What Can I Work On At Home?

I always love it when members ask what they can work on at home. Boxing is a challenging thing to learn - nobody gets it right away - and the more you practice and even think about it in general, the better you get. What someone should work on at home is very much determined by who they are and what they might be having trouble with. There are still some very basic things I would recommend to just about anyone at first, but if you're interested in a something a little more personalized, you have only to ask me!

Twisting/Rotation

Literally just turning your hips. Better yet, get in your fighting stance and practice twisting so that your lower body weight shift between one foot and the other. Maybe it sounds silly to just practice twisting at home but the hardest thing for brand new boxers to learn is how to use their lower body to throw punches. A big way we do this is rotate our hips and transfer weight. You might not find this particularly challenging, but I can guarantee you that the more you practice this simple motion, the better your boxing will be. You can even do this as if you were throwing punches but without your arms for a more advanced version (I made a video about it once if you don't know what I am talking about - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hb8_P-tkQPA).

Make sure when you do practice this rotation, you aren't adding any ancillary movement. You aren't leaning with your upper body or moving your hips in ANY other way other than just the rotation part. That is so important. If you add in extra movement or leaning, it will just build bad habits that become harder to fix later!

Walking Around in Your Boxing Stance

Another thing to practice might feel a little silly, especially if you are doing it in a public place! But once again, I guarantee this simple thing will make you better. Just like throwing punches with your lower body, moving in a boxing stance is challenging and not natural. The only way to make it natural is to do it a lot. You can do very simple drills too. Couple steps forward, a couple steps backward, side-to-side, etc. Just get reps and make sure that you always maintain your proper stance, no matter which way you step, make sure you are on the balls of your feet with a slight bend in your knees.

Shadowboxing

Shadowboxing is a great way to work a great many things in boxing. The problem I always had with it though, is that I find it boring. I much prefer to punch something solid and more importantly, I need structure. There is no reason that you can't add structure to your shadowboxing, but it may be more work than you necessarily want to put in right now, so what I would recommend is very simple: stand in front of a mirror and throw jabs. Watch yourself. Is your jab landing around your own face level in the reflection? Are you telegraphing it? Is your elbow coming out wide? Are you snapping it back quickly? Etc., etc. The mirror allows you to see yourself and helps keep you honest. Then do the same thing with the cross, the jab-cross, the lead hook, the jab-cross-lead hook and maybe add some defense in before or after. Keep it very simple and just focus on form, not a workout.

Eventually, shadowboxing can become a workout and at the highest level, you can simulate an actual fight, but for now, just practice those basic punches. The key is to go in with a plan. Could (and should) be a very simple plan, but needs to be a plan. Even something like, 20 jabs, 20 crosses, 20 jab-crosses, 20 lead hooks, 20 jab-cross-lead hooks is perfect. Just winging it becomes unfocused and not useful for most folks

Figure Out What You Are Having Trouble With

I've said it twice already in this post, countless times in other posts, and I will say it again - boxing is not natural. It takes time to learn. You don't have to learn it all right away, it can be as slow and gentle of a process as it needs to be, but the great thing is that we are always getting better. At least 1% better at 1 thing. Everyone moves differently, everyone learns differently, everyone has some things that are harder than others. Figuring out what the harder things are is important. If you have trouble with rolls, practice those rolls at home (in front of a mirror). If it's uppercuts, practice uppercuts. Simple, right? Except many of us don't want to do this. We would rather just avoid or survive the things we have trouble with instead of attack them. Getting out of our comfort zones is tough!

What if you don't feel like there is any particular thing that you are having trouble with? Maybe everything feels equally challenging. It is possible that this is true, but I would bet that if you monitored yourself during a class/training session and paid attention to what movements feel the best and what feel kind of awkward, you might discover something.

This is also a great time to once again, talk to your coach. They could certainly weigh in on the things you might want to work on and of course, how you can work on them. Doing stuff on your own is great, but there is no substitute to boxing in front of the watchful and directing eye of your coaches.