![]() He had come up in the sport of boxing with gloves and rounds, and he developed a style suited to this. Corbett, however, had never fought a bareknuckle bout in his life. Sullivan was the man who transitioned the heavyweight title to gloved matches full time, but had come up under bareknuckle rules. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the success of Gentleman Jim Corbett. Who wants to get hit in the face after all? But as boxing entered the gloved era, with fixed round lengths and no wrestling to speak of, active footwork became a good deal more useful. Of course, rather than taking the extra few running steps out of the door, the skilled boxer only backs up as much as he needs to. That coward's instinct to move away from a blow when it is thrown is in fact the foundation of good boxing. The first purpose of movement was defensive. And this is the constant in most martial arts and boxing gyms to the day-any time the feet are moved, they must be returned to the stance as quickly as possible. ![]() ![]() He believed only in the importance of the "yin-yang" technique of footwork meaning that when one foot moves, the other must move in turn to return the fighter to his stance. ![]() Musashi believed that the feet serve only to ferry the combatant to his opponent and away from him when necessary. Breaking with tradition again, Musashi gives very little advice on the movement of the feet where many schools of swordsmanship will have sliding steps, leaping steps, and all manner of others which are systematically taught. The legendary Japanese duelist was well known for his breaking with tradition in the use of both the long sword and short sword simultaneously. This minimalistic attitude to movement is epitomized by Miyamoto Musashi in The Book of Five Rings. Joe Louis, for instance, was built from the feet up and was taught to be in his stance at all times. The feet move to advance or retreat out of necessity. The idea being that the feet are a platform on which all of the defense-the upper body-rests and that movement should be reserved for when it is necessary. What Bruce Lee called small, phasic, bent knee movements. This core idea hasn't changed much through history. But in such long and grueling bouts which continued until one man could not, or until the police broke the bout up, there was little use for labor intensive footwork.įootwork in the bareknuckle phase emphasized the ability to stay on balance because blows were guaranteed to be connecting on the arms and body if not the head. Taking a step back from a punch was considered cowardly, though men like Daniel Mendoza quickly realized the value of simply not being in range of the opponent. Then right handed swings of ones own were thrown back. This is what we would term a leverage guard, where the raised straight arm and shoulder obstruct the path of the opponent's swing. The lead hand was used to 'bar' the right handed swings of the opponent. In the days of the London prize ring, pugilism was a contest of power and durability more than of speed and endurance. With our examination of shifting earlier in the week that will make a grand total of three articles about this single fight-it should be no secret by now that this is one of my most anticipated fights in a long time. Dillashaw on our doorstep I want to examine the nature of footwork in general and ask questions about the so called 'neo-footwork' both employ, then later in the week we will look at the specifics of the match up. With the bout between Dominick Cruz and T.J.
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