English Vocabulary & Expressions from Boxing

Okay. What am I doing now, guys? Have a look over here. What am I doing? What am I doing?

That's right. I was skipping. Okay. Punches now. Which one is this? Yeah, that is a jab.

Okay. Today, we are looking at boxing. This will be a useful lesson even if you have no

interest in the sport because we will be looking at some boxing idioms a little bit later in the

lesson, and they're useful to know just for your general English. You'll start to hear them. You'll

notice, "Ah, yeah. Yeah, that was in Benjamin's engVid video about boxing," and you'll start to

then use them, which will make your vocab richer, and if you're doing exam English, it's only going

to benefit your marks. Also, it's good listening practice to make sure you can understand the

whole lesson, and the test of that is whether you do well in the quiz at the end of the lesson.

If you are into boxing, then this could help you because if you're studying in English,

then you're going to be able to box and train in English. If you go to an English-speaking

country, I'm not saying you'll know everything about boxing by the end of this lesson, but

hopefully, there'll be a couple more words that you might know. So, things you might need and do

in training. It's a fantastic workout doing boxing, and you don't necessarily have to be a

really aggressive person to enjoy it. It's just a really full-body workout. So, you'll definitely

need a gum shield. That is a protective case around your teeth, and you won't be allowed to

fight with another person or spar, which is like practice fighting, unless you have one of those

in. Training will involve lots of push-ups, yep, where you're pushing yourself up and down off the

floor. Sit-ups, where you're curling up with the chest, lying on the floor, going up like that.

Squats, where you're bending from your knees. Skipping, I demonstrated. Sparring is where

you're put with a partner to do some boxing, and you're not trying to kill each other. Yeah, it's a

practice, okay? Now, if you actually go to a boxing match, if you're participating in a boxing match,

then your team will be in a corner, and the opposition will be in another corner. You see the

professional boxers, they sit down on a stool, and they're being wiped with towels, and water put

over them, any cuts they look at. Yep, so in your corner, and this will feature later in an idiom.

The number of rounds. I think I'm right in saying that a round in boxing is about two minutes. So,

it starts with a ring on a bell when the bell goes, and it ends when the bell goes. And maybe

however many rounds there are in that particular boxing match. Okay, some more boxing vocab. About,

about, can you pronounce that? About, about means a fight. A brawler, brawler, brawler. A brawler is

a fighter. Yeah, quite a rough fighter. A bar brawl is a fight in a bar. So, a brawler is a

fighter. A clinch is where you kind of hang on like this, and you're stopping that person from

hitting you. Clinch, kind of like that. A combination is maybe you've practiced something

in training, you're going to go, yep. So, it's the sequence of punches that you put together.

Could be a hook, which is round, and you always keep your hands up here. This is your guard. So,

a hook goes round, or round, yep, like that. The jab is sort of straight, straightforward. I can

just imagine my friends watching this video finding it quite funny. And an uppercut is under,

like that, yep. It goes up. You're aiming for a knockout when you knock the other person down,

quite aggressive. So, a knockout, yeah, the person doesn't get up, yep. That's the end of the fight.

If there is no knockout in a boxing match, then the judges will decide who the winner is. And a

majority decision means that most of the judges think that one of the boxers has won. So, majority

means, like, most of. And we can use majority decision in other areas of life, not just boxing.

Mandatory eight count. So, eight count, one, two. This is when the boxer is down on the ground,

and the referee, umpire, whatever you call it in boxing, is counting. And if he gets to eight,

then the match is over, okay? So, mandatory means kind of compulsory, has to happen. If they go down

on the ground, then they get eight count to get up. The promoter is the person who is promoting

the battle, the boxing match between the two fighters, and trying to get television rights,

to fill the stadium so that the boxers get paid. Now, there are lots of different classifications

based on weight. Welterweight, middleweight, super heavyweight, featherweight. There's lots

of different ones. And they're on set weights. So, before a professional boxing match, there's

always a weigh-in, where they pretend to be... Well, they don't pretend, they are quite tough,

these guys. So that they go for a public weigh-in to make sure they are in the correct classification,

the weigh-in, where the boxers go to get weighed. Okay, let's have a look at the idioms to do with

boxing. This is my belt. If you hit me below my belt, it's going to hurt, and it will be against

the rules. You're not, in boxing, allowed to hit under the belt. It has to be from here up. So,

something that is below the belt is kind of just... It's not following the... How things should be,

yeah? It's just not how things are done. That's a little bit below the belt. It's like,

that was a little bit unnecessary. A blow-by-blow account. So, in the boxing match,

there's going to be hundreds and hundreds of punches. If you give a blow-by-blow account,

you're going to tell me about each punch. So, a blow-by-blow account of something,

not necessarily boxing, is a very detailed report of what's happened.

Down and out. If I have punched the other competitor, and he's down on the ground,

and he's passed out, knocked out, yeah? He's not going to do very well in this fight, yeah? It's

over. Someone who is down and out has lost any hope. It's sometimes used to describe

rough sleepers as a down and out, yeah? It's quite a sort of negative connotation.

Down for the count. This is someone who's been knocked out, yep? They're down on the ground,

and the umpire is going, "One, two, three," yep? So, someone who's down for the count

is, like, not very conscious. To come out fighting straight from the beginning, the guy's like,

yep? It means to come out immediately aggressive, immediately wanting to

engage, not to be pushed over, yeah? Someone who comes out fighting is, you know, they're up for

it. To go the distance means that you last from the beginning of the match all the way through

to the end. If you go the distance, then, you know, you're like a battery. You have a long,

long life. You have a lot of energy.

Have someone in your corner. This means to have someone who's supporting you. You know,

we spoke about having someone in your corner. It's the person who's there and making sure you've

got a little bit of water to drink and is putting a towel across your head.

Someone to support you. To keep one's guard up. This is the guard, yep? Because it stops the

So, if you have your guard up, then you're quite defensive.

You don't reveal many secrets, yep? You're slightly closed.

On the ropes. There is rope around the edge of the boxing ring.

Now, if you are punching a person you're fighting with and you have them against the ropes,

then they are in a very vulnerable position. So, if you are on the ropes,

then it means, like, you're really, really struggling. Things are going really, really badly.

Okay? To roll with the punches. So, someone might be really

hitting me quite badly, and it's like, can you take the punches? Can you keep going? Can you,

rather than just, like, falling down on the ground, can you just hang in there and

maybe they're hitting you, but you continue to fight? So, if you're rolling with the punches,

then maybe life isn't going so well, but you keep going.

Saved by the bell. You're being so badly beaten up, but you know that in, like, 10 seconds,

the bell will go. So, you're just hanging in there, you're hanging in, you're hanging in there,

and just as the guy was about to go, knock out, the bell goes, and you're like, ah,

safe. So, saved by the bell means, like, just in time. I was just okay. Oh, that was lucky.

Saved by the bell. But it's to do with time, like something's happened just in time.

To take it on the chin. So, yep, someone punches you on the chin, yep, can you go,

can you sort of, can you bear the pain? If you take something on the chin, then maybe someone

criticizes you, and instead of going, no, you can't do that, and insulting them, like, okay,

fine, I can deal with that. To take something on the chin. To cope with a criticism.

Throw in the towel. I've had enough. I've lost. Yep, I give up. You throw in the towel,

then you are, like, surrendering. I am going to throw in the towel unless right now you go on,

and you do the quiz on boxing, and I need to know that you're one of my subscribers, yep,

so you get more videos from me. Had lots of useful boxing idioms. The main thing is with

this, guys, if you're going to take the time to watch these videos, you need to use the

everyday life, okay? Write down some, start using them. Thank you so much for watching,

and I'll see you in the next video.