What should a boxer think about when fighting/sparring?

[boxer777]

Hello-Im old to this board but a new poster.

Just wanted to chime in because this is a discussion that interests me.

I think thinking is more useful to some fighters than others - the the best boxers i have sparred against have a great deal of animal instincts at their disposal.I asked one guy, who is has boxed internationally, what he thought about when he fought.He said nothing , he just reacts. So for him success

was based on achieving a state rather than being able to stratergize in-fight.

i wonder though where speed of thought comes in to this ? ie do the people who say they dont think, actually think but think too quickly for them to notice. i heard a guy talking about how one of the skills advanced boxers develop is the ability to slow down time - not in a woo woo way , but in the way

that when you come off a highway onto a normal road all the traffic seems to be crawling along, because your eyes and senses have become attuned to the speed of the highway.

A lot of the top boxers like Lennox Lewis(OK he's not top at the moment) Play a lot of chess, which trains the mind to be able to think under pressure and think in terms of strategy, offense and defense. And there are many books written on martial concepts like 'The Book of the Five Rings' and 'The Art

of War'(though, whilst not referring to boxing specifically, still address combat and the way things are) I think one of the key themes of those books was the merging of the mind and the body so that it can operate with most efficiency.

One quality that boxers also talk about it the importance of being able to adapt or they mock a fighter for being one dimentional surely these cliches point to of the importance of being able to think in the ring ?

I coach a few beginners and sometimes i will give them a mantra to say to themselves whilst body sparring something like "feet - alignment - chin - hands " its not ideal , but it helps keep the relevant things fresh in their mind.

I would be interested in hearing the things others find useful- the ones who are not naturally gifted with great natural reflexes.

[HerbM]

Boxer777, glad to see you posting, especially since you raise some good points. Glad to have your thoughts too....

Agreed that the value or cost of thinking will be different for different people, and that the fighter who cannot make changes is going to be at a disadvantage.

I also think the mantra (it doesn't have to sound so new age but that is as good a name as any and we use something similar when we teach Speed Reading of all things) is good for when we have no time for complex thoughts OR if we wish to 'jam' complex thought to enhance focus and avoid having our mind wander.

"Moving, breathing, relaxing, maintaining form" is my Systema mantra since those are the Systema principles -- they are so essential to Systema and so compatible with other combat arts (esp. boxing and BJJ) that I turned this into one word: Brealaxaformoving. Might sound silly but it is all I now need to remind me to always be doing all four. It is also a progressive verb to emphasize that these are ongoing actions that never complete.

I originally didn't make too much of the idea of adaptation being necessary since a boxer with a good coach can get much of this between rounds (if he survives that long ), but this is part of my belief in the value of thinking and evaluating for oneself during the round.

You are correct about Lennox Lewis boxing much like a chess master -- and we can relate this even more directly to "5 minute chess" -- a common pass time of advanced chess players where a clock is used but each player has a maximum of 5 minutes for his own ENTIRE game. (At one time I was such an advanced chess player.) Such players make MOST moves from either memory (they have seen this opening position many times) or by instinct, or by principle (develop pieces, castle the king, control the center, attack with pawns, open rows and move rooks to them etc), and only slow from time to time for more thorough strategizing.

Of course, chess is a move response game, i.e., you cannot get hit when it is your move, so this is a little bit different from boxing where with speed you can hit three times for each response of your opponent (or vice versa.).

Time distortion (technically tachypsychia) is a fairly well known phenomenon in stressful situations such as combat and has been studied in the context of police officer involved shootings quite a bit.

I have been separately interested in this phenomenon for some time, and more specifically in how to induce and use the effect at will or under conscious triggering.

Oddly enough, tachypsychia under stress can both speed up or slow down perceived time -- slowing of time seems to happen about twice as often in the police studies and seems more USEFUL to me, but some survivors did just fine with "everything a blur".

Various theories exist for the cause, e.g., adrenaline (or dopamine, norepenephrine, etc) effects, focus and remembrance of key details (essential to survival) while ignoring the irrelevant, or perhaps it is some mechanism of the mind itself. Probably at least the first two in combination in my opinion.

My background also includes extensive training in NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) which uses tools from hypnosis and I have been involved with many experiments where various mental perceptions and physical capabilities were altered temporarily and believe that we CAN learn to engage this behavior if we can figure out how to model it sufficiently.

Vladimir Vasiliev, the top Systema teacher in America (and his teacher in Moscow is Mikhael Ryabko), is so effective at self-defense against multiple opponents (even with knives or other weapons) that I formed the preliminary conclusion that he can engage slow time tachypsychia at will. I haven't proven this but strongly suspect it and wish I were able engage this skill reliably.

Focus is likely a key element to achieving effective tachypsychia. Relaxation (getting back to having fun also) is likely helpful (or even essential) as well.

I don't know if fear is necessary but doubt that it is essential even if it might commonly PROMPT the effect.

Supposedly TRAINING makes it more likely -- this may however be simply that those who are highly skilled can work on 'automatic', know how to focus only on the essentials, or otherwise are calm enough to remember clearly the effects.

Another idea that I had in relation to 'thinking' is that if complex thinking is a poor idea then it would be wise to have sets of 'trigger' events that would automatically invoke complex pre-built plans. The idea is to remove these from conscious thought and move them to instinctual response.

By necessity we do this with small things that happen too rapidly for complex though -- we practice throw and catch drills until we can catch or parry without thinking -- no time to think about that when a fist is coming at your head.

--
HerbM

[Scrap]

Its all down to Psychodynamics, programed thought and History of it. I remember a Kid I had cool as a cucumber, nothing fazed Him good Fighter. One night He had a Headache 20 mins before a Fight. I sensed there was something wrong, He admitted He was nervous, I relieved the pressure by manipulation. I asked Him did He get nervous before a Fight often, as He never before had shown signs of it. His reply all the time, He held His self together. Now this made me nervous, but that night the Kid went out,and gave the performance of His life and won the World Title.

[Andre]

Its a big subject when you think that something as small as a thought can effect your whole system.
Its like when you know something but cant remember what it is; no matter how hard you try to remember it. Its only when you give up and go and concentrate on something else is when your mind has the space to work and then when you are doing something else the answer pops into your head and you say "OH yeah"! why the hell couldnt I think of that when I needed it!

Your mind needed to be given the space to work.