Philly shell vs other stances

[cambay411]

Hey herb i read the Champ Thomas book and the philly shell is the exact stance he loves and focuses on. The main reason i started this thread was to find out why everyone says not to use it. Also i would love for someone to tell me all they can about the shoulder roll because everytime i read something on the internet it says the shoulder roll is important when using the philly shell. Speaking of Champs Thomas' book, i believe he says very little, if anything at all about the shoulder roll. I am going to read through it again though to make sure. Thanks for the help everyone it has helped alot!

[nikola_ganchev]

When you put your left hand down and relaxes your sholder you give a target for the right hands...This target is more imaginary than real because if you stay back there and prepared for them, its really easy to block or roll with them. Your oponent will commit on trowing the right hands and so, as Scrap says, you must maintain your concentration. I love to think abaut the defencive techniques like puches but without trowing them. The mechanics behind sliping, rolling, ducking is the same. First you must have rythm in order to make the movements happen fast as possible. For example if boxer caches anoder boxer with a combo and he wants to go backwards, how do you thing he is going to initiate the movement faster:staying flat footed or in the backwards motion from the rythm... And then the second part, in order to make this defensive moves you must turn your sholders, load up the hand in which direction you are going and stay balanced in order to trow punch or move after that... Sounds pretty much llike punching for me. And last point on rythm. If you make at abaut 120 130 bounces per minute you are using the elasticity of your muscles and you spend almost no energy in doing so. If you dont have it you are going to stay flat footed because its un natural to stay on ball of your foot not moving and you are going to get tired pretty fast...

I think that the first boxer that i see using the defence was jack dempsey... He used it from a crauch in order to get near to his oponent. With his constant bobing and rolling he was famous to be very hard to hit and when he take a shot it wasnt flush. The shots were soften by hitting first the scholder and then falling under a big angle on the top of the head (which deflected even more the power) or when he was going backwards with the shot... In boxing you are gonna take alot of punches... But the question is how you are gonna take them?

[cambay411]

Thank you nikola your threads are very informitive. Question about the shoulder roll. Can it be used in like a pushing motion like when some throws a straight, as they do that i turn my shoulder to the inside, the punch makes contact with the front deltoid part of my shoulder which pushes his fist out of the way. Similar to the motion when you whipe someones jab, or parry a jab (i hope you understand this lol). Or should i focus mainly on just blocking the punch with the shoulder. Also when my opponent throws a punch with his left hand should i only block with my right side? And when he throws with his right should i only block with my left? I hope this all makes since. Thank you again and any more info you can give helps alot. I like this stance because i can strike out of it very effectivly but dont know alot about the defensive side and i have no one to teach me about it.

[nikola_ganchev]

Its optimal to use your sholder to parry the right hands from the oponend. When you parry and he is overextending with his rights you are gonna take his head off... But this movement has his price. You must have gut timing and reactions and if you miss the parry its bad news for you(watch Archie Moore vs Yvon Durelle). Blocking, as like with the hand, is much more solid, but it limits your options for counter because you have shorten the movement from the oder guy and you can loose balance. You can block easy left jabs with your sholder too. Normally that does not compromize your defence much, but dont over do it because you open your self to right hands to the body(watch Toney)... The position of the hands leeds to the cross arm defence wich is mostly cross parry... Very good example to watch for both mistakes and good use simultaniously(lol) is Ken Norton. He is pretty solid when you try to hit him with straights. He take them all with the sholder or the right hand but this leeds to cross parring. In cross parry you are open for the left hook. Than to block it you must lift your right elbow up
or return the glove fast to your right temple. Ken dont do both of them good(Norton vs Forman, Norton vs Shavers)... Good example of the cross arm defence is Evander Hololyfield and of cource Archie Moore. Personally i dont lilke to go in the cross arm (i am not verry good there). I like to go in a slide crauch to the right(which gives a slight engle to the oponent and you are not on his line of attack and in general the position outside of the left hand of your oponent is "safe zone") and bobing from there(watch Rocky Marciano). You can go under all punches and you are loading the right hand. How you are going to stay depends of your build... I am very solid(110 kilos most in my legs) and not very tall(6'~5'9"), so crauching deep make alot sence for me. If you are tall watch Ezzard Charles, Bob Foster and Mike MCcallum to name a few. I hope that this helps.