Nick Durandt is the white Don King of South African boxing. He has trained 14 world champions and 54 South African champions.
The fitness training vital to any boxer’s success is nothing new. Fitness fads come and go but the unique type of fitness training which boxing requires remains.
A new take on this idea of hard training is that of professional boxercise classes. Now, some of you may have attended similar classes at your local gym. If you are anything like me, you would have felt a little stupid mimicking an instructor who, judging from his limp wristed punching technique is unlikely to have given or taken a punch in his life.
All trainers employed by Durandt are, or have been professional boxers. This ensures the authenticity of their authority. I arrived for my first day of training. Having done a little boxing in the past I was relieved that in this form of fitness boxing there is no contact sparring. The gyms advertising material clearly states, “No blood, just sweat”.
This meant that I would not again experience the odd pain that accompanies being punched in the nose or the challenge to my fragile male psyche which occurred when I was once given a blood nose by a girl.
Each of Durandt’s “clients” is entrusted to their own personal boxing trainer. Most clients begin their training sessions with a ten-minute warm up on a treadmill. I usually find running on a treadmill the most tedious of tasks. Yet, on this occasion the gym’s up-beat music and my imagination fuelled my enthusiasm. I had recently seen the latest of the Rocky films, in which a fifty-something-year-old Sylvester Stallone boxes against the heavyweight champion of the world.
After my trainer had wrapped my hands; padded my fists with sponge and squeezed on some 10 ounce gloves I was off to hit the heavy bag. I was shown a few basic punching combinations. All of which I had seen before but had not practised in years.
As I began to, “work the bag” all my delusions of boxing grandeur quickly disappeared. All that remained was my acute awareness of my clumsy technique – a bi product of my almost instant fatigue. This was going to be more challenging than I had thought.
In between rounds the trainer squeezed water from my bottle into my mouth and then wiped the sweat off my face. This is a service that personal trainers at the traditional “yuppie gyms” are unlikely to offer. The reason for this very personal service is purely pragmatic. It is difficult to grip a water bottle while wearing boxing gloves. Taking the gloves off to drink after each round would become an unnecessary distraction.
After some time spent hitting the bag it became clear to my trainer that I had a few bad habits. My stance was too narrow and too square. A boxer’s stance should be more side-on than square. The reason: a square stance means that your body becomes a bigger target for your opponent.
A stance that is too narrow is likely to affect your balance. Your balance in turn affects the power of your punches and your ability to dodge your rivals attack.
After my trainer escorted me into the ring he quickly strapped on some focus pads. These common components of boxing equipment are aptly named. They force you to focus on a relatively small target area. This makes hitting pads a lot more challenging than hitting a heavy bag.
The hand eye coordination required to connect successfully with the pads with any degree of consistency is not to be sneered at. Add to this the increasing cardiovascular and muscular fatigue as your training session progresses and you have a daunting task.
To me it is the diverse nature of this challenge that makes boxing and boxercise so appealing. Other forms of cardiovascular exercise like spinning, running and circuit training have their place but to me their major downfall is their monotony. Every punch while hitting pads requires attention. You cannot allow your mind to wonder.
Something else to consider is this: boxing seems to provide release not only for the body but also for the mind. It is a human instinct to respond to stressful situations with either a fight or flight response. Society has conditioned us to favour flight rather than fight. This means that the natural cathartic release of anger seldom takes place.
Succumbing to explosive road rage or beating a co-worker about the head with a stapler in a moment of exasperation are generally frowned upon.
Boxing, however, provides a second best option. Besides, boxing and boxercise can also provide an outlet for the most neglected of human faculties: imagination. While participating in boxing training you can always imagine that you are beating that annoying colleague or a despised politician.
After my first boxing training session I was drenched in sweat and thoroughly physically exhausted. Mentally however, I felt calm and alert. I was also filled with a sense of achievement at having made it thus far.
Boxing (or at least boxercise) is not the brutal sport it is often portrayed as. Rather it is a noble art which can be both graceful and elegant. Its training is more than just physical. It teaches often neglected virtues like: perseverance and courage.
Yet, not to be forgotten is the fact that boxing training offers an excellent means to improve your fitness level. After a month of training at Durandt’s Boxing World I was substantially fitter . The accumulative effect of the hundreds of crunches done as part of my training had made my stomach firm. Something it had not been in quite some time.
Now, I’m not going to do something silly like try to become a professional boxer like Mickey Rourke did – ruining his face and acting career in the process. No, I’m content to let boxing be a means to fight my biggest fitness foe: complacency. I’m hooked on boxing.
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