I talked about having multiple coaches before, and I am beginning to see an advantage. The Bloor Street trainers are great at general training, but I like how Kingsway teaches defense. Apparently, after 15 (or so) years of boxing, I have picked up 15 years of bad habits. Especially defense. I was trained to be an offensive boxer. That means, just throw punches until I hit something. That apparently does not work any more, so I am being re-trained from scratch. The coaches at Kingsway want me to work on defense like crazy.
One of the advantages of having more than one coach is, I can find a style that I like, and work from that. I can even combine the styles of the different coaches to create something completely different.
As we all know, the best defense against a punch is to not be there. Bloor Street teaches that defense is all about "bobbing and weaving". Well, that is great, but it seem like a lot of extra work. Kingsway teaches a very easy form of defense: Shifting you weight between feet. If you shift your weight and your hips, you can dodge an attack quite easily without a lot of effort. The only difficult part about this, is that ones natural instinct is to duck away from the attack. However, in boxing, you duck into the attack. This is what makes this kind of defense confusing.
If you are attacked by a left jab, you shift to your right (opponent's left). Naturally, you will want to shift the other way, away from the punch. However, if you do, you are in perfect alignment with his right cross, not a good place to be. You do the opposite to defend against a right cross. If you lean into his attack, you clear yourself from both of his weapons, and are therefore safe against any attack.
This type of defense will, of course, only work against straight punches. It will not help against hooks and uppercuts. I guess that is in the next lesson.
Now for my rant. This week it is about Boxing Ontario. Yes, that under-regulated, over-controlling government-supported organization that all boxers in Ontario just love to death. Ontario is the only place I know where you need to be "licensed" to be a boxer. I know that I can go to Quebec and most states, get tested by the ringside doctor, and step into the ring. I don't understand why you need to pay a $50 fee and submit a multitude of forms to Boxing Ontario every year, just to box. It is as if you need permission from the government. What other sport does this? That is why we have coaches. If your coach feels you are ready, he should just be able to register you for a match. I feel that having to pay a $50 fee for an amateur boxer is unreasonable. I am already paying over $200 a month for training, coaching and gym access expenses. Even if they want to say that it pays for the Boxing Ontario staff, well, that doesn't sit with me either. Look at it this way: How many boxers are in Ontario?, How many staff work at Boxing Ontario?, How much are the staff payed? Now, there is no way this $50 is going to support the staff's wages, is it?
Not only that, but I am not overly happy with some of the Boxing Ontario officials. When I do photography at boxing events, there is this one woman official who always squawks at me. "You are using too much light", "You are too close to the ring"..."You are..." Squawk, Squawk... I can understand that the officials are there to enforce the rules of boxing. However, there is nothing in the boxing regulations about photography. This woman is just being a pain in the ass. Lady, fuck off and let me do my job. Since when does Boxing Ontario know anything about photography? They barely know boxing.
I'm sorry to be so nasty, but do you understand the reason?
As far as I am concerned, right now, Boxing Ontario is not getting diddly-squat. I will compete outside of Ontario if I need. If it turns out that my coach wants me to compete within Ontario, we will look at it then. Right now, I am concentrating on the Master's in St. Louis, which does not require any license.
Paul "The Comeback Kid"
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