Here’s a question I get asked a lot: how effective is boxing for self-defense?

The easy answer: it’s very effective.

It’s just as effective as any combat sport that teaches full power striking, defending against such attacks and then sparring hard to see what it’s like. In a nutshell, those are the three main components that make boxing such an effective tool for self-defense:

• You learn to generate knock out power in both hands with a variety of techniques from different ranges.
• You learn to block, slip, parry, dodge and evade those attacks.
• You practice both of the above in a live fire situation against an opponent who does his best to hurt you.

Those are the critical aspects if you want to use boxing for self-defense. If these three are consistently present in your training, then I believe you have the start of something worthwhile. However, that doesn’t mean you should go out and try to fight in the street exactly like you would in the ring. As I wrote here, here and here, (if you browse through my blog you’ll find many more entries on this topic) you should always consider the context of the art or sport you practice and compare that to the new context in which you want to use it. I’ve written at length about just that so I won’t link to it here. If you want to read all those articles, you might enjoy getting the paper or digital version of my latest book. It has all that and more.

Back on track.

How effective is boxing for self-defense

I’ve said this in the past and I’ll repeat it now: you could do a whole lot worse than to begin your training for self-defense with Western boxing. I’ll even add to this the following: you haven’t been punched until you’ve been hit by a boxer. Nor do you know punching until you’ve learned to box. 

Here’s a story from my sordid youth:

After I came back from competing in my last world championships (I’d decided to retire beforehand), I trained with another member from the national team at his boxing gym. He was a boxer at heart before he started with Chinese martial arts and he’d invited me there. It was the kind of gritty, low-rent gym you find in such a bad part of town and I was the only blue-eyed pale-face there. Putting it differently: everybody was highly motivated to spar with me…

To make a long story short: I got my ass handed to me. They landed punches at will and I had a very hard time scoring anything on them. I left that gym tired and sore all over.

I learned a key lesson though: I had been depending on kicking techniques too much and discovered just how much more work I needed to do on my hand techniques. As a result, I spent a lot more time studying boxing techniques and gradually got better. I’ll never be a true boxer (nor do I aim to be one) but at least I can hold my own now.

That one session in a boxing gym taught me the value and strength of Western boxing and I’ve only seen this confirmed ever since. Many people have the bias that Eastern martial arts are more effective than their Western counterparts but I believe this is not entirely accurate. Western boxing is a prime example of that. Just to put this into perspective: the Chinese Army incorporated it into it’s curriculum, at the expense of locally developed training methods.

Given as there were plenty of Chinese martial arts styles available, this is testimony to the effectiveness of Western boxing. Especially if you know just how nationalistic the Chinese can be at times, but I digress again…

I already explained the three main reasons why boxing works so well in the street, but there is more. To illustrate this, here are some videos of actual fights so you get a better idea of what I mean.

Here goes: Read More→