Saturday Afternoon Sparring at State Street Boxing Club

Members come-and-go all morning for their workouts, kickboxing instruction, and boxing lessons.  It's now Saturday afternoon.  The workouts may be over but the instruction is just beginning.  You can feel the excitement as boxers busily re-wrap their hands and mill around to stay loose.  Soon, two o'clock sparring will start.  It's a certainty, atthat time every Saturday, members get to spar under the supervision of a coach.

Sparring is instruction.  It's beyond the preparatory bag work or shadow boxing.  You have an opponent and you are both there to learn to hit, block punches and, if all else fails, to take a punch.  Yes, there is a right way and a wrong way top do this.  

Sparring is controlled combat, practice with a purpose.  It's usually done at a much lower intensity level than a competitive bout.  That doesn't mean that it is any less exciting or challenging.  This is a sort of on-the-job training for boxers where you have a chance to apply the fundamentals that you have spent hours mastering on the heavy bag, doing drills, and shadowboxing.  Sometimes, the coach will stop the action to impress a point on the boxer. 

Sparring safely starts with the right equipment.  Headgear, sparring gloves, mouthpieces.  Anything less is sheer stupidity.  A tragedy waiting to happen.  This gear can't prevent injury, it just minimizes the likelihood of injury.

Sure the competition can get intense during sparring.  It's usually slower for the new boxers and picks up for the more experienced.  You go into the ring as friends, make sure that you leave the ring as friends.  It is all about attitude and commitment.  Do you have what it takes to improve your offense and defense skills while helping others to improve theirs.  Concentrate on applying the skills,

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