[fireball]

anyone know of any drills to improve speed and overall footwork?

[Bux]

my instructor used to make us do this thing for footwork... basically u stand in your stance in front of the mirror and get someone to call out 'left, right, back, forward etc... random directions and you try and move one step in that direction as quickly as possible, while keeping your balance and stance. not as easy as it might seem.

thats one of the most basic drills. advanced footwork is kinda hard to explain on here i recomend you ask your instructor about this if you have one

[legshot420]

skip rope.

[Brandon MacRea]

You have the right idea. Footwork is hugely important in any striking art, but I wouldn't dedicate TOO much time to bounding drills and mirror work considering all of the different bases we have to cover in training already. You can get a lot more "bang for your buck" with other things. Skipping with improve your general conditioning, shoulder endurance, and to some extent your footwork, for example, so it's a better choice then line drills because it hits different things at once - sort of a "compound" movement over an "isolation" movement if you're into lifting terms.

You can get pretty good at hopping around with line drills doing single/double leg hops back and forth, and skipping works well here too, but again, you have to know how to apply all of what you're drilling. Every time you shadowbox in my opinion is a perfect opportunity to work your feet. Work punching while advancing, lateral movement to escape a rush, circling off of the ropes, getting out of corners, cutting off the ring, creating angles and make sure you switch directions so you're comfortable moving away from the power hand of both a southpaw and orthodox fighter. Keep all of those things in mind when you're working any of the bags, don't just plant your feet and "fight in a phonebooth".

Your coach can do some awesome footwork drills with you on the focus mitts.

And, of course, sparring will help you the most, because that is really where you have the chance to apply and test all you've been practicing.

[True2KungFu]

shadowboxing definatley is the time to really work your movement skills

[fireball]

Originally Posted by Brandon MacRea

You have the right idea. Footwork is hugely important in any striking art, but I wouldn't dedicate TOO much time to bounding drills and mirror work considering all of the different bases we have to cover in training already. You can get a lot more "bang for your buck" with other things. Skipping with improve your general conditioning, shoulder endurance, and to some extent your footwork, for example, so it's a better choice then line drills because it hits different things at once - sort of a "compound" movement over an "isolation" movement if you're into lifting terms.

You can get pretty good at hopping around with line drills doing single/double leg hops back and forth, and skipping works well here too, but again, you have to know how to apply all of what you're drilling. Every time you shadowbox in my opinion is a perfect opportunity to work your feet. Work punching while advancing, lateral movement to escape a rush, circling off of the ropes, getting out of corners, cutting off the ring, creating angles and make sure you switch directions so you're comfortable moving away from the power hand of both a southpaw and orthodox fighter. Keep all of those things in mind when you're working any of the bags, don't just plant your feet and "fight in a phonebooth".

Your coach can do some awesome footwork drills with you on the focus mitts.

And, of course, sparring will help you the most, because that is really where you have the chance to apply and test all you've been practicing.

thanx for all the input.. my footwork seems to be slow compared to other lightweights.

[Centaur]

did a quick google...

here's some stuff:
Boxing BASICS video: http://sports.expertvillage.com/vide...rope-drill.htm

Line drills: http://trinity.psnw.com/~dlmurray/footdrills.html

here's one for soccer. I know, its soccer not boxing, but it actually looks pretty good, and I've seen some MMA guys like Penn do stuff thas similar...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/low/hea...ss/4291114.stm

[eldarbong]

you could play that Dance Dance Revolution game at the arcade

[likkuid]

Originally Posted by eldarbong

you could play that Dance Dance Revolution game at the arcade

ROFL DDR - omg.

[kokaka]

Originally Posted by eldarbong

you could play that Dance Dance Revolution game at the arcade

Actually I have bought a dance mat to my computor for just that purpose, it´s at leats the good training as to skip ropes because you do not just stand on one spot and jump but you nead to move in almoast all directions, just as you would do in a fight, and it´s a lot of fun. Then if you want to make it harder, just carry a heavy backpack.