Dedicated Class For
Boxing
Boxing, known as the “sweet science,” is a martial art combining footwork, defense and punching into an art with the goal of being able to hit and not get hit.
Boxing is a fantastic complementary martial art to Muay Thai kickboxing. By simplifying the ruleset, you can delve into the subtleties of using your hands and the details on effective footwork.
Why Train Boxing?
Fitness
Gyms are great, but why not become stronger, faster and more coordinated while making new friends and learning practical new skills?
Confidence-Boosting
It’s hard not to become more confident as you feel yourself become stronger, develop better cardio health and improve your coordination.
Self-Defense
Learn to defend yourself with boxing. If the circumstance ever arises, you’ll have the confidence you need to think more clearly in the situation.
Community
Remember how much fun after-school activities like band or football were? It’s the same here. Join a community of friends and teammates who train together, encourage one another and grow as a group.
Boxing Classes Coached by Sean Barber
Sean has been boxing since 2014, starting with the WWU boxing team where he began coaching as a team captain in 2016.
Since then, he has competed at local and national levels in both boxing and Muay Thai.
Sean has a unique skill set that allows him to teach pure boxing, boxing for Muay Thai and boxing for MMA. He has a fantastic understanding of footwork and positioning, which his students strongly reflect.
Class Structure
Everything starts with solid fundamentals — but that doesn’t mean it can’t be fun.
Sean emphasizes drills and exercise that develop good base, posture and footwork. This means a healthy amount of bag work, footwork and skill-developing games.
Learning these fundamentals is the same as learning how to play scales on an instrument. In the same way that you can’t just pick up and play a guitar without understanding the basics, if you want to “float like a butterfly and sting like a bee,” you must master the details that make it possible.
Boxing Class Structure
- Circuit work. We start by rotating between bag drills and footwork training — bagwork is fun, and footwork is essential. But if you spend all your time on bagwork, you won’t make any meaningful progress. If you spend all your time on footwork, you’ll fall asleep from boredom.
- Technique work. Normally, this is gloves-on work with a training partner. Because we also train Muay Thai at Mat Chess, we do lots of positional sparring and game-based teaching in our boxing classes to complement the sequence work you do in Muay Thai. These games limit what you can do in a sparring round to specific techniques, meaning you narrow your focus on developing a specific skill necessary to improve that technique. For example, one person is allowed to only jab, and the other is allowed to only defend via a clinch.
- Open sparring. Boxing practice ends with open sparring. Here, you have a chance to get rounds in and work on everything you’ve learned with a training partner.
Circuit Work
Technique Drills
Hands-On Work
Light Sparring
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FAQ
We think about this question incessantly! It’s our goal as instructors to maximize your progress, given your time commitment.
The simple answer for you as a student is to come to class as often as you can! We design our class structure to make the most of your time investment with 90-minute to 2-hour classes. That’s also because we don’t need to short-change sparring or technique.
Our curriculum is similar to an academic curriculum. We teach in weekly blocks so that you aren’t learning techniques that don’t go together but rather learning in logical systems. Additionally, we add resistance to make the techniques sparring-ready and then spar five-plus rounds in every class.
In fact, we’ve been focused on maximizing student learning since we opened in 2011!
Easy answer — you should train both!
Boxing focuses on your hands, hand defense and footwork, while Muay Thai covers clinch, kicks, knees and elbows. They complement each other incredibly well, which is why we teach both.
To try out a class, all you need are clothes you feel comfortable working out in. We have community gear ready for you. After starting your training, you’ll want to purchase a set of 12-16 oz. gloves, hand wraps and a mouthpiece.
You’re more than welcome to sit out of any training at any time. That said, we always spar at the level of the least senior sparring partner.
The goal of sparring is to be able to practice the techniques we learn in class. This often means that we “technical spar,” which is of lower intensity. However, we also spar harder when preparing for competition with ready-and-willing training partners.
Please communicate with your training partners and coaches, and they’ll help guide you to maximize your progress through sparring.
We believe “cardio boxing” is a misnomer that actually means “boxing without learning technique.”
You always get a great workout at Mat Chess while simultaneously learning excellent tried-and-true techniques taught in a way that maximizes your learning and progress. We’re a martial arts gym, and our classes are also a great way to work out!
Parking is easy! You have an abundance of free street parking surrounding our building.
All you need are clothes you feel comfortable working out in. If you’re trying out a class, we have community gear that’ll get you through the day.
Absolutely not! In fact, 95% of the people who come in have never trained before. We’re renowned for teaching you from zero.
Open mat is noninstructional time when people come in to drill, spar, roll and work on their own martial arts projects. It’s a great opportunity to push yourself while having a good time with the community.
Our kids’ class accommodates ages 5 to 15. We start integrating students into adult class around high school, and our oldest student is 71 years old!
Overwhelmingly, the answer is to come to class! We design our class structure to maximize your progress, so doing the things needed to free time to attend class is often the most important part of maximizing your learning.
Your coaches also work with you on your personal development. Each Mat Chess coach has excellent experience working with you on your unique goals.
The best time to start is now! Don’t worry in the slightest about not being in the shape that you want to be in.
And don’t waste time thinking you should work on your general fitness to start your martial arts journey. Martial arts will help with that!
