Hi John,

Yeah as I have said I can recommend the cove gym. I have to admit i have been away from the scene for a few months. I'm not sure of who has other heavyweights to spar with at the present time.

The glenelg club had a guy who could compete as a light heavy last year but I've heard he hasn't been at state trainings this year so i don't know if he's still there.

I would just visit all of these different clubs and make it clear that you are just checking out a few places so they don't feel like you are their guy immediately.

Having some foundation in the sport may come with it's own BS meter as far as who seems to have the tools to coach you the way you need to be coached.

At the same time some coaches will jump at the chance to take you on because you may already be at a stage where you can be good for sparring etc but some of the same coaches would not have had the structure or the effort or passion for the sport to nuture you from the beginning.

I think most would have had that passion at one stage but some will have lost it and I feel you don't want to be battling the consequences of a coach who is gradually loosing his passion for the sport all together.

Ask about the structure of their trainings. Some places will be stricter than others and some will not have enough structure. Think about how often you want different aspects of your training.

Perhaps ask if they have any fight vids on hand of their current and recent fighters. I think that will be some indication for you. Coaches who don't have fight vids you can watch either have something to hide or they don't follow up on the performance of their athletes with a structured logical training plan enough to bother or to be interested enough to make the effort of getting the vids.

At your age I suspect you have some obligations or anticipate having some obligations as far as employment or study is concerned. This means you will want to be able to train in hours which fit in with that. Some places will have training times very difficult for people who work nine to five to attend.

Also ask how they feel about interclub sparring and boxing SA in general. I think you want a coach who may recoginize ways in which boxing SA might be improved but one who still has the ability to work with it as best as possible.

You do not want to miss out on interclub sparring and to deal with political issues just because your coach can not stop fighting with all the other coaches. Interclub sparring may also be a huge benefit to your development so even if the coach you choose doesn't approve of some aspects of Boxing SA you want to see evidence of a continued effort to work with oter clubs to get this.

Many places will have rare sporadic interclub sparring but sometimes that's just not enough. Especially if you find as a heavyweight you don't have to opportunity to spar people your weight often. SA is not a huge boxing state as I am sure you are aware so you really need to work with every resource you have to have much hope of being competitive with opponents interstate. Ask how often they travel to compete also.

I intend to look around myself in a few weeks once i have finished a pressing dealine i have for uni work but i am prepared to accept that this may also just be a bad time to be looking. Some clubs including some of the good ones will have an off season and be winding down towards Christmas soon. You don't neccessarily want to miss out on training with them if they would be right for you.

So yeah look around, let me know how it goes but don't commit to any one place too quickly as exciting as it can be and good luck!