We All Need a Pat on the Back Sometime

It’s been over 2 years since I founded the MyBoxingCoach website.  Since then I have made great strides toward where I want the site to be.  But, like most things in life (boxing included), it can get quite tough even though it’s been a tremendously satisfying experience.  To help me through these tough phases it’s often the simple things that help.  I have always found that people respond very favourably to a pat on the back, and I guess I’m no different.

I received a comment on the site today.  Let’s just say that this comment given me a great lift and will help me to drive on to achieve the major plans I have for the follow up learning resources to the Boxing Training Foundation.  Positive feedback is great and I always look forward to opening the contributions of the site users.  Positive feedback from someone who’s whole life is about getting a message across is especially rewarding.

Here’s the comment:

To any potential readers/buyers, http://www.myboxingcoach.com – is the best website for learning the basics of boxing that I have found on the Internet. It has no macho character showing off their muscles rather than teaching. It has no ridiculously difficult moves when a beginner should be instilling the basics in their bodies. It is a well-thought-out, clear and intelligent system.

Here is the core secret about learning boxing – there is no universal method to teaching the sport. Modern boxing arose from a Celtic-Anglo/Saxon background, but has now been adopted by everyone from the Latin American fighters to the Philippines to Africa to the great former-Soviet sporting empires. Every culture and country has put its own style on boxing, consequently, unlike the Asian martial arts, no one has broken down the sport to teach it in a systematic way. No one, that is, until now. Fran Sands has produced the ‘Suzuki method’ of teaching boxing. He shows the very basics of the sport – movement, jabs, crosses, hooks, blocks, parries, pivots, etc – in simple, clear lessons. Then he has developed a series of movement drills, roughly equivalent to the katas of Karate, that a beginner can learn by themselves, but are invaluable in learning the basics of boxing.

Do you need anyone or anything aside from Fran Sands’ boxing course? Of course. A good coach is invaluable, but if that is unavailable to you or you need additional coaching, I can think of no better course than MyBoxingCoach.com

My story. I do not know Fran Sands. We have never met nor even corresponded. I am a Canadian author and journalist specializing in organized crime and football (www.declanhill.com). A few months ago I was asked to take part in a ‘white-collar’ bout to raise money for a cancer charity. I had worked out at a very good boxing gym for a number of years, even sparring on occasion. But the event was a quantum leap in intensity. (Imagine the difference between playing football in the park with pals and suddenly playing for a regional select team.) Adding to the pressure, two of the other boxers in the event were well-known politicians and many of my media colleagues were attending the fight (it ended up being broadcast nationally live on television, which is a lot of stress for a first fight).

I had six-weeks to train (for administrative reasons, the other fighters had had four to five months). I needed to raise my game. So I did two things: I went to Cuba and I signed up for the Boxing Training Foundation. In Cuba, I put myself through an intense daily training camp – cardio in the morning, breakfast, 2-hours of sparring with a Cuban national champion in Chinese boxing, lunch, siesta, 1.5 hours of ‘boxing school homework’, weights, dinner and bed. In between practice sessions, I watched and read everything that was on Fran Sands’ site. In the hotel, myself and the Cuban waiters and kitchen staff would sit around watching Fran’s instructions and drills.

In the end, thanks to my Canadian coaches, the Cubans and Fran Sands’s MyBoxingCoach.com and the Boxing Training Foundation, I managed a narrow win. However, I feel a great debt to Fran and so I heartily recommend his site to anyone starting out in the sport.

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