Let’s imagine that you have just been given a Christmas present, a book ‘How to box’.
You sit down nice and comfortable and settle in for a good read. You read it from cover to cover and it seems to have everything in it about boxing, from technique to fitness, complete with illustrations and photographs. By the time you close that book you are a boxer. Yes?
Of course not, you cannot learn to box from a ‘how to box’ book. You cannot learn to box from an armchair.
If you read that book a thousand times, heaven help you if you then simply climbed into a ring to box. Life doesn’t work like that any more than say, a book called How to be a Brain Surgeon could send you straight to the operating theatre.
But what about a coaching manual from the sport of boxing’s own governing body? It seems to be full of everything about coaching boxers, lots of excellent detail covering so many vitally important aspects of coaching boxing; even wider peripheral subjects contain legal requirements and safety advice. Could you read that from cover to cover and instantly be a competent boxing coach?
What about the internet?
It is full of boxing videos on how to box and many are very well produced by proven successful coaches and boxers. The content range is amazing, the tuition and advice is there to see at the press of a button.
There is a great deal of excellent content pouring out from so many sources on the internet. We’ve never had it so good, and we can endlessly watch good boxers in action in real contests and fights at the top level of amateur and professional boxing. In our world today we can see and study boxing like never before.
The questions to ask though are what is good, what is poor in some way, and how can we learn from it all?
The answer is that any aspiring or developing coach or boxer needs a translator, someone who can sort out the wheat from the chaff for others on their boxing or coaching journey. The devil, as they say, is in the detail, the interpretation and application. Someone who can translate it all so that it makes sense, and has context for a boxer or coach and is accurate and relevant. This is where we all need the experienced boxing coach, and I emphasise the word ‘experienced’.
What then, is a boxing coach?
Is it someone who has just been licensed? Both amateur and professional governing bodies license coaches and those licences are approved and trusted. The answer to that is yes, they are indeed qualified coaches, able to carry out their duties and responsibilities coaching the sport of boxing. They may well have attended courses run by the governing bodies and received appropriate guidance about many aspects of standards, rules and regulations that boxing requires.
This is all designed to protect the sport we love. What certification and licensing does not give you, is experience. I would suggest to you, that licensing and courses are just the beginning of the coaching journey. Thereafter it is all about gaining experience, and as I have said before coaching is different to boxing. Coaching manuals with boxing content, and any other information sources are simply minimum standards or signposts pointing to a direction for further exploration. The only way is up as they say.
I would strongly advise anyone interested in boxing or coaching to attach themselves to someone who has a track record of known coaching experience.
I would not advise deciding you would like to obtain a coaching license for whatever reason just to start up one’s own boxing gym from scratch. Boxing is full of nuances and learning curves along the way. I myself have a long list of people to thank who have shared their boxing experience with me over the years. I did not just parachute myself down into the role of a boxing coach, I had many mentors right from the start of my boxing journey and I will always be grateful. Being a licensed coach also immediately promotes you to being a custodian of the sport.
Everything you do, every decision you make, every boxer who looks up to you, every spectator, every member of a boxer’s family who rely on you to look after the welfare of their kin, puts their trust and faith in you. It all goes with the role and the future of boxing rests in your hands. There are those who challenge the legitimacy of boxing from a medical perspective and it is vital that you take those responsibilities seriously. Every decision you make must be demonstrably in the best interests of the boxer.
I look at boxing coaching as a trade that has to be learned.
There is an ever-expanding detail to it, all designed in the best interests of defending and practising the sport. I learned this myself as I progressed my way through my own boxing and coaching journey. Do not be frustrated by officialdom either, it’s there for a reason, a function, and without respecting it there will be no boxing.
We arrive then, back at the heading to this article ‘What is boxing coaching anyway’? I put it to you that a boxing coach is an interface and interpreter, a guide and a mentor.
Someone who knows the sport on a much deeper level than the average person. I know from experience in both amateur and professional boxing that people who are boxing coaches evolve gradually, build their knowledge and experience gradually.
A great friend of mine and a highly respected amateur boxing coach has repeatedly said to me, “ There are no secrets in boxing.”
He is right, and if you doubt that just look around you at all the information in the world freely available which I have referred to.
In writing this article, it has not been my intention to partly construct my own ‘ how to be a boxing coach’ manual; I’ve already said that cannot be done, but rather share with you my self-learning curve and hopefully shape a way of thinking about what sort of coach you would like to be yourself.
How we approach, care for and look at the world of boxing will ultimately determine where, as a coach, we rank within it.
Neil Holland