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and techniques, undergo expert coaching and training (Broughton referred
to his boxing lessons as “lectures”), practice in specialized facilities with
special equipment, and follow a special diet. Boxing is often likened to a
chess game because boxers think several steps ahead. Boxers employ feints
and gambits, sometimes allowing themselves to be hit in order to deliver a
knockout blow, as chess players sacrifice a piece in order to reach checkmate
or gain a positional advantage.
Though physical conditioning is essential, the most important element
of boxing is mental and psychological: the capacity to relax, think clearly,
and control oneself during a fight. Boxers are aware that their fights are often
under way before the occurrence of any physical contact, and they are
studied in psychological warfare and body language. They attempt to gain
advantages by forcing their opponents to break eye contact or by feigning
fear. Many boxers train their faces to be blank while shadowboxing in the
mirror so that they do not convey (or telegraph) their punches with their
facial expression and eyes.
Initiate boxers spend as long as their first year learning to “work the
floor” before engaging in their first sparring session. Learning to move—
even to stand—properly as a boxer is learning to walk all over again. The
boxer stands relaxed on his toes in a crouch, slightly bent forward at the
waist, left side forward at an angle, hands held up to throw punches and
protect the face, elbows close in to the ribs to protect the body. The chin is
dropped to the chest so that the line of vision is directed out and slightly up
from beneath the eyebrows with the shoulders rounded to protect the chin.
The boxer moves forward with small steps by pushing off the back
leg, which he “sits” on. To move backward, he reverses the process. Boxers
stand on their toes in order to move nimbly and maintain balance. Boxers
are trained to move in a continual circle to the left (when facing a righthanded
opponent) and to keep the left foot outside the opponent’s right
foot (so as to have more target area while giving up less). Boxers train for
hours, moving from side to side and in circles, forward and back, learning
to punch with leverage while moving in any direction. The boxer learns to
use his body as a gravitational lever; the boxer’s force comes from the
ground. The boxer’s feet are also his most important defensive tools, maneuvering
him out of harm’s way.
The boxer’s hands are the projectiles, and the boxer’s punches are the
tools that launch them. Boxers land their punches with three knuckles simultaneously—those
of the middle, ring, and little fingers. The knuckle of
the ring finger—the middle of the three—is the “aiming” knuckle. The
boxer’s own nose is the “target finder” or “sight” through which the fists
are fired. Punches in boxing are thrown from the shoulders. Power is derived
not so much from the muscles as from the joints and ligaments.
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