Nerdcore Boxing

Many of the greatest fighters and hardest hitters were great knee benders. Mike Tyson had a unique ability to get low. Jack Dempsey thought knee bending was so important he used to shadow box in a cage with a low ceiling. A bent knee is kind of like a loaded gun ready to go off, whereas a locked out knee is unloaded.

Each punch has a leg that does the work and a leg that can get in the way. For instance on a cross the rear leg does the work, the famous drop step keeps the front leg from working against you. If a punch’s opposing leg is locked out or planted hard on the floor, it’s working against you.

Training Knee Bending

A year ago I had tried the Dempsey cage drill for a while but didn’t get anywhere with it. I ended up in a ridiculously low crouch and got some leg strength but no improvement in my boxing mechanics.

This time I started watching film of the great “knee benders” and studied myself in the mirror comparing the differences. They’re bending their knees just a little more than I, I just needed to drop down a few inches. This explains why my past attempt at the Dempsey cage drill failed, I was going for unrealistic levels of knee bending.

To isolate all of my issues I studied myself moving around, throwing combos, throwing punches with different weight distributions, punching off head movement, etc. I spotted all the times I fully extend my knees and began the incremental process of correcting each mistake.

Some Results

My lead knee was easiest to fix. Immediately I noticed a dramatic power jump in my left hook just from dropping down a few inches.

Bending the lead knee also added a big explosive burst when pushing off to step backwards. I’m happy about that as it will allow me to better use my defensive footwork to create space for counters.

So even before correcting the rear knee already I’m super happy with the results. To be continued…

I’ve been swapping out jump rope sessions to work on my new footwork drills. One thing this made me realize is  I only need to jump rope maybe once per week to maintain my calf endurance.  The other thing I’ve discovered is these drills are awesome:

• Drill #1 & #2 to learn to coordinate punching and getting your corresponding foot on the floor, and the second one to switch from your base stance to lateral foot placement, then pivot to “cut the corner.”
• Drill #3 is more a selection of intermediate and advanced footwork techniques, but there’s some good stuff to drill there.
• Drill #4 to work on defense while circling on the outside, switching direction and lateral foot placement.

I’m 100x smoother at switching from my base boxing stance to placing my feet laterally for rapid side-to-side movement. My ability to exit to the sides after throwing a combo is improving. This is a great skill as it mostly eliminates your opponent’s ability to counter right after you finish unloading a combo.

I still need work on my foot placement and the way I angle my feet, but I’m pretty happy with my progress.

Forget Floyd Mayweather the person, I love Mayweather The Boxer. Mayweather The Boxer is my kind of fighter, a thinking man’s boxer, a master of the sweet science, has the best defense in boxing while being dangerous enough to stop anybody (if he’s going for a finish that is). His breadth and depth of skill is such that he can step in the ring against elites and fight in a new style we’ve never seen from him before and win. I love Mayweather The Boxer.

Mayweather’s persona on the other hand… The persona is pretty unlikeable, dare I even say, detestable? Does anybody remember back when he fought Zab Judah? He was a fresh faced uber-talented and likeable up-and-comer. Fast forward a few boring defensive masterpieces and he switches to the bad guy part. Maybe he’s too good at that part.

I’m also a gigantic MMA geek. I’ve been a fan of the sport since 1996, that year I got had first exposure to fight training in MMA. If it wasn’t for MMA training I never would have gotten into boxing. Yes, despite what the media says, MMA does indeed drive lots of people towards boxing.

But now I turn my back on boxing. Despite my love for the sport and Mayweather The Boxer, I’m watching UFC 103 tomorrow night. I’ll catch Mayweather’s rerun on the interwebs. Why pick the UFC? Value. The UFC is giving me 3-4 fights I really care about. If HBO combined their next two PPVs, airing Vitali Klitschko/Cristobal Arreola along with Mayweather/Marquez, I’d go boxing. The sad thing about boxing’s future is that would require a massive pay cut that Floyd will never accept.

Plus there’s the secondary factor of distribution, more sports bars nearby are showing the UFC. The few places that show boxing PPV’s often want a $20-30 cover. And I live in Los Angeles County, can you believe that? Sorry Floyd.

Once I confronted the fact that my footwork, while fundamentally sound, is pure vanilla, a whole world has opened to me. It’s almost like beginning all over again and learning to punch.

The thing about footwork is it’s so subtle. To study it, you have to watch how a guy switches their feet/hips laterally for better sidewards movement, goes back to one foot forward for better defense and opportunities to punch. All the ways they move their feet to switch direction and pivot. And defend punches differs depending on if you’re squared or in a traditional stance…

This is a great little video of a footwork drill. Every 30 seconds has a little something to rewind and study.

I’m getting home from a fairly frustrating workout. My workouts have been infrequent, shorter than usual and I’ve been skipping on abs and roadwork. I’ve been working so much on my footwork, head movement and power, that my “punch endurance” has been dropping.

I cranked up my punch output this week, which hasn’t been going so well. Why?

• Tendonitis in the shoulders.
• Punching power is weakening. Seems like when my endurance goes up and bodyfat melts off, my power dimishes. Right now I’m at 192, no way that’s a good weight for me, I should be in the 170s. But what will happen to my power in the 170s?
• The extension on my punches sucks. They’re short and slow.

Staying Positive

Alright, this is the part of the post where I remove head from butt. I want to get back to where I was last year, but with power and great footwork. Here’s what I’m going to do:

1. Continue to increase the punch output of my workouts, minus whining and worrying.
2. Mitigate shoulder issues with ice, range of motion exercises and physical therapy.
3. Roadwork. I’m going to run 2 miles this week and get back to running hills.
4. Ab work with every workout.
5. I’m going to spend one session/week on punch power. I’ll break out the 20oz gloves for shadow boxing and go back to lifting a little weights.

Here’s a good YouTube video of a guy going through a catalog of footwork techniques. There’s no sound so it’s work safe. Initially it starts out with the basic movements, then goes into some intermediate and advanced stuff that’s pretty cool. The captions even related them to great boxers that favor each movement for additional film study.

I particularly like the trick that Ricky Hatton does to move laterally and quickly reset his feet (1:26 in the video). I’ve seen Hatton do this many times but it never registered with me.

Also he demonstrates pivoting to advance (1:45) and gives the good example of Tyson vs. Mathis 3rd round KO. I have heard of pivoting as an offensive advance and I can’t say I get it enough to use it, but I feel I moved a step closer after watching this video and re-watching Tyson/Mathis.

I found two excellent footwork drills on YouTube. YouTube boxing videos have recently graduation to professional quality. A few years ago instructionals on YouTube consisted of some backyard boxing type butchering basic techniques, but now I’m overwhelmed by the quality content.

I don’t know who this guy is, but I’m a fan. In this post I’m highlighting two footwork drills he’s teaching. This first one is a cool drill to coordinate punching and moving.

This second video is the real special one. He covers two conditioning/attribute building drills to change your foot placement and pivot, then combines them to “cut the corner.” Which is an awesome way to get out of the way of your opponent and setup an angle where you can unload and he can do nothing.

As a defensive boxing aficionado, I’m currently working on developing my lateral movement and more efficiently “cutting the corner,” so this videos has me excited. Check it out:

I started incorporating these drills in my workout. Note in the second video, something about spreading your legs, jumping and landing with them spread requires a jock strap, I think I had a minor injury on my 3rd rep… I’ll re-assess in a few weeks and let you guys know how it goes.