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Knockout Tips for Coaching Boxing to Children
England Boxing Level 2 coach Kenny Udenwoke teaches the noble art to children and young people at Fight for Peace in North Woolwich, London. Kenny shares his insight on how to implement child-first coaching in a boxing setting, and how boxing can be used as a powerful tool to engage, educate, and support young people to thrive.
Included in this article:
by Blake Richardson
Kenny Udenwoke – like every boxing coach – is so much more than ‘just a coach’ who teaches children how to box.
His seat of learning is a boxing gym in an under resourced area of east London, where he uses boxing as an engagement tool to support children and young people to gain valuable personal development and leadership skills and helps them build meaningful relationships with coaches, mentors, and friends.
Boxing packs a powerful punch
The process of learning to box can be transformative for individual lives and whole communities.
Recognising young people as agents of change, coaches support boxers to reach their full potential and become their best selves by giving them access to a safe environment that meets their basic human rights to play, be heard, and develop.
Too often people with the most to gain from being active are the least able to take part in sport and physical activity, but boxing clubs help to remove the traditional barriers to getting active that are prevalent in inner-city areas.
A child-first approach to teaching kids boxing provides incremental, leading to fundamental, long-term change by:
- impacting positively on children and young people’s personal and social development
- improving their behaviour through fostering trust and learning to build strong relationships
- improving their employment chances by giving them transferable skills for life
- thereby helping to build stronger, more cohesive communities.
Qualities of a child-first boxing coach
Kenny teaches two twilight classes (7–11-year-olds and 11–14s) and assists with the development of the over-14 age group, as well as coaching the competitive boxers at the club.
But you will not see him holding court in his ‘classroom’, lecturing his young charges and exercising his authority over them to impose his own ideas, thoughts, and opinions.
Kenny is an advocate of a child-first approach to coaching children boxing, which means his participants have a pivotal role in their own boxing education, from being involved in the design of sessions and activities, right through to influencing the strategic direction of the club.
I would say that is the most important thing for any boxing coach to understand: that children and young people’s holistic development should always come above their boxing development,” says Kenny.
“A children’s coach should be able to relate to young people and will coach the young person first instead of the sport.
“Some other key qualities you need to coach are to be open-minded; open to learning; inclusive and adaptable in terms of planning and modifying sessions, so you get the desired outcomes for every one of your boxers; and the willingness to recognise the importance of having fun for children.”
Kenny takes issue with those he refers to as “old-school coaches” who employ a ‘do it my way’ coaching methodology and philosophy.
There may be boxing coaches who have encyclopaedic coaching knowledge and exhaustive boxing knowledge and who may have even been professional boxers themselves, “but that doesn’t mean to say they can coach children.”
Kenny says he has witnessed first-hand coaches whose principal intention is to toughen the children up and mold them in their own image.
“You can see the children aren’t comfortable in that type of setting and they won’t learn much and probably won’t last long in the boxing club. That doesn’t happen at Fight for Peace.
I can tell you that I would rather be coached by someone new to coaching, who has never boxed but who prioritises children’s holistic development, than someone who doesn’t know how to coach the individual before the sport. Because in time, that coach will learn. It is only the experience they are lacking.”
Coaching boxing to kids: Tips and Need-to-Knows
How do you teach boxing to beginners?
Kenny gives an example of how the transferable skills that boxing teaches young people can be put to good use in other areas of life.
Take the simple practice of learning how to throw a jab. Kenny will not teach his beginners this basic boxing punch until they have first learnt the correct footwork and boxing stance.
And he will not move on to teaching his boxers how to throw a cross until everybody can deliver a textbook jab.
A dedication to getting the fundamentals right before taking the next step forward in your progression as a boxer is an important life lesson.
When I was learning all these skills in boxing, I benefited from putting in the groundwork. It became second nature to me, so much so that I took this approach into my schoolwork. I would not move past a topic until things made sense to me first and I had that solid foundational knowledge. I thank boxing for that.”
It should go without saying that beginner boxing sessions must be fun.
Kenny weaves frequent ‘game days’ into his training programme to prevent any prospect of flagging enthusiasm among his beginners.
“I have two or three-week cycles where we focus on learning boxing skills and then we will have a games day, where the children get to choose their favourite games – like dodgeball or bulldog.
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“I’m careful to always have fun elements in the boxing sessions as well but this gives children the opportunity to de-stress and takes their mind away from boxing for one night every few weeks, which is especially important for the younger children.”
Watch our video case study, Fight for Peace Deliver Perfect Combination of Life Lessons and Laughter, for more tips on how to create a fun learning environment at your boxing club.
How to plan a boxing session
‘Talking circles’ is an effective tool for building connections. Kenny uses the relationship-building strategy to help new starters immediately feel at home at his sessions. They help to create a safe, non-judgmental space where each participant can speak and know they are being listened to.
When we meet people for the first time, we form an impression of them in a matter of seconds. So, it is important to make sure that the first impression a new boxer has of their coach and clubmates is a positive one.
“I always break the ice with a new starter by gathering everyone in a circle,” explains Kenny. “We will go round and say our names and a little bit about ourselves. By everyone being asked to do the same thing, the new child is made to feel welcome and doesn’t feel like an outsider. The circle is protective and inclusive and helps to build that early bond.”
When coaching children boxing, the warm-up should not be too arduous. Introduce some functional movement patterns, whilst at the same time making the warm-up fun and games-based.
As Kenny explains, basic biomechanical fitness work, such as stretching and posture exercises, do not need to be bland and suck the fun out of sessions.
“Everyone will do the warm-up. Some like it, some don’t like it quite so much, but everyone agrees it is beneficial to them.
“As they jog around the outside of the gym, I will ask them to change direction, touch the floor with their left hand, right hand, both hands, high knee raises. Then I might shout a number, and they have to get into groups of that number. They don’t care who they are getting into groups with; they just don’t want to be left by themselves and be the odd one out, and this helps them bond with people other than their friends.”
Get the children involved in the decision-making by asking them what exercise they want to add to the warm-up. Give them a suggestion, like jumping off the floor and pretending to head a ball, or leaping over a fence, and let their creative ideas flow.
Giving them a voice and an element of choice will help your children feel like they have some power and control over what they do and will help you to build rapport with your participants.
The quality of the warm-up can directly affect the quality of performance in the session and is another example of a learning opportunity disguised through gameplay. The added benefit is that a good warm-up will also improve fundamental movement skills, due to the repeated actions of deceleration and acceleration and weight transfer, as boxers dip down into different positions and back up again.
As much as boxers just want to start throwing punches after the warm-up, safety comes first, and Kenny will demonstrate the correct technique first.
“When coaching boxing to kids, you can’t let them throw punches if they are going to injure themselves doing it!”
Kenny will demonstrate how to set the correct stance before developing the technique for throwing straight punches.
The entire group can join in the opening exercise. As Kenny says, “everyone can touch up on the basics”, so while beginners practise maintaining the correct stance whilst learning how to throw punches, those with more boxing experience can practise their technique for generating power from different punches and combinations whilst retaining their balance, or work on their agility, moving around whilst practising slipping and rolling punches.
Kenny will ask questions as the session progresses to reinforce the learning that takes place.
For example, ‘what have you learned about the need to maintain your balance by doing that exercise?’
Answers could include: ‘I have learnt not to cross my feet when throwing a jab’, or, ‘I have learnt that it’s easier to keep my balance by moving forward and jabbing at the same time.’
For safety reasons, sparring is not permitted for any boxer under the age of 10 years old, but elements of sparring can still be introduced. Shoulder taps and knee taps, while in the boxing stance, mimic the movements of sparring.
“For a jab, you will touch your partner’s shoulder with your glove, while you score a ‘hit’ if you touch your partner’s knee with your knee pad,” explains Kenny.
Full-contact sparring is only permitted when a boxer officially registers with England Boxing and passes an annual medical.
VIDEO CASE STUDY
Watch Kenny coaching. We filmed a Twilight session to document the club culture and coaching practice at Fight for Peace.
WATCH NOW
How to tailor a boxing session to individual wants and needs
The problem with splitting a training session up into those who want to compete and those who don’t is that a lot of the time you get fifty-fifties, explains Kenny.
Some want to compete, but they don’t want to commit, whilst others want to commit but don’t know if they want to compete.
“It is important therefore not to put young boxers into a category: recreational, competitor, boxercise.
“I always ask them what it is that they want to learn: If they say, ‘I want to learn how to defend myself’, then I will respond, ‘Okay, that is what I'm going to teach you’.
If they turn around and say, ‘I really enjoyed that’, then I will give them their other options and we will discuss the pros and cons of each so that they can make an informed choice of what they want to work on next. It is their journey after all.
“We never say to a young person, ‘you have to do this or that.’ You must treat them as an individual and give them the choice.”
The key to retaining participants is the element of choice, so they are free to meander and choose whatever path works for them and feels right.
Coaching youth boxing isn’t something that is done to children and young people, it is something that is done with and for them, and the coach acts as the facilitator on that young person’s journey, not the driver.
Give young people control of the steering wheel, in other words, so that they can develop at their own pace, in the direction they choose.
How to motivate youth boxers
A boxing coach has a responsibility to create an environment for motivation to flourish.
If you love boxing, this can in itself provide sufficient motivation. But when coaching boxing to kids there might still be times when you need to inspire and provide a touch more external motivation to your participants.
Making sessions challenging and enjoyable will help fuel participants’ motivation, and the use of motivational language can also directly impact energy and engagement levels.
Kenny will work his way around the gym, cajoling and encouraging his boxers to ignite a spark in the players or add fuel to the spark they may already have.
Instead of saying to a boxer ‘hit the pads harder’, he might phrase it: ‘You’ve got more in you. Come on. I know you’ve got it in you’… and then throw them a compliment when they respond appropriately: ‘Wow, AJ would have been proud of that combination’.
Knowing what makes every boxer in your group tick will help you judge what intervention is required and when it is required.
“I will tailor my response to each individual, having taken the time to learn all their strengths and their areas for development,” he says.
“One girl I teach has difficulty with her cross, although she has a lovely jab. So, I will say, ‘I know you have a great jab. Give me five of your best crosses. Make them count’. In her head she is now fully focused on her technique and keen to impress, as I’ve just highlighted an area she excels in.”
The energy and enthusiasm exhibited by the coach can be infectious – “when you are coaching boxing to kids, they feed off your energy and emotions” – but the opposite is also true.
As Kenny explains: “If you go into a session in a bad mood and say something like ‘I haven’t got time for any of your games today. We're just going to work.’ They are likely to mirror your bad mood.”
Final thoughts on coaching children boxing
Boxing is a powerful magnet drawing children and young people to the gym, but on their arrival, it is the child-first coach who holds the key to unlocking the many added-value features of boxing.
Young people will come down to train with us and are then exposed to a whole different kind of learning that they never even realised,” says Kenny.
The unique power of boxing to support people to develop and thrive stems from the fact that affiliated clubs are often in the most under resourced communities. But it needs coaches to harness this potential. As role models working at the beating heart of our communities, they play a pivotal role in making young boxers feel supported, respected, and valued, and as such they hold a unique power themselves.
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About the contributor
Kenny Udenwoke is an England Boxing Level 2 coach at Fight for Peace based in North Woolwich, London.
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