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Boxer's Start-Up: A Beginner's Guide to Boxing

I got this book because I started taking boxing lessons earlier this year from a guy I found on craigslist. I started taking lessons because as I get older, I feel the need to be able to defend myself physically. I started getting the literature so that I would have more background to bring to the lessons.

Here is one of the more smack-talking quotes: "Boxing is at the heart of physical toughness. It's the barest art of self-defense. It can be the rawest measure of a person. It's the most basic of competitions where fears are met and overcome or all is lost. It's the ideal vehicle for unfettered agression. Short of actual hand-to-hand combat, it's the ultimate contest between two people." The rest of the book gets into more actual how-tos as opposed to this motivational stuff, which presumably the reader is into since he bought the book.

Anyway, I thought the book was a really good introduction, and the guy who co-wrote it was a true beginner, so he brings that perspective into his writing. For me, the most useful part were the run-downs of the punches: jab, straight right, hook and uppercut, along with notes about their various uses, etc. There is also a chapter that covers the basic combinations: double and triple jabs, one-two, one-two-three, right-left-right and left-right-left. These two sections were helpful to me in solidifying the stuff I had learned in my lessons.

In all, the book is very accessable and not intimidating. So it would be helpful to people like me who want to stick a toe in and who are not culturally savvy about tough-guy stuff.

By Start-Up Sports and Doug Werner
ISBN # 1884654096

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