Catching and Shoulder Rolling Against Punches in Boxing Personal Training (new course)

09.01.2026

Boxing Personal Training

A new client who started his first Boxing Personal Training course on Wednesday, also booked today keen to get in his training when possible. A professional businessman, whose schedule requires flexible training days and hours, this was the perfect solution for him. We are working through the foundations of Boxing by looking at defensive movements that are incidental to punching.

Exploring the Foundations of Boxing: How a Busy Businessman Finds Time to Master Defensive Techniques in a Flexible Training Schedule.

Warm-up

We warned up with a mixture of sports-specific dynamic stretches and footwork drills. I take every opportunity to reinforce the importance of stance structure and active movement in Boxing. This type of warm-up ensures that time is managed responsibly, ensuring that the body is prepared for the exertions of the lesson and also good Boxing behaviours are reinforced.

Slipping and Lateral Footwork

My base approach to Boxing is teach distance and range sensitivity. A boxer shoulder enter an opponent's fighting space with their chin tucked in and their upper body moving (slipping). Punches should be thrown with the fighter's head off the centre line in order to better protect against the most obvious return fire: a straight punch. They should exit laterally. This can mean circular stepping, angling off or using a rudimentary L-step. Each has its own unique reasons, but my main interest here is to ensure my client doesn't retreat in a lineal fashion where he can be easily cornered or overwhelmed.

The Shoulder Roll

Despite sometimes considered to be an advanced technique, I find the shoulder roll to be a very natural extension of teaching a client to tuck their chin. If they see the shoulder as a support for keeping the chin out of harm's way and the head angled down, the roll makes sense. We also brought this into the structured sparring.

The Catch

The catch is much more traditional Boxing defence. It simply involves bringing the palm of the glove up to stop jabs and crosses/straight rear hands. I bring it in without explicitly teaching the guard. Here the boxer has to keep their hands up in order to properly execute the technique. The fact the hand should be kept close to the head rather than drawn up promotes the guard concept without enforcing a static hand gesture.

Structured Sparring

We used the following specific sparring rounds:

1. One-for-one punching in a confined space.

2. Jabbing machine against defence only

3. Live jabbing against defence only

4. Jabbing only sparring

Focus Mitts

Taking these principles onto the focus mitts my client trained for two rounds slipping and rolling whilst countering with his jabs.

Heavy Bag

The lesson was finished with a round of speed straight punching and then power straight punching.

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