Boxing is an exciting sport where two superb athletes square off in a boxing ring and battle to the limits of human endurance, with a great deal of conditioning, fitness, skill and lots of techniques. Boxing is not just a brutal competitive sport however, boxing self defense training is very effective for violence on the street.
Boxers are some of the toughest athletes in the world, and with this type of trained toughness, it helps them to be prepared for the chaotic violence of a street fight.
When it comes to real world self defence, the only thing that should be expected is the worst, and boxing as a method of a fighting system is up to the challenge. (Every fighter needs boxing!)
Boxing teaches a person how to throw punches in combinations, and to vital area’s of the body, and the truth is that the preparation for a fight will make a boxer very tough.
Close combat founding fathers Rex Applegate and Anthony Biddle were both big boxing fans, and they both recognised that boxing is a formidable part of a fighter’s arsenal, along with kicking, judo and jujitsu locks and strangles, and basic stick fighting with knife defence included.
Before joining the US Marines, Anthony Biddle was an active amateur boxer who even sparred with heavy weight champion Jack Johnson, but when it came to military combatives, Biddle used boxing for his body conditioning, and to also teach the basic fundamental footwork in the bayonet & stick fighting applications.
When Applegate taught his new recruits hand-to-hand combat, he told them to use the skills that they had learned from boxing, and those skills added to the other elements of self defense such as karate, jujitsu, grappling, stick and knife fighting, so that it could all be used in a more practical self defense manner for application of good techniques.
Both of these men loved the sport of boxing, and they taught their troops a deadly mix of Boxing, Judo, Jujitsu, Karate, Stick and Knife fighting for self defense on the battlefield.
Boxing takes an incredible amount of discipline, endurance, and dedication!
A real street fight is a fierce battle for your life, and nobody will stop the fight if you’re hurt, so the conditioning that you get from boxing will enhance your ability to fight with your fists, because a real fight is a dirty mess, and you have to use all your aggression, skill and power.
In a real fight you don’t know who you’re fighting or what their abilities are, or a million other factors, but boxing will help you to size up your opponent very quickly.
So please do enjoy your boxing training at the gym, but also try to learn some other basic skills from other combat arts such as Karate, Kickboxing, Jujitsu, Grappling, Stick and Knife Fighting.
And please remember that these combined combat sports, all go hand in hand for the realistic development of applicable self defence skills!
Perhaps heavyweight champion and World War II veteran Jack Dempsey said it best when he commented,
You’re in there for three-minute rounds with gloves on and a referee, this is the closest thing to a real fight, it will get you ready, willing and able to defend yourself on the street!
