The Glowing Edge

Author: Lisa Creech Bledsoe

  • When You Have a Bad First Sparring Experience

    When You Have a Bad First Sparring Experience

    Sparring is NOT boxing for fitness. When you get in that ring, everything changes. It’s not like drills, it’s not like working the heavy bag, it’s not like padwork.

    Sparring is radically different. Someone is trying to punch you in the face, and when you’re new to it, this can be not only terrifyingly alien, it can be downright demoralizing.

    Here’s an email I received recently about exactly that:

    I love The Glowing Edge, and it has been an invaluable resource to me as I begin to take the sport more seriously. I wanted to write to get your take on beginning to spar.

    I have been going to a boxing gym for two years. The structure of the gym is mostly boxing-for-fitness classes. There’s only one other woman at the gym who spars and I finally had my first experience sparring with her.

    I only went three rounds and I was rattled. It’s much more intimidating than I thought. I don’t know this fighter well. I didn’t feel comfortable asking her to ease up, I was worried that it would embarrass my coach and even though I’ve been going at it so hard in classes and training, all of a sudden I felt like there had been a gap in my education.

    1. What can I do to move forward from a first night of sparring that felt sort of demoralizing?
    2. Am I just being a whiny dumbass?

    I don’t want to be one of those types who only shows up to sparring once or twice and then fades out. But I don’t know how to approach my coach about this. I also don’t want to go back to just doing classes for fun.

    Hey, sparring sister. I know EXACTLY the stage you are in and NO you are not a whiny dumbass. This is 100% normal, and many of us have this same experience. More in a sec. First let me say this…

    Sparring takes some getting used to

    It really does. It’s a whole different game than pad work, drills, everything. That you went 3 rounds as a newbie is damned impressive. It’s some scary shit, right?

    You had your first sparring experience with someone you didn’t really know, and I get that you wanted to not disappoint your coach. Sounds like she kinda overwhelmed you.

    Here’s what the BEST sparring partners do for you

    The best sparring partners hold themselves TO or JUST ABOVE your level so that you can get some good work without getting hurt or demoralized.

    Sure, you may be bruised and headachy, but not so much that you’re like, “I don’t know if I want to do this again.”

    The best coaches make sure this happens. But not everybody gets this kind of attention. Just a fact of gym life.

    This is why you might not get much help when you’re new to sparring…

    Boxing gyms do not survive because pro fighters train there. They don’t make money because someone wants to learn to compete in the amateurs, either. The trainers and coaches are not always even boxers themselves.

    Boxing gyms survive financially because people want to get fit, not hit.

    That’s just how it is. That’s where the money is, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

    However, that means you have to take some initiative if you want to get your higher-level training and sparring work. SO. Here are a few tips for that.

    The process of finding and getting to know sparring partners takes time and balls (ovaries?). If your gym doesn’t always give newbies excellent sparring partners who know how to do this, you gotta start building your own sparring program…

    How to build YOUR OWN sparring program at ANY gym

    1. Get to know some sparring partners.

    Good sparring partners are SOLID GOLD to have. So make sparring friends. Travel to multiple gyms if you have to. Trade phone numbers. Friend them on Facebook.

    The more you actually know other boxers as friends, the more comfortable you will be talking to them in the ring, letting them know what you need, helping them adjust to you.

    Guys are fine for this. Just because you’re female doesn’t mean you have to only spar women. (That is such a bullshit attitude and I see it now and then from coaches.)

    In fact, befriend some big guys. Charm them. Ask them for their opinion, for tips on certain moves. They are men, they love this shit. I’m telling you, this works every time. Hello men? Am I wrong? No I am not. 🙂

    Let them feel like they are “mentoring” you — because guess what? They actually are.

    Then when they’re getting in the ring, ask for their “warm up” rounds. In other words, you’re making it clear that their “warm up” is your “training.” They stop feeling pansy-ass working with a “girl” and start feeling all helpful to a woman.

    I know, cheesy manipulation tactics.

    But it really does work. Women have to be sneaky-asses sometimes in pursuit of bigger goals.

    There will come a day when your rounds are nobody else’s warm ups, and when you’ll shine in the ring. You will be the one all the new people ask for help.

    2. Don’t wait until “sparring night.”

    Hijack the process and make your own timeline.

    I told you this would take balls. Stop being so damn polite!

    The more you can pass off your sparring as “just working on some tactics with so-and-so” the more pressure you take off everyone involved, including any coach who might be nearby.

    FAKE it till you make it. Pretend it’s all very casual — force it to be. Believe me, that helps SO much.

    3. Be consistent.

    Keep at it. The longer you go without sparring, the scarier it gets.

    I’m still boxing while I stare 50 in the face, and loving every day of it. I love when sparring is magic, and I even love the days when I get my ass kicked (the good kind of ass kicking, not the demoralizing kind).

    There’s so much joy and empowerment in this sport; I really hope you’ll stick with it!

    Let yourself be a newbie for a few years

    You are brand-freaking-new at this. I know it doesn’t seem that way, but boxing takes FOR EVER to get good at.

    You’re going to get better at dealing with the punches. You’re going to get better at moving your head and feet. You’ll learn to control the ring.

    And you’re going to get to know more and more people in the boxing world the longer you stick with this. This may be the biggest, most life-encompassing challenge you’ve ever faced on a daily basis.

    It’s totally worth it.

    Photo Credit: kate.gardiner via Compfight cc

  • 8 Rules of Amateur Boxing You Didn’t Know

    8 Rules of Amateur Boxing You Didn’t Know

    So you think you know the rules of amateur boxing? Maybe you do, maybe you don’t. Take a look at some of the most common mistakes I see and experience (and sometimes make, myself) on a regular basis.

    (more…)

  • The 100 Rounds of Sparring Rule

    The 100 Rounds of Sparring Rule

     

    How many rounds of sparring should you have before you enter your first amateur boxing competition?

    I love this question, and coaches enjoy arguing about it. We’re naturally argumentative. We’ll punch you, if needed.

    Seriously. If you make the transition from boxing fitness to sparring, you’re almost always going to be asking yourself the question “Should I compete?” And if you decide to compete, how do you know when you’re ready? Is there a physical bar? Is it about conditioning, or skills? Or is it primarily mental? A mix of both? (more…)

  • How to Wrap Your Hands for Boxing Competition

    How to Wrap Your Hands for Boxing Competition

    When you’re training for boxing, you’ll probably wear regular boxing wraps or gel gloves underneath your boxing gloves for protection and support.

    When you compete under the USA Boxing sanction, the rules on what you can use to wrap your hands, and how you must wrap them, are very specific.

    Ringside did a particularly good video on this, and it’s well worth watching the entire 16 minute video (and there’s a funny treat at the end). (more…)

  • How Amateur Boxing Matches are REALLY Made

    How Amateur Boxing Matches are REALLY Made

    Getting a good amateur boxing match together is never, ever a blissfully effortless ride on the pugilistic merry-go-round. It’s the most complex, chaotic, and frequently emotional mess you ever did see.

    If all you ever do is show up to enjoy a local fight night it might look smooth, from the outside. But it absolutely isn’t. For the 4 to 6 hours prior to the doors opening at the average amateur boxing evening, there is more anarchy and disarray than a high school cafeteria lunch period on homecoming Friday with no teachers. (Sorry, did I just give you a flashback?)

    Here’s why. (more…)

  • How to Pack Your Coach Bag for Amateur Boxing Events

    How to Pack Your Coach Bag for Amateur Boxing Events

    Since I’m usually officiating, I’m not the one who packs the gym bag to take our competitive boxing team to their events, but sometimes I pitch in to help the other coaches remember everything we need.

    And finally I wrote it all down, since that’s infinitely preferable to madly scrambling around at the last minute, trying to remember what all our boxing team will need once they get to the competitive arena.

    Btw, I searched the internet and didn’t find ANYTHING to help you pack your competition bag, so if you happen so see something, please link it in the comments. Just the fact that I couldn’t find anything made me wonder if I was missing something…

    Of course, this will be the ONLY post on the subject to include toilet paper, sparkly elves, chainsaws, and Nicki Minaj. Read on. (more…)

  • 10 Things I’ve Learned About Camping and Hiking on the Blue Ridge Parkway

    10 Things I’ve Learned About Camping and Hiking on the Blue Ridge Parkway

    We were on the upper NC section of the Blue Ridge Parkway this year, which has more open, rolling pastureland than you see in the “High Country” lower down. The park’s boundaries are narrower in this section — sometimes only a half-mile wide — so in addition to enjoying some grassland “hobbit hikes” along with our mountain-climbing and waterfalls, we also brushed up against more farms, homes, and… well, cows… this year. (We called them wild cows, or cow-bears, in order to feel more daring and adventurous.) (more…)

  • How to Work Against the Ropes

    How to Work Against the Ropes

    At most boxing gyms you’ll hear coaches tell you to stay off the ropes and control the center of the ring during your rounds. And that’s sound advice.

    But there’s also some good things to be said about being the kind of fighter who can perform well against the ropes, and even win a fight using rope skills. Here’s what I mean.

    (more…)

  • Two Things You Want in a Sparring Partner

    Two Things You Want in a Sparring Partner

    The transition from the floor of the gym to the boxing ring can be a bitch. When you’re new, you can barely tell a jab from a cross; the prospect of live sparring feels like being dropped into a pit with Jabba the Hutt’s Rancor (pictured above, nomming someone’s arm).

    So how the hell do you know what to ask for or expect in a sparring partner? Well, you ask someone who’s been doing it a while. I’ll tell you my experience with it, and then you can ask someone else. Find your tribe and they’ll help you get through this.

    Okay, me first. I won’t lie to you: getting started sparring can be pretty miserable. (more…)

  • New USA Boxing Rules for Amateur Competition

    New USA Boxing Rules for Amateur Competition

    The scoring of boxing events at the 2012 London Olympics was a mess. Yes, we were thrilled to finally see the ban against women’s boxing in the Olympic Games lifted, and despite heavy inequalities between the number of men versus the number of women allowed to compete, there was a tremendous showing of support. But the outdated, inefficient, and highly-variable computerized scoring rules that have governed amateur boxing for years finally caused enough problems to grease the wheels of massive change in the sport.

    The International Boxing Association (AIBA), the body which governs USA Boxing, hammered out several long-awaited changes to the scoring system to bring sanctioned amateur boxing more into line with the way pro boxing is scored. (more…)