Defensive Concentration?

[Proboxer]

What is the most important thing to concentrate on when boxing to help your defense? Should you watch the other guys gloves, head, shoulders, or what. Someone with some knowledge of it pass it on.

[mattym]

What is the most important thing to concentrate on when boxing to help your defense? Should you watch the other guys gloves, head, shoulders, or what. Someone with some knowledge of it pass it on.

I would think it depends on their style. If they box with their hands down, its best to look at the chest, because then you can flick your sight down to see the punches, or flick up to see the target.

If they are boxing with their hands up, then look at their gloves, and you can see the punches coming, and also pick the openings at the same time. Looking at the arms makes it easier to predict a punch, and defend against it. If you are looking above, then each punch will have the advantage of an uppercut (the element of surprise). At the end of the day its the fist that hit you.

Generally though, you should be looking around all the time, having a glance at their feet when they move every once in a while (maybe you can catch them off their balance or use movement to give the better work), their knees and hips when they throw (if they lunge, or dont bend their knees it is easy to look good on the defense and counter), look at the body (you could find openings here), and look at the head so you can find your punch placement and think about combos etc.