Old Traditions vs. Modern Thinking

We live in a fast-changing world often driven by data collection, data analysis and iteration. Technology is ever-evolving and touches just about every part of of lives. We also live in a world with old, time-honored traditions that we still follow. Things we love and things that just continue to work. For instance, a fork is still an excellent way to eat salad. 

So, how do we determine what things can be innovated and what things shouldn't change at all? We simply ask the question, "Why?" Why do we use a fork to eat salad? Is there another tool that might work better? Is there anything we can do to make the experience of eating a salad more easy and efficient? Do we have new technology that could be applied to eating a salad?

When it comes to most modern sports, people are always asking these questions. Especially in the most popular American sport, which is football. The game itself has changed drastically in the last 45 years I have been watching. There are constant innovations to the style of play as well as the training and decision-making aspect to coaching, with many of the latter two things being driven by advancements in technology and data analysis. 

I could give you a billion examples of these changes but one I will just point out is "The Brotherly Shove." Long before the forward pass was even invented, teams would line up against each other and try to run the ball up the middle for short yardage. Then suddenly, a couple of years ago, the Philadelphia Eagles line up a little differently, get lower, and invent a new way to push forward to gain just a yard or two, eventually calling it "The Brotherly Shove" (or the less compelling, "Tush Push"). And here is the crazy thing - it is pretty much unstoppable! For as long as I can remember, teams trying to pick up a single yard or less was always a risky proposition. Defenses lined up to stop it and it seems like at least half the time, they usually did. But when the Eagles started this Brotherly Shove thing, it was almost 100%. Nobody can prevent them getting at least a yard with this play. How did it take over 100 years to figure this out? I have no idea but I know that it happened because somebody finally asked why. Why do we do things the way we currently do and is there a better way to do them? 

One sport that does not ask these questions as much is, unfortunately, boxing. Boxers still pretty much train the way they did in the 1960s. Fight styles have changed a little bit, erring towards being more defensive in the smaller weight classes and of course, the business of boxing has changed too, erring towards having fewer fights in general, particularly among serious contenders. Unlike football however, none of those changes have really improved the product.

For this post, I am going to focus on the training and analytics portions of boxing, which are probably the least advanced and most in need of modernization. Boxing trainers and coaches generally come from an old-school mentality. They teach boxing the way it was taught to them 30, 40, 50 years ago. They train the way Rocky Marciano trained because he had incredible conditioning and was really, really good. They are usually not as open to asking "why” and "is there a better way to do this?" Do all boxers really need to skip rope or is there something that would benefit them more? Is hitting the speed bag really the best use of their time? The answer to these questions may certainly be "yes" but my point is that they are generally not even asked at all. They are just established facts. If you walked into an NFL training camp in 1960, it would be completely different than how it would be now in 2023. If you walked into a boxing gym, it would probably not be too much different because of this reason.

Speaking as an older guy myself, I can understand that change isn't always easy and if legends like Angelo Dundee or Ray Arcel or Cus D'amato said something, who the hell am I to question it? But the world has changed and maybe there is another way of evaluating things. If we don't ask and truly scrutinize, we'll never know. And if those old school training methods are still the best, they will hold up to any scrutiny, just like forks do.

This problem is not just limited to how we train physically. Boxing is not studied to anywhere near the detail that sports like football are. For instance, during fights, there is a system called CompuBox that tracks the punches that each athlete throws. It is the same system that has been used since the mid 1980s. 2 operators watch the fight and record only 4 things - jab lands, jab misses, power punch (any punch that is not a jab) lands, power punch misses. That's it. Other types of punches are not categorized and it is extremely prone to error and bias. To be fair though, boxing can move much faster than other sports. Determining exactly which punch was thrown can be extremely difficult to do live. I've tried to figure this out and always end up having to rewind multiple times. So I don't blame CompuBox specifically, but is anyone else collecting more granular data? Things like how punches are missed (block, evade, etc.), what punches are landed/missed, where specifically punches are landed, single punches vs combinations, punch vs counterpunch, who initiates the attack vs success level, generally what successful/unsuccessful things have in common and so much more. Everything should be tracked, analyzed and learned from. This info could completely change the way boxers approach things. Again, we'll never know for sure unless we study and analyze. Maybe someone, somewhere is doing this but I highly doubt it. Boxing telecasts certainly don't make use of it.

Science and technology can also be applied to our basic movements. If you look at sports like golf and baseball, where the specific mechanics of a swing are so important, they are able to track exactly what muscles are firing when and what body parts move in what order to determine how this swing can be made better, through both targeted training of everything that goes into it as well as the specific execution of the movement itself. A boxer's punch is pretty important too. Perhaps some of these same methods of study and training can be employed but once again, I don't feel like the boxing community is receptive to this as a whole.

To a lot of the old school trainers, which encompasses most of the good ones currently, introducing new ideas like this can be seen as an affront to the gritty, tough spirit of boxing. Technology and science aren't boxing. Boxing is blood, sweat and tears. Nerds in lab coats can't teach us how to fight or even prepare for a fight. I think that was even the whole point of Rocky 4 (that and that communism doesn't work). But boxing is the sweet science and just like those salty sciences, nothing is ever settled, and we should always question whether or not there is a better way to do things. Even when it comes to eating a salad. 

Dropping Some Emotional Pounds for 2024

While I never like to look past Christmas, I do have an activity I recommend you start thinking about now, and try out after (or before)  the new year kicks off. It is relatively simple, but it is not at all easy and it takes some real courage to do. On your computer, in a notebook, whatever, write out all the things that someone did to you that were wrong, all the times people didn't do what they were supposed to do, or did things that they shouldn't have done that affected your life. Every time you were treated unfairly or got a bad shake from life in general. This will very likely be a painful process. You may re-open up some old wounds. 

But when you do reopen them and pour your heart and soul out on the paper, it will prepare you for the next important step, which is to let it all go. Symbolically tear up or burn the list if you want to, but let go of all of these past grievances, emotionally. Why would you do this? The better question is, why would you carry it around in the first place? Imagine wearing a backpack filled with heavy rocks. Maybe the thing weighs 100 or 200 pounds and just walking around with it in your daily life. It's going to wear you down. It's going to tire you out. It's going to prevent you from going as far as you possibly can in life. This is true to for our emotional baggage too. It is heavy and weighs us down, holds us back. It is only when we let it go that we can truly free.

So it's just that easy, huh? Let it all go? Of course not. If it were easy to just dump all of our baggage, we wouldn't be carrying it around all the time. But we often don't even really try to get rid of it. Perhaps we really and truly were wronged by someone else and treated unfairly. Maybe it was 100% someone else's fault and it had a major negative effect on our lives. There might not have been any sense of closure and the problems remain unchanged, unfixed. It is very difficult to tell yourself to suddenly not care about these things anymore. What is the other option though? To hold on to all of it and be bitter? How does that benefit you moving forward?

Some things may be too hard to get rid of. Many of us have permanent scars. Striving to let go of as much as we can, even if it's not everything at first, is still very helpful. This doesn't mean all is necessarily forgiven either. It's not about forgiving. If you are big enough to forgive everyone for their past wrongs as part of letting it go, then great! I myself am not always able to do this and for me, it's more about not letting things bother me anymore than forgiving those who wronged me. Many years ago, I lived in fear. It was rational fear too as every day, I was physically threatened in some form - sometimes attacked, spat on, yelled at, challenged, etc. I don't forgive any of the people who did this to me at all but I am also not mad at them either. I let go of all that. I truly and honestly no longer care and I swear to you and God that never have I thought about getting revenge on any of these people. Not once have I ever even fantasized. I used to carry these feelings around and I was a pretty angry, not particularly happy, son of gun. Dropping this emotional baggage was a huge step for me and I could not have been able to have the better life I have now without it.

But what about trying to use some of these past grievances as fuel and inspiration to drive yourself to be better? The negative stuff can definitely motivate you. Sports teams always try to adopt an "us against the world" mentality but for general, day-to-day living over a long period of time, I don't think it's very healthy and again, it will wear you down. Learning from past mistakes is a whole different ball game though. Learn from your experiences, take what you need, then let the rest of the emotions go. You'll be amazed how much lighter you can feel!

One thing I have not touched on yet is if some of your grievances are with yourself. Things you did that aren't proud of or times when you feel like you failed or screwed something up. We all have plenty of these too. This is another case where you can learn from it and move on. Let go of the emotions and bad feelings, keep the lesson. And forgive yourself too. It might be hard but you've got to live with yourself for the rest of your life, right? It doesn't do much good to stay mad.

Just like many of us will be looking to shed some holiday weight in 2024 (myself very much included), let's try and drop some emotional pounds too. First you've got to figure out what it all is though. Write it down. Even if you think you don't need to write it down, do it anyway. More things will come out and we want as much as we can. Again, this will not be a fun activity. You might have a lot of stuff buried down deep and it's easier to just ignore it sometimes. Maybe some of it is too deep for you to get to on your own. And there may be stuff you can't simply let go of. This is where therapists can certainly be helpful! In any case, I would bet you would be a lot happier overall if you can discover this stuff and let it go so you don't have to keep carrying it around on your back all day. The work you put in here is more than worth it. In fact, what could be a more worthy cause than your emotional well-being? What, I ask you???