From: stark@dwovax.enet.dec.com (Todd I. Stark)
Subject: Western Boxing, how 'imprecise' is it ?
Summary: But that's not the 'art' !
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Date: 25 AUG 92 14:59:59    


In the 'Different karate fists' thread, Peter, David, and others wrote ...
and I attempt to defend the noble martial art of Western (esp. American)
Boxing from accusations of being 'imprecise.'   

hahn@plugh.network.com (Peter Hahn) writes...
><10408@sun13.scri.fsu.edu> poore@ds9.scri.fsu.edu (David Poore) writes:
>>
>>Well, here's something I picked up at a class I attended last month by
>>Yoichi Kazuma Sensei...
>>
>>He said not to punch to the head, because the head can be moved (hmmm,
>>sound faililar Todd??), turned, bobbed, whatever to slip or minimize the
>>impact. He also mentioned that he didn't enjoy tearing up his hands on
>>teeth and skull. 

True.  A skillful contact fighter's head tends to be extremely hard to hit, 
compared to body targets, because of its mobility.  That was the basis of
Cus D'Amato's successful strategy for his fighters, to move the head after 
each punch, thus making it extremely difficult to get countered there.
Patterson and Tyson used it very effectively (most of the time).

>Boxing generally isn't a real precise art...

Predictable Grumble (and mildly indignant snort, like a very small bull) !  

Professional fighters and their trainers preserve the art of boxing as
far as I'm concerned.   Guys like Cus D'Amato and Angelo Dundee and Bill
Slayton and Eddie Futch are the rough equivalent of the well-known Shihan and 
Sifu in other martial arts.  The ex-pug teaching kids to stay off the 
streets at the local 'Y' or PAL doesn't represent the _art_of_boxing anymore 
than some mediocre black belt student or ex tournament fighter off teaching 
students on his own represents a hundred years of his tradition.   You have to 
be virtually born into an art, including western boxing, to have a shot at 
mastering it and being able to adequately represent its traditions.   
I'm concerned that you've not seen _the_real_thing_ yet, just as some have 
complained about other martial arts.   

>It seems that a fair number of boxing coaches teach pretty much this
>same technique as well.  Just let one fly at the creep's upper chest.
>Maybe it hits, maybe it doesn't.  And maybe he ducks into it.

I don't know the context for this advice, but I speculate that it
might help some powerful but awkward fighters, or a fighter hopelessly 
outclassed by someone who moves a lot better, but unless you're the local 
equivalent of Marciano or Dempsey, (or an Ernie Shavers, for that matter) you 
don't want to throw away punches on general targets, because they'll tend not 
to have much effect and every punch leaves an opening.  That last part I don't
have to speculate on, believe me.  ;-)   You want every punch to count.  The 
best amateurs make their every punch count, and the best pros don't generally 
have to be concerned with it, their punches find their mark fairly 
reflexively.  If you are concerned about accuracy, you throw to the body
usually, not to the chest hoping to hit the head.   And when we are talking
'art' rather than 'specific corner advice', this goes double.

It's common to hear good trainers tell their fighters to hit a particular 
part of a certain opponent's face in a certain way, because they have been 
knocked out that way in the past.   Obviously, again, this is not
generally _Golden_Gloves_ type advice.

Most often, it's the chin, jawbone, temple, or cheekbone just under the eye,
the primary spots for shocking the nerves and transmitting shock to the
brain.  Similarly, when hitting the body, targets are the heart, the liver,
the spleen, not the body in general.   A liver punch feels a lot different
from a heart punch, and from a spleen punch.  A liver punch is incredibly
nauseating.   A number of fighters specialize in the left hook to the
liver.  

Ok, they don't aim their little finger at point 36.5 of the triple warmer
meridian, at exactly 3:32 AM, to cause their opponent to experience
unexplained distress exactly 2 rounds later.  But aiming at the chest so
you can hit the head sounds like the kind of desperation advice a corner
man would give his fighter when nothing he was throwing was hitting,
and the fight was about to end anyway.   These guys throw many thousands of 
punches a day, that's almost all they do in a day.  Do you really think they 
can't anticipate and pinpoint a moving target precisely and need to throw 
to the chest to hit the head ?   That advice might be used in certain 
situations, but using it to show the imprecision of the art isn't fair,
I think.

Ok, I'm better now.   Tell me what you really meant.  :-)

								todd