The Theory of the Sweet Science
The Theory of the Sweet Science
With this piece I basically want to try to get you to see that all elements within your training can be considered as your weapons. And if you read on I hope you can see that everything within your training is linked, either directly or indirectly.
If you’re a fan of the tennis you’ll often hear the commentators talking about how the players are taking small steps in order to make adjustments to their footwork. You’ll regularly hear it by the squeaks their shoes make on the hard court surface.
Boxing isn’t a whole lot different. Good footwork requires small, fast adjustments. Without your feet in the proper position you lose balance, you’ll be unable to execute your power properly and your defense is compromised.
The catch is that in order to have good footwork you need to be really well conditioned to the stressors that you will encounter in this sport.
If you lack fitness and conditioning, your mobility, footwork and balance will be the first things to suffer. And it’s with a sort of evil irony that in boxing these are your greatest assets – if you lose them you’ll be like a brick archway without the keystone.
Doc: You're just not thinking fourth dimensionally!
Marty McFly: Right, right. I have a real problem with that.
Everything you do should be preparing you for battle. Your defense isn’t just about holding your guard up and slipping punches. Your best defense is bringing all the elements of your training (conditioning, offence, defense, diet, sleep, rest etc) together to form a cohesive working whole. If you can punch but can’t defend you’ll lose. If you are super conditioned but have poor skills you’ll lose.
Remember the 7P’s - Prior Planning & Preparation Prevents a Piss Poor Performance.
This part of the discussion is something that you might want to consider.
The following is a way to exploit a weakness in bipedal movement. Imagine you’re looking down over someone standing in those shoes with legs approximately shoulder width apart. If you were to give that person a small nudge from the front in the direction of the arrow, they would topple over. If however you were to push them from the side, you would find it much more difficult to get them off balance; in fact you might not succeed at all.
Now, below is a fairly traditional boxing stance.
Again, if you were to push directly from the side with the intent that the person falls over, you would find it fairly difficult. To exploit the weakness here, you would need to push or hit in the same direction as the arrow shows.
The key is that no matter how a person positions their legs, it’s always like a two legged table, simply look for the vulnerability and exploit it.
The way to do that is imagining a straight line between the two heels. Whatever position they happen to be in at the time, place yourself at roughly 90 degrees to that line and push or hit through it. At the very least your opponent will need to make very quick readjustments of their feet, at worst their ass is going to come into contact with the ground.
I alluded to the fact in The Straight Right article that often you see boxers with their legs positioned too far apart. They not only cheat themselves of punching power, but they fall over a lot. Have a go at this with someone else and you’ll see for yourself how it works.
Why did I show you this you might ask? So you know about it. Perhaps you can use it; or possibly you might need to defend against it at some point!
