Flinching, power, and being light on your feet

I saw this excellent question on How to Box for Fitness or Competition (check it out):

"hello, I have now been boxing for about 4 or 5 months and spar atleast once a week! I have quite a good denfence however I wish I was lighter on my feet. The problems that I am having though is 1) Lack of power in my punches and mainly 2) Alot of the time when people are throwing punches at me I close my eyes, look away, flinch and cringe etc. I really need to stop this. Would somebody please help me with this. Thanks alot" See the post here.

My reply was:

As far as footwork (getting lighter on your feet), the best things are jumping rope, and running. When you do roadwork, don't just jog or sprint normally, run backward for a distance every couple of minutes, and skip sideways as well. There are a lot of footwork drills out there, but rope skipping seems to be the thing that increases your endurance and the bounce in your step the most.

I have an unorthodox (no, not southpaw!) answer to the power questions: heavy bag, and timing/double-ended bag. If you don't have good technique, you'll end up just pushing the heavy bag, not hitting it. You want to pop the bag and drive through only a couple of inches, not try to move it. The bag should jump. The second component of power punching is timing. I think this is the most important. The timing bag develops the timing and distance in rythme to hit a moving opponent when he's coming forward, which can make up for a lack of mass.

As far as the flinch, you need to drill it. Have someone flick jabs at you over and over until you overcome it. You can. Just need to focus.

Any ideas? Go to How-To-Box and help out.

For more:
The Flinch, The Blink And The Turn Away
Today's TDA Tip: Fight fire with water
Is Knockout Power Important?
Whence the power? How do you apply force in fighting?
The Art of The Big Punch
Interesting post on Footwork