The Glowing Edge

Tag: Manny Pacquiao

  • Two Schools of Padwork in Boxing

    Two Schools of Padwork in Boxing

    I’m a “train for what you are going to do” kind of person.

    Yes, I put in road and trail work, stadium stairs, jump rope, and so on, and none of those things are what I actually do when I roll into the boxing ring. They do give my muscles the kind of balance that only comes from cross-training, as well as a foundation of good cardio conditioning.

    However.

    And this is a big however…

    I do most of my non-boxing-specific training in boxing rounds.

    For example, here’s one of my current favorite workouts. All the work (except for the mile) is done in three minute rounds with 30 second recovery periods. And even that I sometimes do in three minute bursts, like a fartlek run, with 30 second recoveries.

    1. Three rounds stairs
    2. Three rounds hurdles (The hurdles are so intense I actually don’t make it continually through 3 minutes yet)
    3. Three rounds jump rope
    4. One mile to finish (are you happy I didn’t say “to recover” like your coach does? Heh.)

    The point is to work hard for 3 minute segments and recover in 30 seconds, and then do it again — because that’s what you do in the boxing ring.

    So I see these guys doing incredibly lengthy memorized padwork routines and I think, this doesn’t help me. It looks super-shonuff cool, it does! But it doesn’t look like what I end up doing in the ring.

    I hear the arguments that it develops fast hands and punches in bunches, but the situation seems so forced. You memorize a sequence and move through it (like a kata in martial arts). But in boxing you aren’t throwing 32 punches in a single offensive. You have to think, watch your opponent, strategize on the fly.

    Maybe I’m just jealous. I don’t have those long combos memorized, and they do seem to carry some cool cred in gyms. I wanna be cool, just like other people.

    But I’m gonna stick with training that looks and feels like actual boxing. Check out the video below. THIS is what I think padwork should look like.

    One of the things I like about this padwork training session is that the trainer is not smacking down the punches; he lets the punches come to him. The two of them move, stay loose, and circle just like you would in a fight. It’s the real thing, not a show.

    Well, okay, it IS a show, it’s part of a press conference, obviously, but you get the feeling that they actually train like this on a regular basis. You know, minus all the reporters crowding the ring.

    Padwork is one of the things I love best in boxing.

    You get one-on-one time with a trainer or peer who is working on your game, your form, your boxing. You don’t have to share a coach with dozens of other fighters when you’re doing padwork, and you don’t have to factor in a sparring opponent. It’s aaaaalll you, baby. Whipped cream with a cherry on top.

    I don’t get much padwork, but when I do, I’m intensely grateful for it, particularly when I feel like it’s going to really move my game forward.

    Image by icantu on Flickr

  • Boxing Lesson: Advance on the Jab

    Boxing Lesson: Advance on the Jab

    It may be that trainers have been saying this to me for years now, and I’m only just recently able to hear it.

    There is so much to be mastered in boxing that sometimes it’s all you can do to cope with the basics. You have to simply survive in the ring for a long time before you stop sucking and start to look like you know a couple of things. It can be incredibly hard to operate calmly when you feel like you are under fire, but I promise you, it does happen! You get one tiny building block, then another and another.

    I feel like I am finally at the point where I’m able to hear my trainers tell me to advance on the jab. Jay was saying this well before I was at Second Round, where I’m hearing it now from Coach “One Bad Jab” Massey.

    It sounds ridiculously simple, doesn’t it?

    For whatever reasons, I’ve either not heard it, or haven’t been able to implement it until recently. It could be that I was simply relying on my fairly good reach, and just never gave my jabs that extra push they needed to punch through, rather than to my target. Using your rear foot to push yourself forward in a short, strong burst on the jab gives you a couple more inches and really sends that jab home with a bang.

    This is an offensive jab, whereas many of my jabs are also defensive, thrown to keep someone out of my range or stop my opponent’s advance. That’s all good, but advancing on the jab is another way to intimidate, score, and control in the boxing ring.

    Check out one of my favorite fighters, Ana “The Hurricane” Julaton (8-2-1, 1 KO), the WBO super bantamweight world champion who recently defended her title against #1 contender Franchesca “The Chosen One” Alcanter (18-10-1, 9 KO’s).

    Julaton’s jab is unstoppable. She won the fight on this perfect shot, a handful of power rights and that sick left hook.

    Watch how she advances on nearly every single jab. It’s incredible to see, and it’s made even more powerful with the warp speed at which she moves. The fight begins at the 7 minute mark on the video below, and this video includes the entire 10 rounds. Ana is in the red and black.

    By the way, Ana Julaton just became the first female boxer ever to appear on a Topps trading card. Cool, huh? Oh, and since they gave Ana one, they had to give one to Manny Pacquiao, too.

    But around my house, we’ll be hoping for a Julaton.

    Image by maxtm on Flickr

    *Incidentally, the ref in the ring in the photo at the top of this post is one of the coaches at Second Round where I’m boxing now. He is frequently back and forth to NY (and many other places) as a boxing referee. I think he’s been doing it now for more than 40 years. I’m forever coming across him in video and photos.

  • What Mayweather’s Fight Really Means

    What Mayweather’s Fight Really Means

    Boxing is stuck in the 20th century.

    And I mean firmly stuck. You only have to see the meteoric rise of MMA to realize that the sweet science can’t, won’t, and actively refuses to keep up. And boxing has such history, art, legends, grit, beauty, strength, and such heart it’s a shame to see it go down this way.

    One of my co-workers, a tremendous boxing fan who grew up in New York watching all the greats, boycotted the Floyd Mayweather – Juan Marquez fight this past weekend, and I think it’s breaking his heart. It infuriated him that Mayweather wouldn’t take the real fight against Manny Pacquiao, that Mayweather talks big but hides behind opponents he knows he can beat.

    Yes, Marquez brings great game, even at several categories above his best fighting weight. And he’ll appreciate the extra $600k that he added to his purse because Mayweather, who was guaranteed 10 million, came in over weight (another deeply disrespectful move on Mayweather’s part). But c’mon: Mayweather landed more jabs in each round than Marquez did in total punches; the final numbers coming in at 290-69 in total punches landed, and 105-48 in power punches that connected. Mayweather dominated the entire fight — that doesn’t prove he’s free of ring rust despite a 21 month “retirement,” as so many fans proudly trumpeted, it just proves he trained well and made sure his opponent was smaller, older, and less powerful. Bah.

    Easy-to-call fights like this are one part of the reason boxing is lagging desperately behind UFC’s rising star. But it’s also true that most boxing events are poorly advertised and marketed, there’s no clear top sanctioning body, and there seems to be less fighting and more talking about fighting, or avoiding fighting, or as a friend of mine said, hugging when they should be fighting. That last one made me erupt in laughter, and I pointed out the lengthy and barely intelligible — to me — ground game in MMA. Now that’s some serious hugging.

    But the point holds. People want to see fights. We want to see the close match-ups, we want to see action, and we want to know about it ahead of time (hello, marketing department?) so that we can plan to be there or at least be somewhere we can catch the action.

    Boxing has so much to offer. Longer fights, greater legends, more history, and a powerful grace that you just don’t see in MMA. It’s going to be too bad if it dwindles away in the shadow of the cage.

    Image from Free Sport Wallpapers