Fitness & Wellness Corner – December 2018

Posted in Blog

Yates has Boxing!?
John Liuzzi, USA Boxing Certified Coach and Yates Group Fitness Instructor
first in a series

And it’s part of group fitness? Yes and yes! But what’s even cooler is that it has a connection to Georgetown’s storied boxing history.

While most people know Yates has a large variety of excellent group fitness courses, they’re often surprised to learn that includes boxing instruction. And to answer the immediate question that usually comes up: yes, we’ll teach you how to actually fight.

The classes are designed to replicate the training you’d get if you walked into an old-school boxing gym and told the grizzled trainer with the ancient sweatshirt “I wanna learn to box!” We do use a group format at first, as everyone needs to get the fundamentals down – how to stand, move, punch, etc. But once you start to get it, you’ll work first in smaller groups and then individually to refine and advance your technique, just like in a real boxing gym.

That means the first few sessions aren’t really much of a workout. But as any of our advanced students can tell you, the workload rapidly increases as you progress from learning the technique to actually applying it, whether on the heavy bag, with a partner working the punch mitts, or even sparring in the ring. Until you’ve tried it, you won’t believe how tiring it is to hit something continually for up to 3 minutes (amateur rounds are 2 min long, so we train for 3).

We’ll teach you everything you need to know, from the ground up: offense, defense, ring tactics, and fight strategy. We focus on fundamentals, so wherever your boxing journey takes you, you’ll be able to accomplish your goals. As this is Georgetown, be careful you don’t get us started talking about boxing history, classic ring literature, or philosophical views on the sweet science…

And if you’ve actually boxed before, you’re more than welcome too…you can skip the basics and get right to the workout. We do our best to find appropriate sparring matches too – so whether you’re a returning student from a previous year, or a former golden gloves competitor looking to keep your hand in the game as you now focus on more scholarly pursuits (yes, this actually happened), we’ll try to make sure you get the ring time you want.

So what about that connection to Georgetown boxing history? Two words: Tom Quinn.

Tom (C’55) worked with Yates to ignite a boxing renaissance at Georgetown at the turn of the century, and it’s been going strong ever since. Right, right, but does it really matter who did it? Yes…it does. Go to McDonough Gymnasium and inspect the trophy cases – you’ll immediately see why.

Keep your hands up!