Boxing

I like to think that How to Box is the best of the boxing websites on the internet, but of course that would just be arrogant. There are of course many boxing websites that are worthy of mention, so here's my top twenty favorite boxing websites on the internet.  It's a hodge podge of different categories, but I'm sure you'll get the jist.

A couple of days ago I tried to convince all the wannabe boxers out there that they really should go out and find a partner to learn to box with - not to become hermit boxers. This is part two of that two part series and is a guide for all you partners that were recently recruited.

Hopefully, you want to learn to box yourself, but even if you don't you can still help train that aspiring boxer who came to you looking for someone to train with. You do need to learn a few boxing basics and be willing to go through the motions, offering advice and motivation where you can.

Make Boxing a Social Event

It's hard to make a committment and do something by yourself for any length of time. You have no one to be accountable to except yourself and the result, unless you are extremely strong willed and disciplined, is to convince yourself not to train any harder.

Why Do You Need to Find a Friend to Learn Boxing With?

A partner is absolutely essential if you really want to learn boxing and here are the reasons why:

The term shadowboxing comes from a training method that boxers use where they pretend to box their shadow on a wall, although more commonly they use a mirror.  Shadowboxing is the most cost effective boxing training method you can use to improve your boxing skills. 

If you think about it, shadowboxing requires absolutely no equipment, and you can do it anywhere and nearly anytime.  I've routinely worked shadowboxing into my day, throwing punches as I walk up stairs or down a hallway.  (I generally try to make sure no one is watching :)).  Have to say, much to my embarrassment, that I've been caught more than once in my own little boxing world.  Try explaining to a co-worker why you are jumping around like a lunatic in a suit in a board room punching something nobody else can see...

In a boxer's training arsenal there are few pieces of equipment that will hit back. The double end bag is the best you can get without a sparring partner until I figure out a way to create a fighting robot that learns from past encounters.

You can go out and buy a double end bag, but one of the things I love about boxing is that the equipment is simple enough to improvise if you don't have the cash or the desire to go to the store.

Boxing weight classes are a way of ensuring that boxers of similar size and weight are matched up. While one can argue that a true champion would fight anyone, fighting within one's weight class makes for better fights. Bigger boxers have more natural weight behind their punches. Heavyweights tend to inflict more knockouts but the fighters tend to be slower. Featherweights, on the other hand, are blindingly fast. Dividing up boxing into weight classes helped to reduce the number of lop sided victories and the ability of boxers to pick on smaller opponents.

It is not uncommon for boxers to move into and out of weight classes. As they grow older, they could move from middleweight to light heavyweight in order to challenge themselves more or to take a title in two different weight classes. Nothing says one has to stay in one class for one's entire career. If one can add or lose the weight, one can fight in whatever class one wants.

When the sweet science of boxing can help you deliver a can of whoopass

I'm not telling you to go out and start street fighting because you learned a punch or two, but picture walking out of a bar or school and getting jumped by a couple of guys intent on giving you a beating.  Are all these cool boxing techniques you are learning for inside the ring, going to save your ass on the outside?

The boxing skills you learn here and from your trainers can definitely help you in a street fight, but you are going to have to modify things a bit.  It's like any environment, learn to adapt and survive.  Don't and Darwinism will take over.

Recently, psycho asked what boxer's think of MMA in the forums. I've moved the conversation here to get more opinions. I'm actually surprised it took this long for this topic to come up. Every other boxing site I've been to eventually gets into this debate.

On the one hand, you have the purist boxers who are completely against MMA.

On the other are the MMA fanatics who believe boxing has gone the way of the dodo.

And somewhere in the middle are the people who see them for what they are. Two completely different sports, both of which could learn a thing from the other.