Musings on boxing: Part 1

It’s been about two and a half years since I started going to my boxing gym. The motivation to start my boxing journey actually came from a Netflix show called D.P. (Deserter Pursuit), a Korean show about guys in Korean Army’s military police catching the soldiers who had run away from their duty. In one of the episodes, the protagonist finally faces the guy he’s been chasing at a pier in Busan port. A fist fight ensues, and since the protagonist was a boxer before joining the army, he showcases his amazing boxing skills and put the deserter into custody. The next day, I went to a boxing gym near my place (only 5 minutes away! I lucked out) and enrolled in classes.

For the past two and a half years, I have been taking classes twice a week most of the time. I considered participating in sparring sessions but backed out for fear of long-term consequences on brain. Some might say doing boxing without sparring is rather fitness classes than boxing. To some degree I agree on that, but in classes we do simulated sequences of exchanging punches. It requires swift dodging and sometimes we do get hit by mistake. All of these makes it suffice to say boxing classes aren’t just fitness classes focused on cardio or muscle growth, it’s much more than that. I’ve definitely got a lot fitter and stronger, but more important lessons I learned came from the principles and theory of boxing.

• The power comes from legs, not arms: It was counter-intuitive at first I learned about this. Isn’t boxing all about punches? Aren’t legs for Muay Thai? The more I learned about the mechanics of boxing and putting them into practice, however, it became clear to me that the power is generated from the leg and through the body’s motion (which resembles the coil and snap of a whip), the power gets transmitted through the core muscle and the arm, and eventually arrives at the opponent’s body (WHAM!). Later I learned that this is a universal principle across all sports — Steph Curry’s long-range 3-pointers, Ohtani Shohei’s power homeruns, the power comes from the legs, travels through the twist of core and upper body muscles generating the torque, and eventually hits the target or releases the ball at the most impactful moment. In the movie Happy Gilmore, coach Chubbs (RIP Carl Weathers) tells Gilmore, “It’s all in the hips”. That might be it for golf, but for boxing “It’s all in the legs”. It also rings true outside the boxing — I realized after spending more time on leg workout, I started feeling less tired even on the days that I don’t do boxing. In general I became more energetic and even felt more confident. I’m convinced that legs are the most important muscles for fitness. Having strong legs is like having a solid foundation of building like the Pyramids that were built like 4,500 years ago but still standing strong. The moral of the story is: Don’t skip the leg day!
• The economy of movement: Numerous times I experienced gassing out whlie doing mitt work with coaches. One coach pointed out that I tend to be so tense so much so that I forget to breathe. Being tense also tightens up muscles, resulting in wasting energy that could’ve been used for more meaningful actions like blocking or punching. I learned the importance of keeping a constant and conscious rhythm of breath and being in a relaxed mindset in order to react to the opponent’s moves faster and also to save energy to focus it onto the actions that will create impact and bring advantages. Just like the first point I made above, this is also applicable to life beyond boxing.
• Defense sets you up for counter-attack: Every boxing defense involves in twisting the torso to position the defending arm properly agains the incoming punch. This motion also sets up the defender for a counter attack — let’s say you’re blocking the opponent’s right hook to the body. You’ll have to lower down the left elbow to cover your left rib cage and wind your torso toward the left to absorb the shock from the blocking. What this does is to wind up your left arm for a counter-blow (in this case, an uppercut). Not just this right body hook defense but also in other defenses the defending action winds you up for the next move. As I wrote a few weeks ago about using the adversarial force to your advantage, this example demonstrates how challenges often reveals opportunities and how we can harness the opposing power to our advantage.

I still think sparring is quite dangerous so I’ll probably stay away from it. I can’t help but thinking, however, what lessons similar to what I wrote about above I’ll be able to learn once I started sparring regularly. This time I won’t confidently end my post with “I’ll report back later” like other times. I still won’t rule out the possibility of starting sparring though. Maybe just like a Netflix show inspired me to start boxing, another movie or show might do the trick. With that in mind, I’ve just updated the title of the post with “Part 1”. More musings (and bruises and cuts) might come later.