Going to the Body Part 1 (diary entry)

11.11.15 The sixth of my client’s second course on western boxing for martial arts cross-training looked at body shots. This was all preluded by a large amount of revision. We warmed up on the skipping ropes and then did some technical work on the focus mitts. Tonight’s body shots were mainly uppercuts and shovel hooks. These techniques require good body torqueing and angulation, and I was also concerned with footwork. Smokin’ Joe Frazer is credited with being the man who said, “Kill the body and the head will die”. Frazer certainly knew a thing or two about upper body movement and was the man who gave Muhammad Ali his hardest matches. He was constantly moving, bobbing and weaving as much as Sugar Ray Robinson before him and Mike Tyson and Roy Mayweather Jnr after him. That rhythmic movement, which protected his head, provided superb opportunities to get angle off on an opponent’s body. Today we often think of Ricky Hatton as a good exemplar of a body-killer, and the MMA world has learned to respect the match stopping capabilities of the liver shot. However, it isn’t always that easy to hit the right body targets and to hit the area effectively. In self-defence the body is a secondary target, only accessed with either a weapon or when the head region cannot be reached. The body is easily protected by the arms and most of it shielded by muscle. In the days of bareknuckle pugilism the body was a far more common target for obvious reasons. Head shots needed to be taken sparingly and hitting soft or fragile areas with hardened knuckles was a good strategy. The shovel hook and liver shot was taught after we revised the jabbing uppercut. This led us onto moving the upper body and the feet in unison. We built it onto off and online straight high punches. For example: jab online, cross offline, liver shot online, shovel hook offline. This was drilled using the belly pad, focus mitts, standard heavy bag and angled heavy bag. The lesson finished with some conditioning exercises. This consisted of Figure-of-four medicine ball swings Snatch barbell (standard and hang) Snatch kettle bell Shelve swing kettle bell Clean and jerk barbell (standard and hang) Alternate hold and shoulder press dumbbells