Charm City Karate

Defense is important (just look at the Raven’s SuperBowl win), but alot of people give it second fiddle. Don’t believe me? Think about how many times you’ve seen a “karate guy” demonstrate his awesomeness by breaking something. Now think about how many times you’ve seen one demonstrate how well he can avoid being hit. Hrm. Me, I like defense…I prefer to be the one doing the hitting, as opposed to being the one getting hit.

Boxing has three important defensive skills that can seriously bolster karate skills (I use karate in the generic sense of “striking arts”, not any specific system, ‘kay?). Slipping, clinching, and counter punching. They are also pretty strict about the whole “don’t reach across your body to block/ parry” thing, which is good. I mean, it’s one thing to reach across yourself when you’re caught flatfooted, it’s another thing entirely to do so from a ready position. Why check your own weapons? duh.

Okay, so now let’s revisit each one a bit, and expand on them and how they can help. Assume a L2L stance for the examples.

Slipping

Karate guys call this moving out of the way, but proper Slipping is really much more. Slipping is used to move the target (typically the head) just out of the way. Notice, I did NOT say “way over there!”; just out of the way. To Slip a jab, you shift your weight (slightly) to the outside of the arm, allowing it to pass over your left shoulder. To Slip a cross, pivot to an almost forward bow, allowing it to pass over your right shoulder. A proper Slip will leave the breeze in your hair as the punch goes by. Why? Because the closer you are when you start to hit back, the better your position is. We’ve all seen the MMA guy who backpedals away from a punch in the ring…what happens to him next? He either gets tagged by the second shot (meh!) or has to stop, reset, and then counter. That’s, what, three moves just to hit back?

Slipping leaves you in the perfect spot to hit back, you are out of the way, and he is exposed. Slipping also allows you to hit back while you do it; no need for any of that silly taking turns stuff. Did you notice the openings when you practiced the jab and cross Slips above? Good.

Another neat thing is that when you Slip, you will be presenting hard, rounded surfaces to your opponent’s attacks. Ever notice that old castle towers were round? That’s so the catapult rocks and stuff would glance off. A solid hit would transfer loads of kinetic energy to the structure, ruining it; but a glancing shot only transfers some of the energy. Getting punched in the face sucks, I know, but getting punched in the flat side of your head, where you take all of the juice, is much worse. The idea is not necessarily to avoid being hit, but to make the hits not matter so much.

In my opinion, the best ever at slipping was Roy Jones Jr.

Clinching

Clinching is basically just grabbing the dude that’s hitting you. A defensive Clinch is good to practice because you can use it when you get rattled or overwhelmed. To execute a defensive Clinch, wrap your right arm around the back of his neck, and your left arm around his right. Pull him in close, head to your shoulder, arm past your hip, and put your head against his chest. The right arm wrap keeps him from unloading on you; the head wrap keeps him from getting away (and with a little down pull to it, keeps the evil knees away); and putting your head on his chest beats the uppercut. Stay here until you’ve recovered or the ref stops it.

The offensive Clinch, also known as the Thai Clinch, is a good way to keep the opponent in a defensive mode. Grab him by the back of his neck with both hands, put your forearms along his collarbones, and anchor your elbows. You can now pull him down into knee strikes, side to side to defeat his offense, and occasionally let go on one side to sneak a hook or elbow into his head. Best example: Silva v Franklin

Karate guys like to pretend that they will never be in a position where they need the Clinch; I like to pretend I’ll never need my seat belts. But does my car have them? Yes. If you get good at it and never need it, where’s the harm? If you should need it one day, and don’t have it…

Counter Punching

Counter Punching is the hardest, in my opinion, to learn. It can also be the most destructive to your opponent, and the least defensive in appearance. I list this as a defensive skill because if you have two Counter Punchers, you generally don’t have much of a fight. Counter Punching only works when your opponent is trying to hit you – thus leaving room for the Counter.

The basic premise is what it sounds like: you wait until he tries to hit you, then you hit him. The key though is that you are hitting him either on his preparation to hit you, or during his action. If he hits you, then you hit him, you’re really just trading, and that sucks. Sorry. Counter Punching requires either great speed, or excellent timing, or both. Just hitting the other guy doesn’t counter either. A good example would be your opponent starting a right cross, and you hitting him in the nose with a jab before he can rotate into it. Every time he tries to fire, you disrupt his attacks with yours. See why you need speed and timing?

If you are good at Slipping, you can use it AND Counter Punching together. Very frustrating.

Work on it. Practice. If you are unsure how to do any of this, seek competent instruction. Preferably at Charm City Karate, but anywhere good will do. Unless, of course, you like spending months re-inventing the wheel.

Till next time!

Mr J

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 at 2:10 pm and is filed under Training Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.