What is Shadowboxing?

Shadowboxing is a freestyle training where you work on your fighting techniques - strikes, blocks, sweeps and slips, on your posture, composure, movement and coordination, and on your fighting strategy - like setting up a certain technique, fakes, signature moves and so on. It is performed against imaginary targets and a basic visualization of the hits being exchanged is highly recommended so you can develop a certain fighting logic. It is not recommended to visualize that you actually fight with a certain person (unless you go in the ring against that certain person), otherwise you can increase your anger which, in turn, decreases your skill. 

It can be practiced fast, or slow, hard or soft, as a warming up before training or as a cool down after training, or as a cardio workout. This is where your imagination can kick in - shadowbox underwater, in the dark, in a mirror, with headphones on, in your mind, with weights on, while running, on the street, in the toilet, on a rooftop, in the forest, etc. 

Fighting doesn't always happen in a ring unfortunately, so you better be prepared with all sorts of environments. Also, you may notice that each environment inspires your practice in a different way. So, different shadowboxing forms will come out in different environments and from different moods. If shadowboxing always looks the same then it is not shadowboxing, it is just practicing or, at the best, sharpening a certain technique. 

The main aim of shadowboxing is to help you develop your fighting flow. Traditional forms have their own benefits, techniques and strategies, they have their own rhythm, shadowboxing is about developing your own form and finding your own rhythm. It is supposed to help you sharpen your striking combinations, your defense and counter attack, and it allows you to be as free as you can be, since fighting is not at all an organized activity. Real fighting is complete chaos. 

When you shadowbox you can make the best use of your spontaneity and creativity. This way you can see which movements come more natural for you, and which movements block your flow and you can start shooting without thinking. You punch when you feel, not when you think, and sometimes that sensation that you have to punch now is very organic. Sometimes it feels like the punches and kicks go by themselves. 

Thinking - as the kind of thinking you use in a game of chess - takes too much time! The longest chess game ever took 20 hours and it ended up to be a draw - it's cool to play chess for 20 hours, but you can't fight for 20 hours. You don't have time to think in a fight. So you have to use your intelligence in such a way that it doesn't involve too much of that kind of thinking with which you have been used to for your entire life. 

When watching boxing games or MMA fights some people may consider that there is just raw power against raw power, and whoever is stronger wins. Many times it happens this way, unfortunately. But if you watch a good game carefully, more than once, you start to notice that it is not just about raw power. A smart fighter will outbox any opponent, regardless of his strength. I believe nobody is invincible, but there have already been fighters in the history of boxing who haven't lost a single match throughout their whole professional career, such as Rocky Marciano or Floyd Mayweather. If boxing, or fighting in general, wouldn't have involved a certain type of intelligence then such records couldn't have existed!

When shadowboxing, you have to think without thinking. Because if I just say that you don't have to think at all, then some people may get back to seeing it as a power based training or as a mechanical or even mindless activity.

You have to be there with all your senses, with everything you've got, you have to dedicate your whole you to this practice, and although from outside it looks easy - because you basically punch air, you will find out after a few minutes that it is quite exhausting - on all levels.

Throwing combinations you may find out that you get out of balance so you learn how to keep yourself centered. While practicing traditional forms you go through a series of traditional stances and most of the time these stances are already designed to keep you balanced. When punching the heavy bag many people just stay in one place and start shooting at the bag - which is not complete. While shadowboxing you move as freely and as naturally as you can, so you have to see for yourself which kind of steps help you and which don't, what kind of stances give you power and which don't.

Although it is called shadowboxing, you don't have to just punch - you can kick, use your elbows, your knees, all your body. Remember, there are no rules for shadowboxing! Muay Thai practitioners use to shadowbox a lot and they use their whole body. Boxers, kickboxers, MMA fighters - everybody who goes in a ring has to shadowbox. This is the easiest and safest way to see how would you do in a fight. If you only practice traditional fighting stances and only hit bags and pads you don't even know how to move towards the target - you only know how to hit a target from a very comfortable and usual position. 

At the same time, shadowboxing is not just a preparatory training for fighting. You can simply enjoy yourself throwing a punch or a kick and test yourself to see how much more power, speed and balance you can put in that technique.  It is yet another way of moving freely!

Some Shadowboxing clips from trainings:

And some Shadowboxing Tutorials from different artists: