The casual observer may view boxing as a sport that’s about punching. The reality however, can’t be further from the truth. Boxing is a sport that’s about hitting, and not getting hit in return. Many great coaches have said the name of the game is “hit and don’t get hit” and that’s what they consider makes a good boxer. Boxing is all about outsmarting your opponent and putting them in a position of vulnerability where you can take advantage of their weaknesses. The best way to do that is to make them miss. Not only does this prevent you from taking damage, but it also helps you demoralize your opponent and shift the momentum in your direction. In this article, let’s discuss how to improve your boxing defense, and what boxing defensive moves you should be practicing.
How to Improve Your Boxing Defense
There was one thing my coach told me when I first started boxing that I know applies to everything. It started with a simple question when I asked him “how do I do more pullups?” He simply replied: “do more pullups.” The genius of that logic struck me and I’ve used this logic to improve just about any aspect of boxing or self improvement out there. When you want to get better at something, you simply have to do more of that thing. The same goes for defense.
Defend as Much As You Punch
The first step to being a defensive fighter is to practice your defense more. Most fighters focus so much on their offense that they neglect defense all together in training and then wonder why it’s not as good as it should be. The easiest way to improve your defense is to do a defensive maneuver for every punch that you throw.
As an example, if you’re going to throw a right hand left hook, start by pulling back, then shoot the right hand, left hook, and then move out the way. This way you committed to two defensive moves for the two punches that you threw. What this will do is get you in the habit of focusing on defense and also train the right muscles in your body to improve the speed and efficiency of those moves.
You can also practice this on the heavy bag by doing the counterpunching drill from the video below.
Take Entire Rounds to Work on Defense
Mike Tyson has said that he would often spend hours doing the defensive head movement drill he did with Kevin Rooney. That’s right, you read that correctly, he would spend hours just moving his head. It’s no wonder he had some of the best head movement in boxing history. Maywaether does the same thing when he shadow boxes, he spends entire rounds just working on his footwork, his parries, blocks, and his head movement.
What you want to do is take rounds off to just work on nothing but your defense.
Give Yourself Limits in Sparring
Sparring is truly the best thing you can do to improve just about every aspect of your game. However, this is only true if you go in there to improve your game, and not just to fight. You want to make sure you walk into every sparring session with a goal or weakness you want to improve in mind. What I would often do without telling my opponent, is to not throw any punches the entire round and just work on my defense. Or I would only throw 3-5 shots a round in order to give them something to worry about and make it feel real to them, but in my mind solely be focused on improving my defense, accuracy and timing given the limited shots I can land.
It’s a Balance Between Training the Body and Mind
Defense is a balance between the mind and the body, both have to be sharp in order for you to execute it. Your body has to be fast enough to move out of the way, and your mind has to be fast enough to perceive the punches coming, so you must train both aspects of desnefe.
You train your body with the movements, making them faster and more efficient each time. You trai your mind by having punches thrown at you either in sparring, by your coach during pad work, or even tools like the sway bag or Spar Bar.
Work the two in unison in order to be replaced when punches come at you. Which brings us to the most important point:
Stay Relaxed
The most important aspect of good defense is staying completely relaxed. When you’re anxious you’re more likely to over react to punches and make mistakes. You will find you’re running into punches rather than getting out of the way of them. What you want to do is stay focused and in a flow state in order to be able to perceive the punches coming at you. The only way to achieve this is to make sure that you are practicing it enough to where the mastery of defense won’t allow you to feel anything but confident.
Boxing Defensive Moves
The way you defend in boxing says a lot about you. Some fighters block, others move their head, but the best fighters know how to do it all. If you want to be a complete fighter, you want to be able to fight in any of these circumstances.
Let’s dive into the different ways of defending yourself and how to do it right.
The Block
The first and easiest to start, but hard to master, is the block. This is simply putting your gloves to your forehead, bringing them forward closer together in front of you and staying tight as you get hit on your guard. To see good examples of this watch Winky Wright in any of his fights, or Floyad Mayweather vs Manny Pacquiao in the fourth round after Manny rocks him with a right. What Floyd did next was one of the most successful versions of this defense we’ve ever seen.
The key when doing this is to tuck yourself in a way that allows you to block both the sides and the front of your head, as well as the front of your body.
One mistake that many boxers make is they keep their block stationary, and as a result get caught with heavy body shots or hooks to the head. You want to be able to twist or turn at the hips to be able to block different areas that are being attacked.
Another big mistake, usually made by newbies, is they completely block their line of sight when they block. When you put your guard up you want to be able to see everything as you will need to mix different forms of defense to truly block everything and deter your opponent from not throwing anymore.
One at a time – the partial block
The guard is meant as a general form of defense when you’re taking too much of an onslaught, or, when you’re trying to walk down and smother your opponent. There is also the partial block that can be done from your boxing stance that is a superior form of blocking if you’re looking to counter punch. One of the modern masters of this was Andre Ward and I learned this from Azea Augustama.
This is a simple form of defense that is short, quick, and super effective, mostly for hooks as they can’t be parried. Imagine a left hook coming at you as you’re in a traditional stance. All you have to do is move your glove up to your ear, and let physics take care of the rest. You will see your elbow come out a bit as well when you’re doing it properly.
Head Movement
I talk about head movement in good detail in this video, but let’s talk about a few different ways to do it rather than just how to improve it.
Slip
The first we’ll get into is the slip. This is the version of moving your head that is for straight punches. All you’re doing here is maintaining eye contact with your opponent and moving your head out of the way of the punch.
What you want to do though is make sure you’re not moving your head into the other hand. You want to slip the punch away from the other hand. So if a left jab is coming at you, you will move your head to the right, because if you move it to the left it’s a high chance that the right hand is coming right behind it, and it will hurt like hell. If a right is coming at you, move left, all while keeping your eye on the opponent.
Many newbies make the mistake of looking in the direction they are going, this is a good way to get knocked out. Because some opponents will try to time your slip and catch you with the next punch, and chances are, you’ll have to move your head again or risk getting clipped.
The most common mistake people make with slips is slipping backwards and left(or right) or simple to the left or right. What you want to do instead is slip into the punch. You want your head to be closer to the opponent when you slip the punch rather than the same distance it was before you slipped it. This will reduce your chance of getting a follow up strike, and increase your likelihood of landing a hurtful counterpunch. So you will be going left and forward, or right and forward instead of just left or right.
Slide
This is the highest risk defensive move there is and it’s really got to be mastered before you try it in a fight. This is a move made popular by Mexican fighters and it involves the glove making contact with your face. However, when the glove touches your face you simply move your head in the direction the punch is headed. So if someone throws a left hook at your face, it is heading toward your left, so you would just simply turn your head left and slide the punch off your face. This way there is no impact made.
The best fighter to see doing this is Chavez Sr. and most recently Canelo Alvarez.
Weave
We’ve all heard of the “bob and weave.” This is a classic boxing motion that involves drawing a “U” with your head in order to avoid hooks coming at you and allow you to be in perfect position to counter them to the body or head. The key to a good weave is to move when the punch is already in full range, this way your opponent is in full commitment to the punch, and make it much harder for them to stop. This knocks them off balance and leaves them wide open.
This is one of the main moves that requires consistent drilling in order to perfect and to do fast enough in a real combat scenario. Because It’s much more than just a slip of the head to avoid a knuckle, it requires a certain physical reflex capability in order to make your head and body over faster than a punch.
The best way to practice this is with a partner, or simply by tying a rope between two points and about shoulder height, then bobbing and weaving forward and back. Start slow and pick up speed as you go.
Pull
The pull is a move a lot of old school trainers frown upon but it is quite an effective defensive maneuver, and one made popular by guys like Ali, Roy Jones, and Mayweather. It’s the former part of the “pull counter” move and involves you pulling backward (away) from the punch, while tucking your chin, and then either coming back with a counter or slipping to the right or left and then pivoting or countering.
Keep it all Fluid and Combined
When it comes to moving your head, don’t treat each motion as its own isolated motion. Practice moving from one of these to the other in a beautiful symphony. You want to take Bruce Lee’s advice here and “be water.” You want to flow from one motion to another without thinking twice and being able to make punches miss like it’s what you do for a living. Practice these all in unison after you master them individually.
If you want to see what I mean, watch the legend Pernell Sweet Pea Whitaker.
Parry
The parry is my personal favorite because it allows you to direct the moment of your opponent’s punch and it is also the most disheartening thing you can do to them. Nothing breaks a fighter’s spirit like throwing a punch with all he’s got and then watching it being pawed away like it was child’s play. The reason the momentum plays an important role is because it allows you to beautifully set up and counter whatever you want.
The way you do it is you simply hold your gloves with palms mostly facing your opponent, as soon as they throw a punch, you either make them hit your palm as if its a mitt, or smack it away using only your wrist motion. Don’t use your entire momentum of your arm to do it as you
If your opponent throws a jab, you can parry it down with your right and then throw the right over it before it has a chance to come back because you killed its path back.
Another good one is to parry the right cross with your right, and throw your left hook over it. There are a dozen other combinations of this that you can do and it’s a very effective method of defense and should be used in unison with the partial block. It’s a beautiful combination.
Shoulder Roll
You can’t mention defense without talking about the method one of the greatest defensive fighters of the last few decades used for himself, and that is the shoulder roll.
If you have seen Mayweather fight then you’re familiar with the shoulder roll. This is a stance where you keep your power hand to your chin, your other hand across your body, keeping your jab hand shoulder close to your chin ready to roll it at any punch that comes your way. The shoulder has a similar function to the parry as it changes the trajectory of the punch that is coming at you, and creates a better opening for you to counter.
This is another one of those defensive moves that must be drilled to perfection because it is not easy to do and you will eat a lot of shots in practice trying to get it right. Many fighters have tried to imitate the shoulder roll and have gotten their behinds kicked while doing it. It is a hard style and requires work ethic to get right.
Defense is as Important as Offense
Make sure to drill these moves constantly in practice and work and implement them in your sparring consistently. By the time you get to the fight everything will be on autopilot, and you want to put your opponent in the matrix without effort. The only way to do that is to consistently work on all of these skills.
Practice Makes Perfect
While it seems like there are only a few moves mentioned here with only a few tips, there are hundreds of ways that we execute them and it takes tens of thousands of hours to master it. The best way to improve is to diligently commit to your defensive work as much as you commit to your offensive work. It all works if you do so get to work!