PUT UP YOUR DUKES
For several decades, Steve DeMasco has been our go-to guy for all things Shaolin, not to mention an authority on kenpo. If you’ve read the magazine for any length of time, you know that — and you know that he serves as the temple’s martial arts ambassador. What you might not know is that he got his martial start in boxing. Although he now regards it as too violent for his tastes, in this article, he freely discusses the benefits he gleaned from the time he spent studying the sweet science.
— Editor
Background: I boxed when I was 16, 17 and 18 and did very well. At one point, however, I decided not to go professional, so I got into martial arts — specifically, uechi-ryu karate. Uechi-ryu is a traditional style that focuses on hand strikes and kicks. The kicks are mostly low and there was a tremendous amount of body conditioning, making it a very powerful art.
Transition: Boxing did not translate well to uechi-ryu. The art was too rigid. But I immediately realized that I would benefit from the hand speed I’d learned in boxing. That’s all we did in our boxing workouts. We learned three major punches — the jab, the right punch and the hook — and we practiced them every day.
Many people think of the “big four” — the jab, cross, hook and uppercut — when they think of
