Boxing footwork training should not be overlooked!

By Neill Ryan If you look at all the top sports people in the world they all have one thing in common - good balance and footwork. It is an absolutely fundamental to getting to the elite level to have this as a skill. In most cases (and especially in boxing) the whole mechanism of the movement relies upon the feet being in the right place and doing the right thing otherwise it all goes completely wrong. A boxer with bad footwork is less able to move into an attack, get out of danger, throw punches with real power and change the angle of attacks and retreats. He is much more likely to go off balance and much more likely to leave himself open to attacks. In fact without the basic fundamentals of good balance and fast feet; they will be a much less effective boxer as a whole. So why is it that when a boxer goes into a gym for the first time and wants to learn how to box, he gets nothing more than a quick lesson in how to stand and where to put their hands and then the main focus moves quickly on to punching? WHAT HAPPENED TO THE BOXING FOOTWORK TRAINING? If you were to go training with an Olympic boxing team for a day what do you think you would see them doing? Are they are too good for a little boxing footwork training? Is it that once they have become "elite boxers" they don't have to do that anymore? Actually what you would see if you saw the Olympic team training is plenty of BOXING FOOTWORK being practised, every single time they train. Why? Because they recognise the importance that lies in good boxing footwork training. Just like Tiger Woods recognises that is important to hit drives every day to keep himself on form. Just like Roger Federer recognises that it is important to hit 100 back-hand volleys every day... The point is, the real top sportsmen and women have an amazing ability to do the BASICS well. And that's the secret... If you realised how important this was you would train your feet every day too - and you would DEFINITELY improve as a result. You would improve in ways that you never even dreamed of. Furthermore you would also be safe in the knowledge that your opponent has probably not focused very much on his boxing footwork.