So I need help

[td82394]

I'm having trouble connecting with anything besides wild hooks to the body that are too clumsy for my taste. I wanna' be able to throw good power jabs like Cotto and then get inside and punch, but my jab is always flicked down. What can a poor brawler like me do to not be a brawler anymore? Actually, truth be told, I'd rather be like early Muhammad Ali who threw a jab and then a one, two and then just flurried.

 

[phanattic]

how tall are you?

 

[pliftkl]

Two weeks ago you were posting about trying to find a boxing school. I thought you found one that was near you. Did you not join?

If you haven't, then you probably should.

If you have, then maybe you should just listen to your coach for a year or so and see what happens. I'm pretty sure they'll eventually teach you to jab.

 

[td82394]

Well, it's really hard to find. I'm trying to make do 'til I find it. And I'm 5'11".

 

[pliftkl]

Well, it's really hard to find. I'm trying to make do 'til I find it. And I'm 5'11".

Making do is just going to be developing habits that a coach is going to break you from. From what you are describing, you are already sparring without any training, which will develop even more poor habits, as you'll be adjusting to the very small pool of sparring partners that you have available.

A good boxing coach is going to start you with the jab. Lots of jabs. Hours of just jabs. You'll be bored senseless of jabs, but get sent to the heavy bag to work more jabs. After that, you'll probably jab some more, and work on footwork for jabs, all while jabbing. After that, more jabbing.

That's how you learn how to jab. The ratio of time that you spend practicing your jab to the amount of time sparring should be extraordinarily high, whereas I suspect for you it is the reverse.

Take the time that you now seem to have to fuck around with your friends pretending to train, and use that time to get a job or whatever other enabling thing you need to do in order to get to a real gym.

 

[td82394]

Woh... sorry if I made you mad. I could see why you would be. I'm dissappointed with me, too. But I'm just a kid, dude, I don't even have a license to do anything. I'd probably be out and about looking for that gym right now if I had a car. I hate not going to some class every night. It keeps me up thinking about how badly I'm probably fucking myself up. But the circumstances for me are just sucky right now. And I know I'm makin' excuses, but man, if I bother my grandma about something more than once she goes completely bat shit crazy, so I just try and tip toe around her.

 

[ambertch]

Well, it's really hard to find. I'm trying to make do 'til I find it. And I'm 5'11".

well don't worry TOO much about it if you haven't found a coach. Thing is, even though the jab is the most basic punch in boxing, it's also the most complicated.

The jab is actually like 10 different punches that people all label as "the jab", and some styles of jab might be more up your alley than others.

Miguel Cotto, for example has a very specialized jab that he uses to get in and brawl, which is very different from a flicking jab Nick Diaz or Shane Mosley like to use to gauge the opponent or invite him in. Which is in turn very different from Ali's jab that he used to keep opponents at arm's length.


So I say, if you're already in the process of searching for a good gym, just keep on looking for the gym and don't worry too much about your jab problem.

 

[td82394]

Well, I've found a good gym... on the internet. FW Golden Gloves. But the actual gym is like, under some sort of weird Hogwarts spell I guess, cuz me and my gma were lokking for it and we were on the right street but we couldn't find it.