Guard raising vs Straight punch

[mook jong man]

If you get yourself into a self defence situation and your still a relatively new student and not to confident in your reflexes you can use this one.

If your facing somebody and you think the dude might have some pretty fast hands , and in this scenario we are mostly concerned with straight punches because they are the most direct and you will have the least time to react .

So instead of thinking well if he throws a right I will intercept with a left Tan or if he throws a left I will intercept with a right Tan etc. When he initiates the punch doesn't matter what hand he uses , our response is to just raise our guard up , somewhere along either side of the guard his punch will be intercepted .

Soon as you gain contact step right in very quickly and start punching fast and furiously and then use what ever follow up you feel is necessary . Its not the best response out there but for a new student it might just stop them from getting their teeth knocked out .

Practice it occasionally with a partner getting him to throw the fastest random straight punches he possibly can at your face and you just respond by raising your guard up.

 

[Nabakatsu]

Sounds like a potential bloody mess, my cup tea!
On a more serious note, this sounds like it could definitely assist me at this point in time, I'm not really all that comfortable with what I've started learning just yet, only thing I feel like I can effectively defend are kicks and muay thai clinch. Thanks much!

 

[Nabakatsu]

As a more technical question where exactly do you think most punches could/would be intercepted using this method, I'm trying to envision man sau/wu sau intercepting a straight punch and keep seeing it fly right through both to pop me in the nose, lol. Thanks in advance

 

[mook jong man]

As a more technical question where exactly do you think most punches could/would be intercepted using this method, I'm trying to envision man sau/wu sau intercepting a straight punch and keep seeing it fly right through both to pop me in the nose, lol. Thanks in advance

Usually you will feel them making contact on your forearm near the wrist . As you see the punch coming in make contact at his wrists and raise your guard up and deflect the punches up and away from your head , not too high just enough to make them miss there intended target .

Now you might end up on the inside of his wrist or the outside of his wrist , if you end up on the outside of his wrist it just means you might have to Pak Sau an arm out of the way for a clear path to the head . If you end up on the inside of his wrist just punch straight through with the free hand.

The only real way for you to get the timing right is to practice it .
Its all about hand eye coordination , there hand and your eye.

 

[Nabakatsu]

Thanks for the clarification

 

[geezer]

If you get yourself into a self defence situation and your still a relatively new student and not to confident in your reflexes you can use this one.

If your facing somebody and you think the dude might have some pretty fast hands , and in this scenario we are mostly concerned with straight punches because they are the most direct and you will have the least time to react...

Personally, I think the simplest response a beginner can use against a punch is a punch, wedging the incoming punch aside, simultaneously defending your center and threatening your opponent. I first learned this in a WC school back around about '79, and after only a month or so of training, I used this simple approach with more effect than anything I had learned in the previous two years of Chinese Kenpo! What really sold me on it is that it capitalizes on your instinctive "panic response" of throwing up your hands when surprized or threatened, allowing you to convert panic into aggression and an automatic counterattack!

 

[Nabakatsu]

This was the first thing they taught me in class as a matter of fact, the punch vs punch wedge, which typically makes both arms go above head level, if height is roughly even between the two fighters anyways, while this definitely is practical against purely straight punches It's hard to know what else will be coming at ya, from day one I was told that I can never anticipate what my opponent will do, even tho initially it is about hand eye coordination, I don't yet quite feel comfortable switching a finished punch into a tan sau or pak sau to score a free hit, or even to utilize a circle step to dodge their strike and step into them with chain punches whilst off their centerline but still on my own, conceptually I understand how they work, but I haven't been able to train them yet, luckily I've never been in a fight in my life, and doubt I will be any time soon based upon how I carry myself and the way in which I intereact with my fellow man, can never be too sure tho!

 

[mook jong man]

Personally, I think the simplest response a beginner can use against a punch is a punch, wedging the incoming punch aside, simultaneously defending your center and threatening your opponent. I first learned this in a WC school back around about '79, and after only a month or so of training, I used this simple approach with more effect than anything I had learned in the previous two years of Chinese Kenpo! What really sold me on it is that it capitalizes on your instinctive "panic response" of throwing up your hands when surprized or threatened, allowing you to convert panic into aggression and an automatic counterattack!

Yeah we call that a counter punch , do you mean using your punch to intercept on the outside of their wrist and deflect their punch , like say your right hand to their right hand ?

 

[geezer]

Yeah we call that a counter punch , do you mean using your punch to intercept on the outside of their wrist and deflect their punch , like say your right hand to their right hand ?

It works either way. You can deflect across as you described (your right wrist/"bridge" crossing theirs) or up the middle with your right wrist/"bridge" moving upwards and inside of their left, with your rear fist (or open handed "wu-sau") covering and deflecting their fist aside. We used to do a lot of paired training on both (outside gate "cross punching" and inside gate punching) as we advanced and retreated back and forth across the kwoon.

In principle, such a wedging punch is potentially the most efficient technique... unless your opponent is really covering his center, and his punch won't let yours in. That's when his punch converts your offensive punch into a defensive tan-sau or bong-sau.

 

[mook jong man]

It works either way. You can deflect across as you described (your right wrist/"bridge" crossing theirs) or up the middle with your right wrist/"bridge" moving upwards and inside of their left, with your rear fist (or open handed "wu-sau") covering and deflecting their fist aside. We used to do a lot of paired training on both (outside gate "cross punching" and inside gate punching) as we advanced and retreated back and forth across the kwoon.

In principle, such a wedging punch is potentially the most efficient technique... unless your opponent is really covering his center, and his punch won't let yours in. That's when his punch converts your offensive punch into a defensive tan-sau or bong-sau.

Yep I understand , what I probably should have said is straight punches and straightish punches. And it is the straightish punches where beginners tend to come undone .

You know the ones that arent exactly coming straight down the centreline but seemed to be aimed at your eye or cheekbone , but are very much still linear.

The ones where it would be better to deflect on the inside with a Tan Sau. I'm only speaking from the experience of our school that very new people who have not done any martial arts before , cannot really tell the difference between a strike coming straight down the centreline and one slightly off the centreline.

Their reaction speed is just not up to par yet , you can usually punch straight over the top of their guard and some can't even react until your punch is on its way back .

In the case of our school these students are only new and have a limited toolset for dealing with a straight punch , for one dead centre they might only know the pak sau , for one off centre they can deflect on the inside with dai sau, but that with a couple of kicks and arm grab counters is about all they have.

I totally agree it is much better to have an aggressive response and mine is either one of two Tan Sau techniques or to counterpunch . But I believe that raising your guard is a flinch response too albeit a passive one but when paired with maybe a kick at the same time it does satisfy the requirement of simultaneous counter attack .

I think that it offers quite a large degree of protection as the person is moving in because somewhere a long that raised wedge they will make contact with the striking arm and if they make a mistake and the incoming strike is not as linear as what they thought it was then they only have to adjust there elbow out a bit to cover themselves.

I taught it to my wife because she has very bad eyesight , she would be lucky to pick up the initial movement of a fast punch let alone know if it was coming down the center or just off center.

But she has very good chi sau and if she can just pick up the initial movement and intercept the strike with her guard then her chi sau can take over from there .

Kind of like the Bjj man who has to protect himself while getting through the striking zone so that he can apply his grappling prowess. Its not the greatest technique of all time but it might save somebody from getting their teeth knocked out.

 

[Nabakatsu]

Awesome explanation there Mook, reminded me of what my sifu told me.
If you block 3 times without launching an attack your not doing wing tzun!