This is boxing, so we are not just talking about knowledge, but commitment too. You might be dealing with a coach who simply declines to coach you properly due to the fact that he does not care about you or your progress. If you are going to a martial arts instructor for your boxing and he fails one of the tests below it is probably lack of knowledge. The common mistake Asian-based martial arts instructors make is to get boxing instruction—usually on the Jeet Kune Do circuit—in seminar format, or at an MMA club, or white collar boxing program, as opposed to a real boxing gym. The fact that boxing is not about knowledge or a complete skill set, but is about psychology and an applied yet forever incomplete skill set, is lost on martial artists in general.

If you are going to a boxer or boxing coach for your hand skills and he fails at some point on this test he might be a subpar coach. Or, he might not care about you.

Once you have been coached in boxing you may rate your coach on this descending scale, from 10 to 2 and below. This is all about your first session, and what you are coached on. This is a good assessment of your coach’s overall knowledge of boxing and/or his commitment to you developing functional boxing ability.

Below is the score to the left and what it means to the right. Less is better, more is worse. This only concerns the information you were given and the work you were made to perform in your first session.

-Specific defenses against a punch are properly shown after you have been instructed on the punch. If you are shown an active defense to a punch you have not yet been instructed on, deduct 1 from the score.

-Subtract 1 from the score for every jab variation shown in the first session [there are 7 variations].

-Cut the score in half for each of the three elements in the 10 score that are absent.

10: guard [posture or stance, your structural defense], movement [your passive defense], the jab [your bridge between offense and defense]

8: also the right hand [usually shown because he is afraid you will get bored, I have done this to retain interest among white collar boxers]

6: also the hook

4: also the upper cut

2: also an additional punch variation of the right, the hook, or the uppercut

So, if your coach shows you how to stand, how to move, and how to properly throw one basic jab, than that is a 10. Anything else he shows you lowers the base score or causes a deduction in his base score.

On the other hand, if you go to a Jeet Kune Do school or MMA club, and they show you the guard, and then how to throw the four basic punches without going over movement, and go over the defense to each punch—which is precisely how boxing is normally taught in a martial arts setting—then they score a base of 4, cut in half for neglecting movement, for a total of 2. If they add a variation of the jab that drops their score to 1.

Note: this barometer only applies if you are not an experienced boxer. If you have already trained or fought he will want to see what you can do and encourage you to demonstrate your skills before determining what he can add without messing up your positive aspects, and what needs to be corrected. The above table is intended for the novice or martial artist to assess a coach.

I will cover more boxing martial arts chicanery in The Boxer as Uke, coming soon to a computer terminal in front of you, right where the obedient martial artist believes his antagonist will always be.

This article came out to 666 words so I have written his sentence for no rational reason.