the guidance of good coaches.

But yeah, there's not just so many more boxercise gyms than actual boxing gyms around, but a proliferation of supposed boxing gyms that are run by mediocre coaches who don't teach more than punching technique. It's because the focus is on fitness rather than competition. Why bother teaching defence and footwork if most of the people training have no intention of actually boxing? I know this is a trend across not just Canada but the US too. And there's the focus on fitness probably because it attracts more interest and money than full-contact boxing.

It's not quite the same in the UK, and that's why the UK has been more successful in amateur boxing lately and has the lively pro scene they do. Real gyms still exist in the major cities in the States and I guess in Montreal, but the white collar gyms crowd them out there too. The trend's killing boxing at the grassroots. Vancouver where boxing's never compared to New York or Los Angeles really feels it, no one cares anymore, and talent just isn't being bred here any longer.