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Thread: How can i get the coaches at my local boxing gym to actually teach me?

  1. #21
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    Honestly that is the norm. At least in top amateur gyms. You will be shocked at how little coaching goes on at amateur clubs. These clubs also have the best boxers in the country. Compare to places where you pay for people to “teach” you boxing- lots of coaching, very little talent in the gym. Coaches at proper amateur clubs will only really give advice when you’re sparring.

    You learn through watching and being around top fighters, it just rubs off on you. Kind of like how “The Inner Game of Tennis” describes learning a sport. All the top amateur clubs in the UK operate this way.

    Fair play for wanting to learn correct technique, but if you actually want to get good at boxing there’s no secret to it- thousands of hours on the bag and sparring.

    Get 100 hours of sparring under your belt and watch what happens to your technique.

  2. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by Gerald Boggs View Post
    The Gracies never did, an hour class was an hour class, warm up on your own time. The only conditioning we did at the "good" boxing gym was three minute rounds, we'd start with three rounds of shadow boxing and then most often, a round robin of focus mitts and heavy bag combinations. Or if you wanted, you could step out and go work on the speed bag. Sparring was done outside class times.
    Having been in classes taught by the some of them in the early 2000s I can say we always did an hour warm up. These were based on the fundamental movements though not jumping jacks.

    Anyway what I saw and learned some of related to bjj mostly and to have the ability to spar enough to learn meant you needed to build that kind of fitness, which was different to running etc. But yes strength was also critical.

    Quote Originally Posted by Logan1 View Post
    Even if true, why do people who don't want to compete as boxers need to pay someone to supervise their conditioning? I don't need someone to watch me warmup on a Stairmaster, jump rope, or any of the other exercises my coach suggests that don't require any special skill to perform. My coach offers pre and post training exercises that I do on my own.

    If I was training several hours a day at a true boxing gym with the goal of competing at a high level, I would follow my coaches instructions as I did when competing in college in other sports. For someone who is only interested in learning some basic skills, it makes sense to only hire those people who are willing to help with that. As Mark Hurling said here and others have stated previously, street fights are over long before someone's overall level of conditioning becomes a factor.
    If you just want to be good at Street fighting can't you find some krav maga or something?

  3. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pericles View Post
    Honestly that is the norm. At least in top amateur gyms. You will be shocked at how little coaching goes on at amateur clubs. These clubs also have the best boxers in the country. Compare to places where you pay for people to “teach” you boxing- lots of coaching, very little talent in the gym. Coaches at proper amateur clubs will only really give advice when you’re sparring.

    You learn through watching and being around top fighters, it just rubs off on you. Kind of like how “The Inner Game of Tennis” describes learning a sport. All the top amateur clubs in the UK operate this way.

    Fair play for wanting to learn correct technique, but if you actually want to get good at boxing there’s no secret to it- thousands of hours on the bag and sparring.

    Get 100 hours of sparring under your belt and watch what happens to your technique.
    I would not be surprised if that is the norm, but even if it is, it doesn't sound like a good way to learn boxing. Your description of top amateur gyms sounds like Rip's description of Div 1 strength training programs: the coaches don't need to be good because the trainees are freak athletes. Maybe the fighters at those gyms started at 12 and have their technique down, and now just need a place to train against top competition. If you didn't start and 12, you're better off at a gym with more coaching and less talent.

    "Get 100 hours of sparring under your belt and watch what happens to your technique." Yeah, I am sure if you muddle through for 100 hours of getting punched in the head, you will figure some things out on your own and get a little better. Or, someone knowledgeable could teach you some of the 100+years of accumulated knowledge of what works in the squared circle, and save you some time and brain cells. Would "go roll hard for 100 hours" be a good way to learn--or rather invent--BJJ technique, or would it be better to have someone show you some sweeps and submissions?

  4. #24
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    Quote Originally Posted by tompaynter View Post
    I would not be surprised if that is the norm, but even if it is, it doesn't sound like a good way to learn boxing. Your description of top amateur gyms sounds like Rip's description of Div 1 strength training programs: the coaches don't need to be good because the trainees are freak athletes. Maybe the fighters at those gyms started at 12 and have their technique down, and now just need a place to train against top competition. If you didn't start and 12, you're better off at a gym with more coaching and less talent.
    Thanks, Tom.

  5. #25
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pericles View Post
    Honestly that is the norm. At least in top amateur gyms. You will be shocked at how little coaching goes on at amateur clubs. These clubs also have the best boxers in the country. Compare to places where you pay for people to “teach” you boxing- lots of coaching, very little talent in the gym. Coaches at proper amateur clubs will only really give advice when you’re sparring.

    You learn through watching and being around top fighters, it just rubs off on you. Kind of like how “The Inner Game of Tennis” describes learning a sport. All the top amateur clubs in the UK operate this way.

    Fair play for wanting to learn correct technique, but if you actually want to get good at boxing there’s no secret to it- thousands of hours on the bag and sparring.

    Get 100 hours of sparring under your belt and watch what happens to your technique.
    Perhaps you don't know this, but what you just described sounds an awfully lot like the traditional Japanese martial arts dojos. Lots of robotic drills, no questioning of Sensei, and learn by rote and repetition.

  6. #26
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    Quote Originally Posted by tompaynter View Post
    I would not be surprised if that is the norm, but even if it is, it doesn't sound like a good way to learn boxing. Your description of top amateur gyms sounds like Rip's description of Div 1 strength training programs: the coaches don't need to be good because the trainees are freak athletes. Maybe the fighters at those gyms started at 12 and have their technique down, and now just need a place to train against top competition. If you didn't start and 12, you're better off at a gym with more coaching and less talent.

    "Get 100 hours of sparring under your belt and watch what happens to your technique." Yeah, I am sure if you muddle through for 100 hours of getting punched in the head, you will figure some things out on your own and get a little better. Or, someone knowledgeable could teach you some of the 100+years of accumulated knowledge of what works in the squared circle, and save you some time and brain cells. Would "go roll hard for 100 hours" be a good way to learn--or rather invent--BJJ technique, or would it be better to have someone show you some sweeps and submissions?
    Give it a try

    I just don't see many places that are going to teach you some shortcuts of how to beat people up in the street instead of within the martial art.

  7. #27
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sib View Post
    Give it a try
    What is your background in the combat sports?

    I just don't see many places that are going to teach you some shortcuts of how to beat people up in the street instead of within the martial art.
    We are talking about Boxing, not beating people up. You'll do better on these boards if you read more, type less.

  8. #28
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mark Rippetoe View Post
    What is your background in the combat sports?



    We are talking about Boxing, not beating people up. You'll do better on these boards if you read more, type less.
    Well in this thread people have mentioned winning street fights as well as other combat sports. If it is just getting good at boxing the op is after then fair enough.

  9. #29
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    I wasn’t saying that it’s optimum, only that that is how it is.

    If you’re going to a club with people who compete at a high level, don't expect a lot of coaching.

    Every top fighter in the UK learnt this way, some are the best in the world. Again, it’s not optimum, and yes the Div 1 analogy is accurate.

    As for the sparring- you won’t just “muddle through” the 100 hours of sparring, that’s not how it goes down. This is the only time you will actually be coached e.g. “You’re not stepping with the jab/you need to close the distance quicker.” The sparring is what gives you stuff to work on when you do bag work and shadow.

    By far the most crucial element in how good someone becomes is how much sparring they do and how good their sparring partners are. Because that’s what boxing is. Someone whose had a lot of coaching with very little sparring will never be as good as someone whose had zero coaching but loads of sparring.

    But yea, I agree that it would be much better if the coaches actually coached more. Many don’t know how to coach the technique. They just know how to read a fight.

  10. #30
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sib View Post
    Well in this thread people have mentioned winning street fights as well as other combat sports. If it is just getting good at boxing the op is after then fair enough.
    The OP did say learning the skill of boxing. Not entering the ring to compete. Now maybe that doesn't translate into saving his backside on the street as part of his interests. But even so, it also doesn't translate into doing a bunch of otherwise useless energy and calorie burning to build endurance for timed rounds in a refereed match. He just wants to better learn how to use his hands and body to strike. The other stuff is an artifact of tradition and lack of imagination on the part of those who teach boxing.

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