In the Gym

Posted by Bill Scherer Jul 8, 2008

A couple weeks ago I was in the ring with a young welterweight, Travis Samuel, working on his defense. Travis has a brawler's mentality and his trainer, Alex, wanted him to be more mindful of his defense. We weren't sparring, really, I just put on the gloves and threw a lot of jabs along with a few rights and three-punch combinations, all so Travis could work on blocking and slipping punches. He wasn't throwing back, it was a purely defensive drill.

While working with him, I noticed that when I threw a double jab and a right, Travis would block the jabs with his right hand and slip to the left. Just as he should. But...

He always responded the same way to that particular combination, so I began looking for a weakness in his response and it didn't take long to find it--after throwing that combination several times I realized that Travis dropped his right glove when he slipped my right, leaving his chin exposed. All I would have to do is feint the jab and throw my right where his head was going. I didn't, though.

What I did do was take a step back and explain to him what I saw. He seemed genuinely shocked that one could actually throw a punch where his opponent's head was going to be.

All the drilling on proper form, necessary as it was, and is, kept Travis from improvisation. Learning to throw straight punches is absolutely vital, but in the ring one's target isn't always straight ahead.

Boxing, for all of its technical complexities, is still a simple matter of landing more clean punches than one's opponent--wherever he happens to be.