Knock Out Your New Year’s Resolution Part 5

Posted February 22, 2008 at 04:00 PM by Donnell Peavy

Section: His Fitness, Cardio Training, Alt. Therapies, His Health, Physical Health, Lifestyle Health

This article is part 5 of a series entitled, Knock Out Your New Years Resolution. To view the rest of this series, and more articles written by Donnell Peavey, click here.

So far, in my series, we have covered the basics of offense in boxing. However, as the old saying goes, “The best offense is a good defense”. In this installment, I will cover simple defensive maneuvers.

Boxers tend to depend on head movement and footwork for defense, as using the arms to block can keep the hands distracted from their main purpose – punching. Moving out of the way will also keep your body intact longer, as even getting hit in the arms eventually takes its toll. Your arms start to get heavier from the combination of punching, getting hit and simply holding your hands up, and eventually, you start to hold your hands lower and lower. Karate Kid’s Mr. Miyagi put it best – “Best block, no be there”.

The first thing I will cover is slipping a punch. Basically, this is just moving your head out of the way of the punch, either to the inside or outside. Moving backward is not recommended, as it causes you to place your weight backward, making it harder for you to evade incoming strikes. You never want to be in a position where you are forced to continually move backward. Of course, that was a very simplified description of slipping – it’s not quite as easy as it sounds. The key to defense is timing. Without proper timing, you have no defense.

From your boxing stance, lean a few inches to the left or right. Only lean a few inches – the punch should just barely miss your head. If you lean too far, you are minimizing your chances to effectively counter, as you will be out of range – and at too awkward of a body position – to retaliate. Now, from your boxing stance, do the exact same thing that you did above, however this time lean forward and to the angle.

This is another form of slipping that is known as bobbing. When slipping / bobbing, you may lean either inside or outside or the punch, but it’s probably best that you try to move outside whenever possible, as moving inside brings you in range of your opponent’s other arm. Bobbing / slipping are used as defense against a straight punch.

Get back in your stance, bend your knees slightly and swing your body to the left or right. This is called weaving. Imagine your opponent is throwing a hook. You sink your weight, swing your body and stand back up on the outside of his arm. Weaving is typically used against a straight punch, but when used in conjunction with a slip, may also be used against a straight punch.

There are other methods used to defend – blocking, absorbing and parrying, but I won’t get into those at this time, as they don’t pertain to the training you will be doing. At this point, we’re finished covering the boxing techniques you will need, so next time, we will begin our workout!

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