02.11.16 Tonight we continued work on Western Boxing and so-called “Dirty Boxing”. If there was a particular theme for this lesson it was the way chaos contrasts with and compliments ordered training. We warmed up with some barehanded light body-shot sparring. Despite what the late 1980s and early ’90s martial arts movies will tell you, the fist is better directed towards the soft and semi-soft torso targets than a palm. Without boxing gloves, bareknuckle boxers have learnt how to make the best use of the uneven shape of the fist. Horizontal, vertical and angled fists can be effectively thrown into various vulnerable areas with the main risk only really coming from the hard bones in the arms. Therefore, for this portion of the training, we worked a lot on maintaining close distance when attacking and using the elbows and forearms efficiently in counter-attacking the fists. We then went back to modern western boxing training and onto the focus mitts. This started with a build-up to Mo Teague’s 11 punch combination. Then we broke it up with slipping and rolling combinations. Next we moved onto some tactical work, looking at the Ali/Johnson anchor punch set-up. This involved provoking a retaliation response by first going in with a fast flurry of punches and then dropping back with a low guard to draw an opponent in. When the opponent advanced, the fighter stepped off the attack line and throws an overhand jab, the “anchor punch”. We then focused on throwing jabs from this low guard. This produces a very impactful jab due to the fact that it is being thrown from a more relaxed arm and it also relies on the opponent moving into the punch. Next we moved onto some proactive attack/defence pad-work. This is a great way to introduce a degree of chaos in a systematic way (my apologies if that is a contradiction in terms). It encourages the fighter to instinctively respond to a target via flash-pad training then building up a strong defence and finally putting the two together. It consists of three rounds. First round is the attack-only flash-pad training. Round two consisted of the fighter only defending – blocking and evading strikes. The final round encouraged the fighter to hit a target and immediately defend. We then moved back to dirty boxing concept. Here we looked at the low guard once again, but from an opponent perspective. The fighter set the opponent up for a lean-back situation with a feigned jab. This was immediately coupled with the fighter stepping on the opponent’s lead foot, which is usually left behind when a person leans away from a punch rather than shifting back. This was then followed by with a cross. Carrying this principle further we looked at combining jabs with kicks to the leading leg shin and also ankle stamps. We then moved onto some cover work, using elbows in quick-fire combinations.
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