Help for defense against left hands

[StrictlySP]

Hi Rocky,
You wrote:

But with my right hand high I always seem to forget about left hooks and am always caught by them. I need help ... what should I do?

Salty wrote:

I think the best lesson to learn for a guy new to the sport is that you are going to be caught. It's the frequency and severity of these punches which matter. This is why sparring is so important, you've identified the weakness in your defence and now you and your trainer go about rectifying it.

Very nicely said...

Successful boxing consists in part of "properly" trained/ingrained "automatic" responses; so with a specifically identified problem, it can be rectify through lots of conscientious "isolation drilling" and "isolation sparring" (done in a variety of ways). With that said, don't overlook/underestimate the "power" of drilling and put all your marbles in sparring. While sparring is THE ultimate preparatory exercise in boxing; functional, objective-driven drilling goes a long, long way in developing and ingraining the proper responses that are required to compete successfully in the sport. So, you'd do well to incorporate plenty of it in your regimen alongside gradient sparring.

Anyway, hope you're doing well. Take care and good luck ("luck" equating to when preparation meets opportunity).

Best Regards,
Lito

[Chris Nagel]

Sorry Rocky, I completely overlooked the main points of concern in your post. :x I'm just glad that Lito answered it very well. I can help give you examples of what Lito mentioned in his post if you're interested.

P.S. I tried to rep Lito, but it didn't seem to be going through at first, so I kept trying. Hence the megarep on this one.

[Rocky Balboa]

Thanks guys, now that I think about it the problem seems to be vision. My lead hand is always down and I always see right hands. I keep my right hand up and my vision seems to be hampered by that so I'll have to figure that out. Thanks guys all your posts were helpful