Is it possible to learn to box from a book well?

[hugh grant]

Is it possible to learn how to box to a good standard by reading a book or learning from a book?

Im thinking of getting jimmy burns one "the art of boxing"

I mean by practicing the moves in the book at home through your mind and knowing the moves without actually sparring. Will it help me in a self defence situation by reading how to block and punch and a bit of footwork i suppose.

[hugh grant]

basically i dont want to go to no gym, no trainer and no punch bag.
Punching thin air

[Bullrush]

the book has to be extremely detailed, i dont know if such book exists. even then you have to either tape everything you do so you can see if you do the things 100% correct. or have somebody who knows what hes doing watch what you do...but in that case you might as well get in a gym. also you can pick up a lot of bad habits if youre not careful

might wanna check out this old coach, hes awesome and he knows what hes talking about:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-ugc...eature=related

but really you should join a gym

also in order to improve your fighting skills you have to spar. hitting air and practicing moves is good and all but i dont think it improves your fighting skills. when you get punched you will forget about all these moves you learned because youre not used to getting punched and you dont know how to react. your instincts have to take over and you only get these instincts by sparring

why dont you want to join a gym anyway

[NChristo]

Jack Dempsey - Championship Fighting is a good book to get and you learn learn quite an amount from it, costs quite a bomb and it's difficult to find though.
There's different websites you can download it from, PDF format.

Advise going to a gym though.

[DarkTerror88]

I believe Joe Frazier and Bill Detloff also wrote a very detailed book.

[FM3O]

It can help in a supplemental way, as in if your going to gym already and you find new things that you need to work on in the gym. I think people can somewhat train themselves if they've had a lot of experience in the gym. If you haven't been to one before though, I don't think you'll be able to learn HOW to box from a book or a video. There's too many different aspects, and without the help of being around other boxers and trainers and being able to visually and verbally analyze what your doing, you can't properly reflect on your techniques.

Plua, I know for me personally, I didn't understand why boxers did a lot of the things they did until I sparred for the first couple times and learned first hand why certain fundamentals are so important.

[Ivansmamma]

You can't learn to fight from a book. Even if you had great theoretical understanding you would be tense and forget everything first time you got hit. You need to spar to get used to being hit and still think and do what you need to do. You need to spar to get rid of reflexes like closing your eyes or shying away from a punch, it must be done in a gym.

[BrooklynBomber]

Only if you are some sort of natural wonder. It is possible to train on your own AFTER you got the basics, but basics need to be learned with the trainer.

[hugh grant]

the book has to be extremely detailed, i dont know if such book exists. even then you have to either tape everything you do so you can see if you do the things 100% correct. or have somebody who knows what hes doing watch what you do...but in that case you might as well get in a gym. also you can pick up a lot of bad habits if youre not careful

might wanna check out this old coach, hes awesome and he knows what hes talking about:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-ugc...eature=related

but really you should join a gym

also in order to improve your fighting skills you have to spar. hitting air and practicing moves is good and all but i dont think it improves your fighting skills. when you get punched you will forget about all these moves you learned because youre not used to getting punched and you dont know how to react. your instincts have to take over and you only get these instincts by sparring

why dont you want to join a gym anyway

Thanks everyone. I dont want to go to no gym because of laziness being one. I think i could just about commit to reading a book and try following it.
It is just so more convenient if i could learn to defend myself from reading a book is how im thinking and not have to travel to a gym and stuff is the main one. I might go to a gym 2 or 3 times but i dont know if i could keep it up.

[hugh grant]

But it does make me wonder why there are so many self defence books etc.

But i suppose if by reading a book on learning boxing. On a scale of becoming a bad ass of 1-10.

no training or reading is 0 on the bad ass scale, and being being trained by freddie roach is 10 on the become badass scale.

I suppose by reading and studying a book alone, i could rise to 3 on the bad ass scale at least hopefully. So reading a book might be better than doing absolutely nothing.