My Boxing
Experience
by Eena
Shrestha
25 November
2017
Boxing is an
amazing sport. We learn it at school for self-protection. I started as someone
who doesn’t know anything about boxing. On my first day of lessons, we
stretched and I had to just raise and lower my heels.
Then I started
learning the positions and punches for training and sparring. I only learned
the straight punches or jabs and foot work that day, but it was a little
confusing. The next couple of days were less confusing but still confusing
enough.
As I learned
many more punches and combinations such as jabs, uppercuts, hooks, slips,
dodging, it was all very complicated, I thought.
Three times a
week, we have boxing lessons. They are intense. We stretch with the warm up to
avoid injury. We start with the hands then move down to our feet. In the middle
of the stretches we run and jump.
As we jump we
stretch our body, and when we stop running, we do a few more stretches and
rest. There are about 30 different sets of exercises that we do while warming
up.
After a rest, we
normally do shadow boxing. I didn’t know how to do shadow boxing because I
didn’t even know how to do foot-ups, so… Pradeep sir taught me how to do hooks,
upper cuts, how to hit down and up, dodging, and slips.
Balance is also
really important in baxing because if you don’t have balance you’ll just fall
and lose, and does anybody in the world want to lose? No… I don’t think so. But
by doing some gymnastics basics, we try to get much more balance and control
over our body.
Punches and
foot work have to be done together, otherwise you would either move forward for
nothing or stay there and punch. There are 4 types of punches that I’ve learnt, they are: jabs to the face, jabs to
the belly, hooks and upper cuts.
With the hook
we try and hit the side of faces and with upper cuts we try to hit the chin or
the upper midsection. There’s also two defensive moves that I’ve learnt. They are: dodge and slip. I learned these moves step by step and
after learning them, I learned a few different combinations.
I also focused
on foot movement combinations like how to do a foot up. I still didn’t know how
to, do shadowboxing and I stayed on the same spot while practicing. Then while punching
I moved forward but still came back to the same spot. With footworkI learned to
keep my knees strait. Unless I’m going down to dodge, then the front knee
should be bent.
I’ve been doing shadow boxing
for about two and a half months, and I’ve sparred wearing
boxing gloves three times. Even if I’ve done boxing with gloves on, I didn’t
feel ready to spar but I had to try and so I did and….
Anita didi hit me on my chest, which hurt… quite badly so… I ended up
crying. Amulya, a 4 year old was learning to punch and Tina had to practice her
defense with him and he made her cry. Pallav sir teased us a little and we both
ended up happy….
Overall boxing is about getting mentally and physically strong, so if a
random stranger came and punched you, you would be able to protect yourself
instead of crying and getting hurt.
