Quote Originally Posted by Andre View Post
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Interesting thread with many components.

Why do you suppose many fighters cant 'let go of their hands' so to speak?

We've all seen this problem arise on fight night.
Caveat: I am not an expert boxing coach and have only limited experience with this issue (mostly making sure it doesn't happen to me) so much of the following is "best guess".

Several causes jump to mind, but we would need to observe and talk to the actual fighter to see if these are the actual reasons -- and there might be more, or a combination of these:

  1. Failure to relax (poor training, fear, nervousness, trying to hard)
  2. Over-thinking (not the normal planning and scheming but getting involved with the actual mechanics of moving, punching, etc)
  3. Trying to hit harder than in training -- forcing the motion
  4. Breathing issues, fatigue (similar to #1 and might be inter-relaated)

The book "Bounce" talks about the phenomenon of "clutching" which might be separate or related to the above.

State management is a very important method to avoid some or all of the above. NLP can be very helpful with this, especially using anchoring.

I would start with relaxing while hitting (since almost everybody has issues here), especially if it happens in sparring and not just in competition. Breathing too.

Then try to figure out which of these is causing the changes from practice to being stressed....
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HerbM