Parrying vs. Boxers

[Chris McKinley]

For all you Bagua, Kali, Xing Yi, Kuntao/Silat types....how many of you have ever worked your parrying entries against a boxer? I'm not asking out of ignorance so much as simply trying to bring up a very practical mechanics/tactics question for discussion to balance out the lineage/form/qi questions.

Have you noticed that a boxer's punches in closer ranges make it so that they are not easily parried due to their rounded structure and coordinated body movement? Have you noticed how functionally similar such mechanics can be to close range neijia tactics? How have you had to adjust your mechanics to make your parries work against such mechanics, versus the more typical demo punch? Typical demo punches in arts which use lots of parrying typically are delivered at longer range, can often be more linear, can frequently be left at extension a somewhat artificially longer time than happens in reality, and rarely combine the retraction of the first punch with a punch from the other hand which one more often finds in reality. All of these qualities can make the demo punch considerably easier to parry, though the puncher is usually unconscious of doing these things in a less-than-realistic manner.

A boxer won't give you an easy punch on a silver platter, making it easy for you to look effortless with your parries. They will throw punches that come in on corkscrewing trajectories with connected body power behind them. Their punches retract as soon as they are thrown and are almost always followed by at least one punch from the other hand as the first is being retracted, often more than one.

If you've never worked your parries, redirections, splits, traps, overturns, etc. against a boxer with decent boxing mechanics, do yourself a favor and try it. It won't feed your ego, and it may give you more of a wakeup call than you thought you needed, but it will give you a realistic callibration of where your skills actually are, plus teach you a lot about the adjustments needed to be made on the fly when fighting against different types of fighters. If you can make your parries work against a boxer, you will have functionally improved your skills in this area tremendously, and will have given them a pressure-testing that will allow you to trust those skills more for real-life protection.

[velalavela]

Yes Chris,

you make a lot of good points. That's why doing some sparing like sanshou or kick boxing is good in your training. You build up some defences for those kind of attacks and also get used to being hit so you are conditioning yourself and wont be so suprised when you take a hard knock.

[Dweezle]

When I was a young teenage martial artist this was one of my wake-up calls. I went to take some lessons from a gym who taught JKD, boxing, MT, etc. The teacher put me in the ring with the gloves on and had me try my stuff against one of his much older and exp. students. I was nailed hard and fast with some nice jabs, eventually I adapted and was at least moderately successful in applying my Neijia to the match. The guy was very cool, and smiled, saying "great, your making your own stuff work now!".

It has been a pleasure ever since, to spar with boxers. I see many Neijia players get stuck in a sort of "theme" when they apply their art, often times, this theme can be easily changed beyond the comfort zone when a fast/strong boxer gets in range of you and does not leave those nice lingering strikes for you to Stick-adhere-connect-follow so well to on a spontaneous basis...

PS; Chris check your PM

Dweeze

[Ian]

Have you noticed that a boxer's punches in closer ranges make it so that they are not easily parried due to their rounded structure and coordinated body movement?

IME boxer's punches are not easily parried due to their speed, relentlessness and forward pressure.

It's like if you're a goalie and one person kicks a ball at you. You may or may not be able to stop it. If three people kick 40 balls at you in 10 seconds, more than one will score.

That's why instead of parrying, I either hit to KO as soon as I see danger (I don't want to give him a chance to do his work / I don't want to give myself a chance to find out how he fights), move to his side or back, or a combination of both.

[CaliG]

I've played around this one too and what I got out of it is that it's important to always protect your head and the parrying moves are going to be a lot smaller than in the forms, maybe even just a couple of inches.

[Walk the Torque]

Parrying for me is a sort of last resort type of defense. It generally happens as a reaction to something I really haven't seen coming and can do nothing else about. I end up parrying longer range kicks more often than anything else. I prefer to use drilling/wedging/glancing type movements against people who can box. Anything where I can extend, penertrate or smother.

I must say though, even though parrying punches is not that easy to learn, I find open hand palm strikes infinately more difficult. They just change direction too quickly and in a smaller space. Then again, I have had much more exposure to these sorts of strikes.

[bigphatwong]

Ah, a tactical question. Wish we'd have more of these on the brown board.

Have you noticed that a boxer's punches in closer ranges make it so that they are not easily parried due to their rounded structure and coordinated body movement? Have you noticed how functionally similar such mechanics can be to close range neijia tactics? How have you had to adjust your mechanics to make your parries work against such mechanics, versus the more typical demo punch?

Yes to both, although I probably wouldn't be doing much parrying. If someone has managed to breach the distance and is barrelling in with the kind of tight, round punches you describe, the silat method I learned is to turtle up and protect with the elbows while "falling" into their centerline. The lower back is rounded and the structure compacted so that if you do happen to take a slide shot, it won't hurt as much. The idea is to get inside the vortex and have reaction beat action. Against say a hooking type of punch, all one would need to do is point their elbow at the shoulder while falling in, and you've essentially cancelled out the motion at its root. You are then free to follow through with your own attack. For lower gate attacks same principle applies, jam by moving in with the knee. As above, so below.

JW calls it "Metal Strategy". I've heard it likened to a telephone post with spikes in it.

Typical demo punches in arts which use lots of parrying typically are delivered at longer range, can often be more linear, can frequently be left at extension a somewhat artificially longer time than happens in reality, and rarely combine the retraction of the first punch with a punch from the other hand which one more often finds in reality. All of these qualities can make the demo punch considerably easier to parry, though the puncher is usually unconscious of doing these things in a less-than-realistic manner.

See, that was my big beef with Kenpo. The entire self-defense curriculum revolved around these long, intricate sequences where the attacker throws a textbook lunge punch and locks his arm out, while the defender launches into some 90-move sequence called "Medley of Mayhem" where they block it and chop the guy in the neck, poke his eye out, rip his nards off and start juggling them, drop a piano on him, then sit down and play the maple leaf rag on his corpse. For some reason it always seemed to work much better in the dojo than against people who actually knew what the hell they were doing.

[Walk the Torque]

HA HA! Funny

[Darth Rock&Roll]

boxing has 4 essential attacks.

jab, cross, hook, uppercut

there are 4 essential counters

pat, seam feed/ cover / chop

pat is simlar to pak sao

seam feeding is similar to tan sao

cover is like crazy monkey or head wrapping

chop is chop, pek kuen if you will

all these moves work with power generated from the waste with a strong root that lets up for mobility.

ime over the last 5 or so years, chin na, grabbing, extended arm blocking and the like are utterly useless in context to boxing attacks.

as for kempo, well if it's american it is shyte period, japanese kempo is marginally better depending on where it comes from. No apologies will be given for my last statement.

[Dmitri]

If they box - you grapple, and vice versa. Trying to parry IMHO is to play their game, and I don't see why one would, other than purely for research or entertainment purposes.

[bigphatwong]

When I was a young teenage martial artist this was one of my wake-up calls. I went to take some lessons from a gym who taught JKD, boxing, MT, etc. The teacher put me in the ring with the gloves on and had me try my stuff against one of his much older and exp. students. I was nailed hard and fast with some nice jabs, eventually I adapted and was at least moderately successful in applying my Neijia to the match. The guy was very cool, and smiled, saying "great, your making your own stuff work now!".

Yeah, getting schooled by a JKD guy is what did it for me too. All of a sudden I felt like I was in the first grade again. If nothing else, it made me realize the importance of footwork and mobility.

The problem was, I knew a buttload of kenpo techniques but couldn't apply any of them. It was almost comical... I kept waiting for him to swing a punch so I could do Five Swords. Needless to say, he wiped the floor with me like a jizzmopper on 3-for-1 night. Nothing I threw landed, and his punches seemed to sail right through all my attempted blocks. Finally
I got desperate and started trying to muay thai kick him, and he does this spinning back kick from savate that landed square in the hui yin. I was on the deck for about 10 minutes straight!


Don't get me wrong, I've seen some bad-ass Kenpo guys, like Jody Sasaki, Cecil Peoples, etc, but overall it just ain't my thing.

[Jake]

ime over the last 5 or so years, chin na, grabbing, extended arm blocking and the like are utterly useless in context to boxing attacks.

I agree.

My room-mate is an amaetur heavyweight who's going pro in the next couple of months.

He trains like a motherfucker, is huge, is conditioned to the nth degree, can take tons of punishment, and He hits like a fucking sledgehammer!

Guy is fast too.

He's mainly a boxer but has trained BJJ and MT.

I'd like to see someone try some stuff on him.

Hopefully after they woke up from being knocked the fuck out... Wisdom would bring some profit to the wise.

[Jake]

PS... I'd also like to add that someone once told me that when the Chinese first saw Western style boxing...

They thought it was mystical.

(just what I heard but still food for thought)

[BruceP]

I've only ever played around with those ideas for real, so it's hard to say which method(s) work 'best'. The adrenaline and quickening effect makes for some really unpredictable and spontaneous responses. As such, I've never had particular stock-movement for specific attacks from a boxer. IME though, passive structure and sliding blocks are the way to go. But then, I'm not a neijia guy.

[dragontigerpalm]

While I love boxing and definitely can see the benefit to training by going up against a boxer because of his different fighting style, I don't see a significant difference in learning to be gained by doing so as opposed to going up against any fighter of approximately equal skill whose art is different than one's own. The purpose would be to go from efficacy to effectiveness.