Have wanted to learn how to box since I was in high school, but my parents would never let me. Instead, I took up wrestling, which was probably the most important event in my life in terms of becoming disciplined. But I'm almost done with school, and I'll finally have some time to take up some classes at a gym. I'm also a crazy perfectionist, so I'd like to know what bad habits I possess so I can be aware of them before I step into the gym. Videos are just me throwing what feels most natural. Here's a short vid of shadowboxing I bought this bag a few weeks ago, but haven't found the time to get actual boxing gloves, so I just used the ones it came with. Also, excuse my falling shorts lol. I lost 6-7 lbs because it was finals weeks and my caloric intake has been extremely low.
lmao!!! first learn to make a fist. You're holding your fist as if you're wearing a glove. A truly bad habit to have for boxers. Most beginners and even advance boxers have this bad habit when shadowboxing without glove. OT:Anybody know why they make gloves with the thumb like that? Also, learn to bring hands back to guard. Look at your own video. You are returning to body then back to head. You will get countered to death. Don't have sound but looks like you're also holding your breath Too stiff, and no head movement. Go watch some Conor McGregor. Do some more vids showing the whole body including the legs. And where'd you learn to box? Waay too many mistakes to list them all That's racist -kenflo
Those were the gloves that came with bag. No idea why they're like that. I'll try and get another vid some other time with my legs. I never learned how to box. I'm planning to in the summer when my classes are finished. This was just to learn what natural bad habits I could be aware of.
Not even talking about your gloves mate. All gloves are like that. I'm talking about the first video. Learn to make a real fist. IE: thumb tucked away to the side and not resting on top of your index.
Looking good man. Especially when u havent attended any classes yet. Okay, i can pinpoint some things like your guard in the first vid. Try to keep you elbows not wider than your body and bring your fists back to your guard as soon as possible. Check some vids which show you how to in and exhale while you throw your punches. Also head and body movement, making pivots is important but that will also come in time. Ive seen ppl starting out at my gym that werent as good as you. Keep up the good work and post some vids after youve trained for 6 months.
Start with simple things- keep your elbow vertical when you jab so it doesn't flair out to the side. Return your punches straight back to your head. Don't wing your hooks and uppercuts so much, keep them shorter and tighter.
You flick your hand when throwing the jab. Make it sharp, snap out snap back in a straight line. You usually want your jab hand going straight out in line with your shoulder so from your opponent's perspective he won't see any elbow sticking out. Pivet a bit more when turning.
I'm going to go ahead and go even further to a "beginning" than others here. And I'm only going to focus on one thing you said. "I'm also a crazy perfectionist..." No, you're not. You're vain, that's not an insult, but let me explain why I'm pointing this out: A "perfectionist" seeks to do things perfectly. You are not, you are skipping steps and attempting to step foot in a Gym with the pretense that you already know how to fight a lil bit. And I'm not even saying that's not possible. I've met a couple of talented copycats (learned by doing shit they saw) in my day. And your vanity in wanting to LOOK a certain way causes you to strive to practice something you don't really know on your own. And you might actually get your goal, you might walk into a Gym an impress some trainer with what you're doing, and they'll agree to train you. The problem is sooner or later, that vanity isn't going to be enough and you're going to come across an ACTUAL perfectionist who went about this the right way. Nearly every person I've met like you who got beaten up by the guy who did it "perfectly" eventually quit boxing. What people fail to understand nowadays about fighting is, you're only going to "figure out" so much, and how much cannot be measured. These are skills, and skills need to be taught. Take any other field and apply your approach. Think there are many self-taught architects out there designing bridges that are responsible for people's lives? How about pilots? A TRUE perfectionist does whatever it takes to LEARN their craft properly from beginning to end. Now sure, your parents held you back and I understand that. But man, there's a lot of shit my parent (I only had one) tried to hold me back from, I still did most of it. Even if it meant finding someone in my school who knew it and relentlessly asking them questions. A perfectionist finds an instructor and learns everything they know: No matter what it takes. I say that because more often than not, learning how to fight doesn't begin like people think it will. They always want to hit the ground running. Which is dumb, and leads you to the "trial by fire" places where you either sink or swim, get beaten up or survive. In that place, ALL you learn is to survive, and if you really love this Sport, you don't want to just become a good survivor. So you do what's asked of you in the beginning, with as little ego as possible. Otherwise it goes this way, where all you have is bravery: I'm really not meaning to sound harsh. But you're putting yourself out there and it's concerning a Sport I've dedicated my Professional life to. I'd be a poor representative of this Sport if I didn't keep it real with you. A decent instructor will always tell the truth about if someone is prepared to do a task or not, especially in something involving combat: So, what I'd do if I were you is stop worrying about whether or not you "look" like you know what you're doing until you can get to a decent instructor. And instead keep yourself fit, and flexible (I mean like degrees of hip rotation and such), address any postural issues if you have them, etc. Conditioning will do you a lot more good to learn to box than forming a bunch of habits someone like me may have to erase anyway.
Oh, also, you're going to need to address two things about "perfectionism." One is your definition of it. Technical obsession is not perfectionism in the eyes of most good instructors (or coaches). That type of perfectionism is a weakness, because people like that cannot handle the fact that they are inevitably flawed. It's a logical fallacy that leads to ruin of SOME kind, even if it's AFTER a career is over. I don't know about you but if you want to fight, you don't want to have a shitty life after it's over because you skipped or didn't get this lesson. Anyhow, there's only one viable type of perfectionism, and it's about giving yourself:
I will post bad habits when you have trained in real boxing gym. But for now i can give you advice that join a gym when you can, and dont try to learn yourself meanwhile, because you will just train more and more bad habits that will slow down your progress. For a coach perfect beginning student is the one that doesnt know anything, so he can learn the real tecniques from the start.
I wish someone would have told me this years ago. I probably wouldn't have listened back then, but still. Very astute observation in the difference between being a perfectionist and being vain.
Appreciate all the posts in this thread (except the 1st one). They were helpful. @Sinister. I did and do use the term "perfectionist" too loosely and it was hyperbole. I apologize if it offended you. I'm not gonna argue with a professional, so I'll just take your advice and work on finding an actual trainer before proceeding any further.
It's a common misuse, and you struck me as intelligent. So I didn't dumb down my post any. Flexibility and conditioning do more for us as trainers than anything else. If every kid I got was say, trained even a LITTLE as a gymnast, life would be amazing. Alas, what I mostly get are watered-down pseudo-athletes who learned Sports in a broken educational system. One thing I will say is that wrestlers tend to have generally very shitty upper-body posture. This is due to a lot of back curling with the head up. This leads to PAIN in boxing, because it begs for whiplash. So correct that. If I may ask, where are you located in the World?
I live in RI. It feels like a wasteland for my particular city in terms of boxing gyms, but there should be some quality places in Providence. Is there any specific conditioning exercises that you would recommend? I do a lot of jump-roping and my weightlifting routine consists of barbell compound movements, alternating between bench/dls/squats/cleans/ohp. Would appreciate any kind of advice.
What do you mean with wrestlers having bad posture? From what I've seen ex wrestlers in MMA have the best posture on average
