1. Discipline. Boxing instills a more important discipline: self-discipline and accountability. In boxing, kids are challenged on performance and the drive to challenge themselves. The formal nature of the karate dojo (the bowing, the ritual, etc.) has its appeal for many parents, but the product of discipline in karate is often brainwashing. The product of discipline in the sport of boxing is a worldly skill: fighting and self-defense that works. 2. Confidence with humility. Boxing promotes truthfulness as opposed to delusion. In the boxing gym, you learn that there is always someone better while you get a thorough understanding of fear, physicality, emotional control, and social behavior. 3. Classes…

The couple of sports science shows aired on TV – namely Sports Science and Fight Science – are filled with intriguing concepts and some seemingly high-tech devices but miss on some key aspects of science and striking science. The shows sell laymen, including me, some pristine numbers in language we easily understand without the proper responsibility of providing solid factors – dependent variables, independent variables, controlled variables, etc. Whatever the jargon is, notice that they don’t test and re-test the data, and some of the experiments seem fishy. When we see that James Toney threw a punch with 1200 lbs. of force, Randy Couture, a 1000 lb. punch, Lucia…

Like many of you, I grew up wanting to believe, in every way possible, that Bruce Lee was, and will forever be, the greatest fighter to have ever walked the planet. I read the Tao of Jeet Kune Do and all his pamphlets, including the one about the one-inch punch. I studied Jun Fan and believed everything I read about Bruce Lee. I even put all of his fight clips into video and studied his moves. When I went to college, I used Bruce Lee clips to make a video about the Ramayana, the ancient Hindu epic, and named it “Enter the Ramayana.” Bruce Lee was martial arts’ Moses.…

They think the essence of boxing is about going toe to toe. Boxing is about strategy and technique, not brawn. It’s “hit and not get hit,” not “hit back and get hit.”They don’t recognize the one thing that made Mike Tyson so    amazing was not just his offense, but his defense.  And an all-time great chin made him more durable than people realize. (I mention him because he is a good focal point of information for this era of fighters and fans of all backgrounds.)They think knees and elbows in mma or Thai-boxing necessarily nullify inside punches.  Many fighters from those sports acknowledge that punching is the most effective tool…

To the boxing world over, there is nothing valid to the argument that Manny Pacquiao was ever on HGH or, at this point, that Floyd Mayweather Jr. is clearly better than Pacquiao. People who make livings following the sport and assessing the facts are convinced that all the talk is just fanfare to obstruct the truth: Mayweather does not want to fight Pacquiao under any circumstance – Pacquiao no drugs, no food, one arm… There aren’t even any reliable tests for HGH, and it doesn’t mean anyone should be condemned for taking HGH only for that person being so good. Even Barry Bonds left a trail of witnesses and…

More people quit when they don’t have a target goal and an estimated amount of work that needs to be put into reaching those goals. Most gyms, however, use intangible language: 6 months, 1 year, 2 years, etc. How fighters perceive time must make sense. Are your fighters losing focus or quitting at times you don’t expect them to quit? The problem is not necessarily them. Did you explain what is needed to reach every individual’s goals in your gym? Did you even bother to set individual goals? If not, so much for your individualized training mumbo jumbo. 6 months of training is a lot different for someone training…

MMA, as well as all forms of kickboxing, have found little acceptance from the boxing public, and the reason for the divide has been recently toiled over by experts, over and again. Besides the cultural divide that adds to the boxing-mma discord – poverty versus prosperity, individuality versus class structure, way of life versus self-defense – boxing people seem to just not respect how everyone else boxes. That sounds fair enough. But mma fans argue that their sport is more exciting, produces more knockouts, and provides better match-ups. “MMA? Better match-ups my [expletive],” historian Arthur O’Toole angrily explains with distinct sarcasm. “They get knocked-out because they don’t know the…

Being on your toes can be a waste of energy depending on the individual style. Footwork should always change in a fight – going from bouncing to toes to flat feet throughout a fight. Being on the toes, otherwise known as bouncing, is a boxer’s rhythm, and it has only two uses: to change rhythm confusing the opponent, or to be quick to advance or retreat. When someone says you should “always be on your toes,” it’s a misnomer that means to be on the move. Otherwise, it’s misinformation if it was meant literally, even if it is meant “to be on the balls of your feet.” Being on…

Walking out of St. Bernard’s Hall after the opening round of the 85th Annual New York Daily News Golden Gloves, I was struck with a feeling of anger. Anger at amateur boxing scoring, and anger at ignorant spectators. Friends, fans, and fake-friends can say whatever they want about what could have been done, but they don’t know what the camp knows about what was done. No one else knows what went into that fight. No one knows the discussions and the preparation. To lose on the brink of victory was an agony that a fighter can be proud of while the misery weighs on his stomach alone. Well, my…

Boxing is filled with trainers who can throw mitts like Roger Mayweather or talk-up the basics of boxing. They may use the allure of an “advanced system” of fighting that has some fancy name or use the cheerleading tactic of praise to sell their products. Some of these guys try to reinvent the wheel with the promise that their students will have fun learning. Some posers name-drop famous names and pretentiously title their school or programs. But boxing, like any good art, is like writing–no one is going to create the secret to taking everyone to the top. There is no secret to being a good writer. As there…