As fewer men take up boxing, and more women step up into combat sports, the likelihood that us boxing coaches will be called upon to retrain a lady who has been involved in ‘cardio-kickboxing’ or some similar health-spa or strip-mall karate fitness fun, shall increase.

I have some experience with this. Below are my observations and tips for the coach.

1. Although these ladies hit nothing, they are encouraged to wrap their hands. This is a big psychological boost for the lady, who, with hands wrapped, now feels like Jennifer Lopez in that awful movie about kickboxing babe-revenge. As a Man Cave kind of guy, I have to say that I have no problem getting behind anything involving J-Lo, strictly on curvaceous grounds. But this hand-wrapping is bad. The ladies I have dealt with were all taught to wrap their hands tightly with their fingers together. You must not let them hit anything until you have correctly wrapped their hands and taught them the principals and techniques of hand-wrapping.

2. Fortunately most of these programs do not encourage footwork as the ladies are lined up, and get their legwork from kicking. This is good in that there will be no hop-skip-and-levitate karate fantasy footwork to drive the boxing coach crazy. You should be able to train her footwork from scratch. But, there will probably be a balance problem described below.

3. People that stand in one place and throw punches in the air usually develop a lean. People that are also lifting their feet to kick and recovering are likely to begin putting too much weight on the outside of their foot, to the front. Check her shoes before your first session. If you notice that her shoe is wearing more on the outside of her foot [probably around the small toe] you must take preventative action to avoid the tendency to lead with the head and roll the ankle. If you take her into movement with this problem she is likely to be off balance and eventually roll and injure her ankle. Retraining a person with foot posture issues is impossible if they are training in shoes that have been worn according to this problem, as the shoes will reinforce the bad balance. Inform her that she needs to get fresh shoes. In the intervening weeks work her barefoot—kind of has an unfortunate ring to it, but I’m keeping it. Sorry Mom.

4. All people from cardio-boxing and kick-boxing programs will likely keep their hands back by their face, meaning their rear hand position is probably okay, and that their lead hand is going to be too far back to jab and guard effectively. Expect to spend at least six weeks fixing this. These ladies usually put in 45 minutes of punching from this poor hand orientation, sometimes five days per week. The muscle memory is ingrained for them to bring the hand [probably a fist rather than cupped hand due to the hand-wrapping bullshit, and to the ‘combat psychology without combat’ mind-screw that is the unused fist] all the way back to the shoulder and chin. Achieving a hand span guard with her lead will be your biggest problem.

5. Overall keep in mind that her wider hips are probably going to throw off her lateral balance a little, but should also enhance her pivot potential.

Overall, training athletic women to box is most similar to training a male wrestler, only with a lower center of gravity.