# make me stop flinching...please :-)



## denmyos (May 12, 2009)

When i sparre i flinch alot, its very annoying.
When im very tired a can fell my whole "body" kind flinching when i´m getting hit in the face. 
Is there anyway you can do some home alone training, to avoid this.


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## jarrod (May 12, 2009)

flinching is a natural response that is there to protect you.  rather than trying to stop flinching, fine-tune your flinching, if that makes sense.  use that conditioned response to get your hands up.  eventually when you "flinch" you'll block & counter.  it takes a while, but most people have a response like what you're describing when they start sparring.  

wanting to move when something dangerous is flying at your head isn't a bad thing.  you just have to train yourself to move correctly.

jf


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## seasoned (May 12, 2009)

Flinching is an over reaction to an opponents techniques. In sparring, distancing is very important, and must be maintained at all times. Once you can manage distance, at lease leg length from your opponent, then you can move with your opponent. Concentrate on large body movement and not every hand movement they do. Once you can manage the distance between you and them, you can freely move away, around, or into them, for an attack or counter. In time and with patience, your movements will change from over reaction to very deliberate.  At this time the problem you may face is becoming to cocky while sparring, but you can cross that road when you get there. The only way to overcome your flinching is to gain more confidence in your abilities, and partner training, it is hard to do it on your own.


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## Jenna (May 12, 2009)

I wonder are you accustomed to taking hits?  I have seen this in the boxing gym - to drill out the flinch (especially in the younger ones) they would have them take five 'guards down', simply to indurate them against the flinch.  The idea being that you will be less naturally worried over what might be coming!

I would just also like to make the point that the more attacking your mindset, the less time you will spend worrying about being hit.  You will flinch less when your mental focus is on attacking.  Common sense I guess 

I do not know of any home training for flinching except working on your footwork/dodge and guard position 

Good luck
Yr most obdt hmble srvt,
Jenna


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## Xue Sheng (May 12, 2009)

spar more


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## Sukerkin (May 12, 2009)

Good advice above, ladies and gents.  I just wanted to point out that flinching is not just a problem in the unarmed arts.  

I had a lot of experience in giving and taking hits in my Lau days and I still had to overcome reflexive body and head movements when I started with the partner forms in iai.  Staying still when someone is swinging a bokken at your head is not easy .

Aside:  the point being that you only move at the last split second so that the strike misses you by so little that, for that moment, the opponent thinks they have hit you and are open to counter-attack.


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## redantstyle (May 12, 2009)

you'll get used to it.


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## dnovice (May 13, 2009)

You are afraid of getting hit so... learn to take hits and see that its not that bad. Another reason people flinch is because they are caught of gaurd so work on your awareness while sparring. 

If you get hit you get hit. Just make sure you trade;-)


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## denmyos (May 13, 2009)

I have notich when i spar, i see the punch coming, flinch, and the get hit.
I guess im getting hit when i have my eyes closed.
Somehow i have to change that, so instead off flinching i block or move away.  

I don't no if im afraid of getting hit, but i still hesitate attacking cause i think about what will happend if i miss. 
So when i spar i mostly run around waiting for the right moment to attack, which ofcause never comes.


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## Sukerkin (May 13, 2009)

It sounds as if you know what it is that you are doing wrong, *denmyos*.  That's half the battle won already .  

The part that comes next is a little harder as you have to overcome those instincts which are causing the problems.  However, you should take comfort from the fact that nearly all of us have had to go through this period of adjustment at one point or another.


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## mook jong man (May 13, 2009)

When I first started chi sau sparring , I used to be afraid of one of my instructors because I knew what was coming when I sparred him . Lets just say he didn't give no quarter and didn't expect any in return , I was so scared of him that when he trapped me or threw a strike I would close my eyes or even worse turn my head away. 

The only way I got over this was to tell myself that I would not blink and I would not turn my head away just before I sparred him and during the sparring . I still got hit a lot but at least I could see what the hell it was that hit me and how it hit me .

 Pain being the good teacher that it is gradually I was able to counter a lot of his attacks , mostly because I was able to relax and accept that sometimes I would get hit , so it didn't seem that much of a big deal anymore.

 Another thing you can do is to just stand there with your hands behind your back and get a partner to throw fast punches at your face from just out of range , especially at your eyes . Trust in your partner that he won't hit you and just relax and try not to blink or flinch as the strikes are coming in.


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## DeadlyShins (May 20, 2009)

I say spar more too...and get hit some.  That helped me.


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## Gamble (Jun 28, 2009)

Spar alot more, get used to taking the hits, thus eradicating the momentary feeling of "im gonna get hit, move!" Once this has been accomplished, start off with having a partner, who will go to hit you but in a slower movement, then block and strike, either at the same time or block then strike. Then once you feel you have got the technique correct, slowly build up the speed until you get into real time movements.


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## Touch Of Death (Jun 30, 2009)

Jenna said:


> I wonder are you accustomed to taking hits? I have seen this in the boxing gym - to drill out the flinch (especially in the younger ones) they would have them take five 'guards down', simply to indurate them against the flinch. The idea being that you will be less naturally worried over what might be coming!
> 
> I would just also like to make the point that the more attacking your mindset, the less time you will spend worrying about being hit. You will flinch less when your mental focus is on attacking. Common sense I guess
> 
> ...


 Its really quite simple. You must retrain your flinch response. If you do flinch, flinch as a unit; meaning, don't just jerk you head away, stay compact and move your whole body. But as afar as home training.... get willing partner stand facing them and simply let them hit you with varying targets and gradualy increased force. Rather than flinching or moving away, accept the strike, and train a specific response, such as touching your heart, or saying, "Thank you Sir, may I have another?" , or what ever it doesn't matter. The trick is to have a disciplined response. In India, they train elephants by constantly tapping them on the face with a reed while, at the same time, telling them what good elephants thay are and feeding them treats. Pretty soon the elephants don't flinch, They want the contact.
Sean


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## Akira (Jul 1, 2009)

Sometimes getting your *** whooped is good for you.

Stop being such a ***** is all the advice I can give you.

You're learning muay thai, you're going to get hit.  

If you're flinching when you're tired your body is probably trying to fall asleep.

Why you would fall asleep when someone is trying to beat you down is beyond me.


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## xoek (Jul 5, 2009)

the jab-catch-jab drill is a god send. get a partner and just like the name says. he's going to jab at you aiming at your face, your job is too parry the jab and throw a jab back, like if you were couter punching. he then parries and jabs, and you catch to end the cycle. then you reset and do it again. like i said, jab-catch-jab, the other person's actions would be catch-jab-catch.  at first you do it slowly and be sure to aim for the face and not the glove, make them move their hand to protect their/your face. this gets you conditioned to punches coming at your face as well as to couter punches. as time goes on you will see your natural reaction get better and you will notice that you can do this drill faster and faster, until it looks like you are actually sparring. the moves and skills this drill teaches are directly transferrable to real fighting/sparring.

just remember this is not a static drill, move around like you were actually fighting, this also helps you work on your foot work at the same time.

for me personally, whenever i do any kind of drill such as this i like to practice cutting off my opponent's movements or if we do it in a ring cutting off the ring and ultimately putting them either into the ropes or preferably a corner. that's how i practice my movements and footwork at the same time.


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