Boxing Lessons in the Ukraine Were Humbling

I love to plan holidays around exercise! So boxing lessons when vivisting the Ukraine (the moherland) with my father certainly interested me!

It just makes me feel good and is a great way to learn and bring back new skillsets to pass on to trainers and clients.

I love martial arts and when i visited America I did kickboxing, in Asia I did various martial arts and Muaythai, so it only makes sense when visiting the Ukraine to box! Ukrainian boxers are amongst the best in the world and they are renowned for being strong and resilient and I wanted to learn some of this in my holiday to the Ukraine.

Yeah I can box… But these guys humbled me…. Big time!

So I visited 4 different clubs and had personal training sesions which lasted for 90 minutes. We moved around in the Ukraine as it was a visit to look into my fathers family heritage and after wearing my father out i would take off to do some of my own homework… Oh and burn off all the beautiful food I was eating!

What did the boxing lessons teach me?

Although the techniques were different from each coach there were some key take homes from my boxing experience in Ukraine;

• Stand Tall and Beautiful! Be upright wiih legs almost straight and keep high on your toes as you will see demonstrated in the video by myself and the guy in blue shorts. This is a pro boxer who practices this stance and ‘relaxed bounce’ daily for about 20 minutes. It goes to show how important the basics are …
• It’s all about footwork! Nothing new here but as stated above if your stance is poor then your defence will come undone. This is a daily practice for a Ukrainian boxer.
• Speed! Be tall and on the toes so you can execute techniques wih speed effortlessly. As you will see with the bald guy (he is demonstrating the lessons we did in our session) speed is the focus as well as counter punching whilst moving.

I loved the techniques we learned and have put together a series of lessons which focus on these points in our weekly boxing classes on Tuesday and Wednesday night at Viva!

If you want to check out my weight training experience then check this video out here where i visit a huge outdoor gym made out of WW2 tanks.

Enjoy

Make it happen