Introduction
The goal of this course is to cover the fundamental reasons why we use shadow boxing as a training technique. It’s not so much about the “how”, but more about the “why”. By covering the core principles and techniques behind it. I want to help remove some of the mystery of shadow boxing. Many beginners can find themselves feeling stupid, or embarrassed throwing punches at thin air. Without some sparring or fighting experience, it can be hard to visualise the imaginary interaction of an opponent. By giving you these principles, as you then gather more knowledge and combinations, you’ll be able to fit these into your shadow boxing workouts fluently.
Movement
So, once we get into our shadow boxing stance and we want to execute a technique and hit our opponent, we have to move to our opponent. Unless they’re moving towards us, but we’ll discuss this later. Let’s work on our movement with some basic movement drills. These are simply drills, not practical boxing techniques to use in the ring, but they’ll give you some fundamental movements to work on in your shadow boxing.
Drill One – Forward and Backwards
This drill is all about getting in range of your opponent and then getting away from them. Although the exact technique is not something you’ll perform verbatim in the ring, it will give you the foundation of boxing footwork. Start in your basic boxing stance, hands up, chin down. Step forward with your lead foot, follow that step with your rear foot. Repeat this sequence and now imagine you’re in-range of your opponent. Step forward again with the lead foot, as you simultaneously throw a jab, bringing the lead foot back in to where it was.
Now the retreat. Here the rear foot steps back first, followed by the lead foot, and another step back with the rear foot, followed by the lead foot. You’ll now be back where you started. To help yourself drill this, you can say this sequence to yourself out loud: “forward (as the lead foot steps forward), forward (again), jab (as you step and throw the jab), in (as your lead foot returns), back (as the rear foot retreats), back (as the rear foot takes the second step backwards).
Drill Two – Circling
This drill is split into four parts that represent most of all boxing exchanges. They all involve visualising a circle on the floor, which will guide your movements. If you have the ability to either draw a circle with chalk, or use duct tape to tape out a circular area, fantastic (aim for just over a meter in diameter). If not, you can simply visualise a circular area on the floor. During all of the drills in this section, you’ll want to incorporate your newly practiced forwards and backwards footwork.
Part One – Working on the outside
This drill will work your circular footwork, which will improve your movement as an outside fighter. Start with your lead foot just touching the outside of the circular area, and imagine your opponent is in the middle of the circle facing you. Now look down at your feet, if you have a regular stance, then your left foot will be on the circle and your right foot will be the rear foot (slightly to the right of your body centre). If you’re a southpaw, then you’ll have your right foot on the circle and your left foot will be the rear foot.
No matter your stance, just remember that whichever way you want to circle, the foot that is closest to that direction moves first. So if you’re a regular fighter and want to circle left, your left foot steps left, followed by your right foot. Avoid looking down at the circle, or your feet and visualise an opponent who won’t move from the centre of the circle. Start with your hands up, eyes forward, chin down, in your boxing stance and practice moving clockwise and anticlockwise. Work this for about a minute. Occasionally add in some of your forward and backward footwork to practice moving in and out of range.
Part Two – Dominating the centre
Next, change roles and become the opponent in the centre of the circle. Imagine an opponent doing exactly what you were doing in the last drill. This time your rear foot will be in the middle of the circle, with your lead foot on the outside line of the circle, you’ll be facing outwards towards the opponent. Staying inside the circle for the entire drill, track your opponent down, by constantly moving your focus as they circle around you. Remember to keep switching directions, keeping your eyes and hands up. Dominate and control that centre. The footwork is less of a step and more of a foot pick-up and put-down. All of the movement is started with the lead foot this time, keeping that rear foot in the middle of the circle. Again, remember to add in some of the forward and backwards footwork from drill one, move forwards to put pressure on your opponent and move backwards as they “attack your position”.
Part Three – Neutral
This position often happens when two similar style fighters come up against each other. So you’ll start with your lead foot close to the centre of the circle and your rear foot outside the circle. This is similar to the first drill, except you’re closer to the centre and closer to your opponent now. Your footwork will be very similar to part one of this drill, except you’ll need to add in a lot more forward and backward movement, to simulate the attacking and defensive phases of this situation. Keep shifting direction, clockwise and anticlockwise and keep your hands tight.
Part Four – Mix it Up
Finally try mixing it up. Start by working five to ten seconds in any position and then use your forward or backward movement to change roles. So, for example, start on the outside, work your rotational movements, then after ten seconds use the forward movement from drill one to get you into the centre of the circle. Now you’re dominating the centre for five to ten seconds. Then use a backwards step to shift into the neutral position.
Offence
Once you’re comfortable with the movement drills you’re ready for the next step, which is to add in some punches. We’ll use the same movement drills, but this time add-in some attacks.
The Jab
The jab is our first line of offence, and the first punch we’ll integrate into the movement drills. So let’s quickly recap on the jab. It’s a punch thrown with the lead hand, straight forwards. For this exercise we’ll be stepping into the jab as well. In order to step that lead foot forwards, you need to have the rear foot firmly planted. Consider this when moving, so you’re throwing the jab from a stable base, otherwise your jab will have a lot less power. Let’s apply this to the first part of drill two above.
Start exactly as you did before, except now pop out a jab every few seconds, there’s no set rules on how often you jab, just feel it and throw it when you’re ready. Remember to keep your head up and eyes forward, visualise your opponent and make sure the rear foot is planted as you spring forward with the jab. Make sure your feet are doing the work, don’t lean your upper body forward to throw the jab. Keep moving and switching directions, clockwise and anticlockwise. Aim to do an entire round working the outside jab.
Next run through part two (holding the centre drill) and add in the jab. This time consider that your opponent will be constantly changing ranges, so also use your forward and backward steps to either close the distance, or open it up. Again every few seconds or so, pop out your jab and then move. Remember you’re trying to stay in the centre of the circle, so avoid more than a couple of steps backwards.
Finally let’s add the jab into the part three drill. Repeat the drill, and as you step-in to throw the jab, your lead foot will land in the centre of the circle. Keep your rear foot planted and once you’ve thrown the jab spring back off the front foot. We can also step in with the rear foot if we want to generate more power, or close the range even further, but for now just move the front foot.
The Jab-Cross (One-Two)
This is the first and most fundamental combination you’ll learn, so now let’s add this into the above drills. You don’t have to step the front foot in with a jab-cross, but for this exercise continue to step in on the jab, and then pivot on the rear foot as you throw the rear hand (the cross). Remember to bring your jab hand back to your chin to protect yourself, as you throw the cross. With the footwork, remember after you throw the combination, you’ll step back with the rear foot first and then the front foot. This can feel a bit difficult as your front foot will be loaded, but use that loading to push off the front foot, springing yourself backwards. It may almost feel like a small jump backwards, that’s fine, they don’t need to be definite steps as in our first drill.
Now run through each of the four parts of drill two, using the jab cross instead of just the jab, dedicate a whole round to each part until you’re comfortable with the movements.
Defence
Often in boxing, you’re not the first one, and certainly not the only one to attack. Your opponent will attack you. You may be planning your attack and then they attack first, as Mike Tyson once said “everyone has a plan, until they get punched in the face”. So you need to be prepared for this, even if you have no intentions of sparring or fighting, it’s still an interesting concept to keep in mind.
They’re most likely going to try and hit you with the first thing you’re thinking of hitting them with, the jab. There’s many different ways to defend against the jab, but we’re just going to cover one of them. It can be done from all different positions. Start by working from the outside (drill two – part one), in your boxing stance, with hands up and chin down.
The basic drill is to imagine their jab coming at your face. You’re going to take a small step back with your rear foot, keeping the front foot still, this will help to take the power out of their jab. At the same time, bring your rear hand out to “catch” their jab with your palm. Try to move your head very slightly off the centre line towards your rear hand at the same time. Remember their fist isn’t that large and it doesn’t take a lot of movement to get out of danger, so keep things tight and your movements short and fast.
Again apply this defensive drill in each of the four situations from drill two and you’ll be sharpening your defence and footwork at the same time.
Counter Attack
After the opponent hits you, you’re going to want to hit them back. Normally the best opportunities to land punches come as your opponent is attacking, or just as they finish. This drill will work your quick counter attack, starting with the jab.
So perform the same defensive drills as above, but this time as soon as you’ve caught the imaginary jab, your weight is on the rear foot, use that loading to spring yourself forwards into the jab. Again it’ll feel like a jump forward. In practice you can counter just by stepping forwards, or off the rearfoot, but for now let’s work this spring-off movement. So step the rear foot back, catch the jab, then spring off the rear foot, forwards onto the front foot, simultaneously throwing the jab.
Offence and Exit
Now let’s work on the other offensive situation, which is where your opponent will attack you back. We need to be able to throw our attack and then get out of danger. There are a lot of things you can do, but it’ll depend on your body position and what punch you last threw. For example, you could step back and cover, you could duck out to the side, you could pivot out, or even spring back out of range. Some fighters will just cover up, fully prepared to take the counter attack, so they’re still in range for their next attack. It all depends on the situation, but for this drill we’ll apply two useful exit techniques.
The first exit technique is to step back and cover. To perform this drill, throw the jab-cross, imagine your opponent reacting by throwing the same back at you. So as soon as you’ve thrown the one-two, step back with the rear foot, followed by the front foot. Bring up your guard, so your knuckles are resting on your brow, with your palms turned in so you can see through the gap between the right and left gloves. Make sure your elbows are close together, so you have some protection for the body. Pause and imagine taking a couple of shots from your opponent and then move, using the same footwork we covered in the first part of drill two. Again practice combining this one-two, step back and cover, with the three different versions of drill two.
The next technique, avoids their shots completely. Start by working this technique in the outside position from the first part of drill two. Again, starting with the one-two, but this time when you step back with the rear foot, you’ll also drop your weight by bending your knees. Duck your head, keeping your eyes on the opponent, not the floor. Then bring the lead foot back as you duck in one smooth movement, and finally circle left or right.
When you come to apply this to holding the centre position, you won’t circle off after the duck, but you can reset your position and turn to face your moving opponent. When you apply this to the neutral position, we learnt in part three of the movement drill, you won’t circle off as much, but you will still move left or right.
Finally we can really mix this up. The key is always to hit, but not get hit. Sometimes in order to hit your opponent, you have to be unpredictable and give them something new. So once you’re comfortable with the above drills, it’s time to add in even more punches to really spice up your combinations. Keeping with two shots for now, mix up the second shot for all of the above movement drills. For example, start with a jab and then an overhand right, then jab and hook to the body, then jab and uppercut, finally add in the standard one-two.
Shadow Boxing
Now you have the fundamental movement patterns, some defensive exits, as well as a few basic combinations, you’re starting to build a shadowboxing foundation. However shadowboxing isn’t just about running drills, it’s about simulating a boxing exchange when you have no real opponent and sharpening those movement, attack and defence patterns until they become second nature. You want to develop all of this, whilst becoming more and more varied in your attacks and movement, so you become an unpredictable fighter.
So to develop on the last drill, it’s time to really get creative. Keep the three positional movement drills as the foundation to your shadow boxing, but now start to mix up the attacks, by including a third and forth punch into your opening combination. For example, try a jab-cross-hook, then maybe a double jab-uppercut, varying your combinations everytime you throw something. Don’t forget to mix up your defense and counter movements, mix up your movements off the combinations and you’ll start to realise how much variety is actually possible. Now you’ll really start to look like a boxer, block out the outside world and really try to focus on your imaginary opponent.
Fakes and Faints
Lastly, developing your unpredictability to the point where your opponent really can’t read you, will rely on tricking them into thinking they can read your movements, but then breaking those movement patterns. This is where fakes and faints come in. You develop fakes and faints by actually boxing, they’re simply a fractional movement that leads your opponent into thinking you’re going to do something you’re not.
For example, if they get used to you always stepping in on your jab, then a simple step-in signals to them that you’re going to throw a jab. You can now use this to your advantage, by just stepping in, but not throwing the jab, or throwing something different. This will really put your opponent on edge, they’ll become very reactive to every little movement, and this will open them up for attacks.
To practice this, start by working the outside movement drill and without throwing any punches, just work a small front foot step-in, make it short and snappy. Then try the rear foot, just a small rapid step-in. The idea is to trick your opponent into thinking you’re going to do something you’re not. As you become comfortable, so would your opponent. So now is the time to faint the step, but then actually finish with the jab. Try a small, fast, half step with the lead foot and then take your actual step-in and then jab. Then step back and circle off. Repeat this several times in each of the movement drills.
Summary
Shadow boxing can be a daunting exercise when you are new to boxing. Hopefully these drills and exercises have taken away some of the mystery around shadow boxing, and we’ve not only addressed the “how”, but also “why” we shadowbox. As well as being an awesome activity for fitness, shadowboxing can help take away some of the fear that new boxers experience when they face a real opponent. You’ll have a better idea of what to expect from an opponent and how to react to certain situations. It can also become a fun way of training on your own, even if you don’t like the idea of hitting someone in the face, then you can imagine trying to hit an imaginary ball, or a robot. Compete with yourself, and you’ll get faster and fitter at the same time.