Does This Sound Like a Good Gym?

Right I know there are a couple of threads about first nights of boxing already kicking around, and I have read the new(ish) sticky, but I just wanted your opinion on this place I went tonight.

It is a boxing gym in a small town near my home. The coach apparently has loads of amateur bouts under his belt, but I don’t know at what level- great fighters don’t necessarily make great coaches from what I hear. So he was very friendly when i got there, answered all my questions frankly.

He said that I wouldn’t have to compete, and that many of his pupils don’t. I said I wanted to and he was quick to say that he and his coaches would tell me if they thought I was ready, and would not let me do it if I wasn’t.

Unfortunately he was taking a couple of fighters to a show, so I couldn’t talk to him at any length. The gym had two chin up bars, five heavy bags an uppercut bag (I think) and some weird ball thing hanging on a rope.

It also had a ring. All this in a shack with a tin roof. The gym is open three times a week, although from what he said I think he actually opens it every day for the guys he is training for a fight. The group there tonight was split in two.

One group was on the jump ropes, the other on the bags. Then everyone would go at it, switching bags after each round if thats what they were on, working to two minute rounds with 30 seconds rest. Around mid way through the session (which was an hour and a half) they switched over bags to ropes and vice versa.

While this was going on some guys, I guess the ones who compete would be called into the ring to do some focus pad work or to spar. There were two coaches doing this, while the head coach (who looked like Kelly Pavlik, so a good sign I reckon!) walked around coaching the guys on the bags.

At the end for the last half hour everyone moved onto strength endurance work, rotating round push ups, core work and chin ups.

Does this all sound right? My main concern was that as a noob I would get lost in the middle of all the stuff going on. There wasn’t much coaching going on outside of the ring. To be fair this may have been because the head coach left early as I said.

The guys I spoke to all said that he was a great coach “if you were honest with him”, and he would “make you good”. It was funny how many made that point about being honest or not lying to him, I don’t know why.

So does this sound like somewhere I want to be training? I know there’s a limit to what you can say over the internet, but just let me know your intial thoughts.

Cheers

I would say check back a couple nights if you can, and see if you can do a week or so for a trial. You may have seen his ‘experienced’ guys, like an advanced class or something. You would probably want a beginner class, you should ask if they have one–one that will teach you the basics, and reinforce them. You won’t learn as much if you are just thrown in with experienced guys(even though you might think that).

Hi boatguy,

cheers for the reply. The class I saw was the only one they run, there is no beginners’ class. Whether this is a problem or not, I don’t really know.