EFFECTIVE PUNCHING - the Blast Plan

[Zelley]

Learning how to throw punches properly is part of effective punching. No matter how good you can punch, you also need to be able to get past an opponent's guard or you won't landing much at all.

You need to either find openings or create them, and then get your self into the right position and angle to land your punches. Now some of it is experience, either from sparring or from fighting, and then you sometimes get that feeling that makes you say to yourself, "I got 'im". A lot of it comes down to how you train. You train with your opponent in mind and then move for the right reasons. Don't ever punch just for the sake of punching, otherwise you're going to get hurt, and by hurt I mean murdered.

Good points!

Part of the complete effective punching package is finding the openings,
that is where the aspects of accuracy, speed and timing take effect,
coupled with effective feinting, one should get the job done.

[Shadow Boxer]

Love the post. Boxing is an art and a psychology. You got to fight smart and plan things. There's no secret code to winning, just tools that you are given to win. You can give a carpenter a saw and a hammer, but that's not the secret to great carpentry. It's the carpenter: HOW he uses those tools. We have our body as boxers, but we have to be aware that there is no secret weapon to winning fights, it's just how you utilize the tools you know. You can have every tool and still lose to someone that has mastered one thing to a degree that he outclasses you.

[Zelley]

Love the post. Boxing is an art and a psychology. You got to fight smart and plan things. There's no secret code to winning, just tools that you are given to win. You can give a carpenter a saw and a hammer, but that's not the secret to great carpentry. It's the carpenter: HOW he uses those tools. We have our body as boxers, but we have to be aware that there is no secret weapon to winning fights, it's just how you utilize the tools you know. You can have every tool and still lose to someone that has mastered one thing to a degree that he outclasses you.

Excellent philosophy! The art of box smart.

[Zelley]

Before my last ever fight that took place in Nanaimo, I had a chance to meet former top pro contender Manuel Gonzalez while he was in Vancouver
in 1972. It was good to learn a few new points re balance, movement and
deception.

In my last fight, I won easily. The opponent was walking into left jabs all night and his punches were missing.

[Zelley]

Received word that some boxing club are using the points raised in this
thread in their training.

If others can add a few tips, that would be excellent.

[Scrap]

A carpenter, a good one Has all the Tools. He looks after them and always keeps them sharp. Anything new He will invest in if it compliments the old.

[Zelley]

FEINTING - "The Big Lie" or the "Magic Trick"

One may have the four key components for effective punching
- Balance - Leverage - Accuracy - Speed - Timing -

But, to support these components of the effective punching skill
one needs a few magic tricks or in boxing lingo, the "big lie"
or the skill of "feinting" to draw punches or set-up power punches.

From experience, as I flash back to 1966 and 1968,
I can cite two examples
where in example one I was executing
the feint and in the second case
I was the recipient of the "big lie" or
the master feint and the power punch.

Case 1: I moved out in round 1, bent my knees
a started a left to the body
as the feint and then executed the right hand
that caught my foe in the side of the head.
The rest of the fight was a cake walk,
and I won the fight and the "Best Fighter" award

Case 2: Sometime in round three against Ray Lampkin in the
1968 Tacoma Golden Gloves, Ray used a perfect right hand feint
and I weaved into a left hook, it didn't end the bout but the stars were
floating around my head like a spinning halo in the sky.

In both cases the feint and follow-up punch worked and were key factors
that decided the decision on the judges score cards, but in both cases there were
two other factors - one helped in the execution, and the other
prevented a potential stoppage of the fight. Without getting into detail
those two factors were: defense and missed opportunity.

[Zelley]

A carpenter, a good one Has all the Tools. He looks after them and always keeps them sharp. Anything new He will invest in if it compliments the old.

Good index line for the boxing tool kit/