Last week I was training a stocky young man at the gym. He has no aspiration to box, and is not built well for boxing and is structured more along the lines of a wrestler. He just wants some boxing skills to make him more effective in a survival situation. The first thing I told him was, “Stop trying to box. The type of boxing you would have to do with your meathook build to prevail in the ring is the opposite of what you need on the street.”
If you are a boxer and you need to defend yourself you might use this guide to access the tools in your kit most efficiently when outside the ring. If you are a survivalist, this list lets you know what you need to take away from your boxing experience for direct application in defense situations. Before discussing the tool kit let's discuss the context.
Boxing for Survival
If called upon to fight, you do not. All fights are easily avoidable.
If attacked you have no time to box, and if you try and make time you are reacting instead of acting.
Overall, you never want to box in a civil or criminal altercation.
When confronted by a direct aggressor extend your jabbing hand into an open talking hand, arm half bent. This is your confrontational boxing position.
Most attacks are ambushes so learn to throw punches from a hands down position.
Most Important Boxing Survival Skills
1. Taking and rolling with a punch, which is usually when you find out you have been attacked
2. A stiff jab
3. A hard straight right hand
4. An oblique forward lead step
5. A side step to your right
Tactics
The objective of the boxer when hit is to roll, angle off the line of attack, and then counter attack with stopping power.
The objective of the boxer launching a preemptive strike is to step diagonally off line with your lead foot, placing your head at or just to the outside of the target’s shoulder, and your shoulder in line with his nose, and launch a strike to his centerline with your rear hand.
The objective of the boxer facing a direct confrontation is to side step right as you feed a stiff jab down the aggressor’s center line.
Power Tools and Targets
1. Straight right palm-down fist to the solar plexus or chin
2. Straight right vertical ["sneaky"] fist to the nose
3. Straight right open hand to the forehead. Against weak-necked foes this will do, and will permit you to tell the pigs that you just slapped him.
Precision Tools and Targets
1. Power or posted jab to the throat or chin
2. Sneaky jab to the nose
3. Up jab to the eye
4. Open hand checking jab to the forehead
5. Finger jab to the eyes while stepping oblique, angling off, hopping back, fading, side-stepping or passing
Do Not!
1. Throw hooks of any kind anywhere, unless you are open for a hook, then you throw it as a slap and use it to pivot around the opponent
2. Throw uppercuts as his falling elbows can break or sprain your thumb when you land to the body and his teeth can slash open your hand if you land to the mouth
3. Waste time, pose, mug, dance or give this bastard a chance! Assume that he or one of his friends is already going for a knife or a gun. Drop his ass and get the hell out of there.
Don’t get in fights.
Do get off the center line while firing down the center line.
Always seek the angle on his left side if you can’t see that right hand because it may be drawing knife.
