Defense and Counters

Boxing is 50% offense and 50% defense. That's not so easy to see when you're pounding the heavy bag all by yourself and checking out your oh-so-pretty punching technique in the mirror.

What You Already Know

The boxer's stance provides a great deal of protection unto itself: chin is tucked, hands are held high to protect the head, arms are arranged to protect the lower torso, feet are well apart and knees are flexed to provide a balanced and easily mobile athletic posture. Add footwork and head movement and not only can you survive an opponent's initial attack, but you'll be a hard target to hit.

Basic stuff yet easily forgotten. How many boxers have suffered from ignoring the fundamentals: leaving a chin exposed ... dropping the hands late in a bout ... standing stock still in an opponent's striking zone ... getting caught off balance ... or simply losing eye contact?

Like they say, keep the chin down and the guard up, and you'll prevent disaster a large percentage of the time.

However, boxing like a dancing turtle will not help you score or even survive for very long against a capable opponent.

Jab Catching

As a left jab arrives, place your right glove in front of your face with chin down. Pivot your right foot, brace the right leg and catch the jab in your glove. Make sure your chin is down so your glove bounces off your forehead and not your nose. Catch jabs as aggressively as your opponent throws them. Recover immediately.

Parries

It's not a good idea to catch a straight right. Power punches are best parried with a small slap of the left glove where the momentum can carry your opponent off balance and expose him to a counterpunch.

Parrying Body Shots

Punches to the body can be parried by sweeping an arm and deflecting the punch outside, while pivoting and sliding in the opposite direction of the punch.

Blocks

As a punch arrives, simply flex the knees and lower yourself so that hands automatically are raised to better protect the head. At the same time elbows and arms drop to better protect the lower body. This is not a full-on duck but a somewhat slight flexing of knees. Immediately recover to the boxer's stance.

Ducks

Ducks are executed by flexing at the knees and coming up in the opposite direction of any punch in a V movement (this should put you in position to counter into your opponent's exposed area).

Don't bend at the hips and lose eye contact with your opponent. Keep your hands up throughout the maneuver. Recover immediately.

Slips

Small, sideways movements of the head that dodge the bullet are called slips. It takes a keen eye to spot the incoming missile and a talented set of neck muscles to maneuver the head out of the way. A master of the slip was an early Mike Tyson.

A good way to practice slips is by dodging the weighted end of a swinging rope, preferably in front of a mirror. With the knot or weight hung at eye level, give it a push so that it swings to and fro at your head. Practice dodging the rope using smallish, efficient "slips" of the head. Slips are neck and head propelled.

They aren't ducks or shoulder dips.

Get good at this. It's one of the best ways to deal with incoming punches since the defensive intent is to avoid the attack all together (versus a block or a catch that absorbs). The action is also relatively slight and less drastic than a duck, which of course, takes more energy and moves you out of your stance.

Counterpunching

Immediately after a block, slip or duck, fire your punch into your opponent's exposed area. The following pages show examples of some basic counters to the jab, straight right and left hook.

Reaction Punching

Definitely blurs the line between offense and defense. This is a faster, more advanced type of counterpunching based on reacting to your opponent's punch and throwing into the exposed target that his punch creates. It takes courage and finely tuned reflexes to throw into a punch.

You can't flinch and pull your punches during a counterattack. As with all your punches you gotta see 'em through. Even if they don't land clean, chances are you'll at least disrupt the attack.

Range & Refuge

Know your opponent's boxing distance. If you're outside his striking zone, you can't get hit.

Another safe place to be is inside your opponent's chest, believe it or not. How can he hit you? It's a great place to duck a straight right, and even too close for him to land a hook. But don't shell up in there. Keep your eyes on your opponent and recover immediately.

Offense as Defense

If you lay back, your opponent will build confidence in his punches and gain the initiative. You gotta throw to keep him honest and to create confidence in your own punches.

Shadowboxing: Now Include Defense

Include the defensive with the offensive in your shadowboxing routine. Practice your blocks, slips and ducks with your various punches and punch combinations.

Defense and offense are hardly separate and distinct actions in a bout. One blends into the other or should. Each punch comes from and returns to a defensive posture. Each defensive maneuver can lead to an attack. It's a swirling, flowing thing and it takes training to react properly and quickly at the right time.

Some Major Defensive Points

Keep your eyes on your opponent.
Keep your guard up.
Keep your chin down.
Keep moving when you're in the strike zone.
Don't lunge your punches.
After every action recover immediately to guard.
Don't lean back to avoid punches.
Give as much as you take.
Don't get mad - step back, settle down, get smart.
Don't be predictable - mix up your fight plan.