Boxing Tips
Some Useful Boxing Tips To Help You Get On Your Way
Not all useful boxing tips are designed to teach you the needed skills of the sport, but more importantly are offered to teach you what you need to learn, and how you need to think about what you're learning, and why you're doing what you're doing. You need to learn what the different punches are, how to move your feet, and how to train. That much is obvious, but there is much, much more to be taken into account to be successful in the squared circle. But, we'll start with a discussion about the basic techniques and see where that leads.
The Basic Punches - The basic punches in boxing, if you're right handed, are the left jab, the straight right, the left hook, right hook, and the uppercut. The first of the boxing tips is to take the time not only to learn these basic punches, but learn all that goes into them. Punches are not just arm movements. When you punch, you're punching from the balls of your feet, up through your legs, with power being transferred from your legs and hips through the torso to your shoulders, arms, and eventually the fist. Sound overly complicated? Well, it is complicated, but only in the sense that you have to put all the pieces together if you want to throw an effective punch. Leave a piece out, and you're not going to knock anyone down.
The hips are even involved in the jab, not usually considered a power punch. Still, you want to have an enough sting in a jab to keep your opponent at bay and set him up for a power punch or a combination. For the jab to have this sting, your feet, hips, etc., must come into play. Try standing on the ball of one foot and pushing someone over. Unless they are super weak, or off-balance, tor both, you can't do it. To repeat, punching is not done just with the arms. You have to be balanced to start with, and put the major parts of your body into play.
Among your toolkit of boxing tips are also those associated with the other punches, the power punches. When you look into what goes into these punches, the role your legs and particularly your hips play, becomes even more obvious. In throwing a straight punch, seemingly a simple thing to do, you'll learn to instinctively tighten your abdominal muscles, your "core". This would seem to have little to do with the punch, but the punch itself tends to throw you off balance, and tightening your abs counteracts this tendency. In throwing a right cross, the hips should rotate counter-clockwise. This comes naturally, but you should be aware of it, and if it isn't happening you're doing something wrong and your punch will have no real power. You can't just learn to throw a punch without learning all the mechanics associated with throwing that punch. Then, you must work to make certain those mechanics are always there, even when you don't have time to think about it, and you won't have time.
In throwing a left hook or a right hook you'll learn, probably pretty quickly, that throwing a right hook leaves you wide open. That doesn't mean that you should never throw the right hook, but your need to learn when the right time to throw one would be. And you learn the time to throw an uppercut, another power punch, is only when you're in close. Not only because you can better channel the power up through your legs, knees, and hips, but also that if you're not in close, you can't throw an uppercut without telegraphing it. So, you see, for everything there is indeed a reason.
Footwork - What about boxing tips related to footwork? Boxers move in four directions, backwards, forwards, and side to side which also involves circling. In practicing footwork you're learning to keep good balance, stay out of harms way, and have a stable platform under you when you throw a punch, or a combination of punches. You learn to stay on the balls of your feet, and never to stand flat footed. When you're standing flatfooted you can't move or react quickly. Boxers never stand still. If they do, it's usually because they're fatigued, something you don't ever want to show to your opponent. Ever watch a tennis player standing on the baseline waiting for the serve, or the runner taking a lead from first base? They never stand flatfooted, or completely still. Their feet may not be moving but their bodies are. They are constantly in motion. When you're not in motion, it takes time to get in motion, and a boxer doesn't have the luxury of taking that time. Recognize that keeping in motion isn't nervous energy (some boxers make it look like that), but a necessity. (continued...)