Parrying vs. Boxers

[BruceP]

Re: Parry Entries

The sliding block works like an inside-to-outside parry on the same side of the opp's punch, which allows angled entry usually while landing an elbow.

Parry-proper is usually done across one's own body with the opposite hand, and, while it is a very small and fast motion, it often isn't fast enough to get back in time for the opp's other hand to land solid. If a trained boxer sees you parry his jab, he'll set up the one-two (maybe three as well) off your next parry.

Passive structure got many laughs here the first time I talked about it because it was either antithetical to the ideas people espouse in their CMA training or it was just too counter-intuitive for their trained mind to fathom It is a very important skill to learn if you haven't ever boxed before (especially if you're actually gonna fight people for real). One of my old boxing coaches was at least 70lb lighter and 30 years older than I was, and I'd been boxing for about 15 years when I started training with him. He'd let me hit him with body shots and it was like punching a feather. But in real life, most people punch the head and face, so passive structure can be adapted accordingly.

[Darth Rock&Roll]

Those four counters i listed are for use against those four basic attacks.

you can execute any of them from any fighting stance at any level (crouching to full standing).
you can use them from any mobile situation as well.

it becomes like a contact game of rock paper scissors.
if the counter or evasion or stoppage of the attack is not done properly, you get hit.

[Chris McKinley]

Thanks for the clarification, Shooter. I think I'm pretty much on the same page with what you're talking about. I might add that I usually find same-side parries a lot more workable for the very reason you describe regarding the use of opposite-hand parries and the easy setup for the one-two.

Your passive structure is just functional yielding and hiding one's center as I read it. You got nuthin' new, bigg'n....I hear there's these Chinese fellers been yappin' about that for quite a while. Calls theyselves "internal", whatever that means.

[BruceP]

That's funny, Chris. Lots of folks here were very unreceptive to it when I discussed it as part of my own training a few years back. A list of names of the more 'knowlegeable' people pops up when I recall that. heh I showed a clip of myself applying the idea against a seriously roided out fellow in an MMA match where I took nut-shots, multiple straight head-butts and punches to the head with no ill effect. It was the closest thing to a real streetfight I've been in in the ring. But as some here have said, I've never really shown anything worthwhile.

Anyway, it's not so much 'yielding' as it is 'floating' and 'surrendering one's root'...remember that?

[dragontigerpalm]

Chris,
My knowledge of other styles and arts is only from observation and not from first hand experience so I'm just speculating. I would appreciate hearing though why parrying against a Bak Mei, SPM or White Crane fighter would be easier. All use a circular energy albeit expressed in much tighter arcs and have many in to out strikes whereas boxing has mostly out to in strikes with the uppercut being the exception.

[DeusTrismegistus]

Thanks for the clarification, Shooter. I think I'm pretty much on the same page with what you're talking about. I might add that I usually find same-side parries a lot more workable for the very reason you describe regarding the use of opposite-hand parries and the easy setup for the one-two.

Your passive structure is just functional yielding and hiding one's center as I read it. You got nuthin' new, bigg'n....I hear there's these Chinese fellers been yappin' about that for quite a while. Calls theyselves "internal", whatever that means.

Can you guys describe what you mean by same side and opposite side parries better?

[Chris McKinley]

Shooter,

A hearty das vedanya to you and Scott (he still owes me for stealing my learning theory methods...wanker ). But, but...you just can't give up your root!! The world would end! Your root has to be unmoveable, even by a bulldozer, like all those invincible Chinese masters, right? Maybe I should just quit drinking my lunch.

dragontigerpalm,

Bak Mei is similar enough to Wing Chun that it shares that art's vulnerabilities to parries. Namely, lots of attacks along vertical, as opposed to horizontal, arcs. This results in less lateral stability with respect to the horizontal plane and makes parrying a lot easier. In fact, WC uses parries as a staple movement. I've never run into a Mantis guy who gave me much trouble, mostly for the same reasons as WC, other than the fact that their hands are wicked fast with lots of open-handed attacks, and as such, I would have been admittedly a little more vulnerable to eye/throat strikes that way. White Crane guys can be fast, too, but I've never touched hands with one who had any fight "game" whatsoever outside of Yang Jwing-ming, and frankly.....ehh. :|

Deus,

Let's say a guy throws a left jab. If you parry it with your left hand to the inside gate, that's an opposite-hand parry. If the guy throws a one-two, he's gonna follow up that jab instantly with a right cross. If your left hand can't recover position back over to the left side of your body, you don't have a lot guarding you against that right cross.

If he throws a left jab and you parry it to the outside gate with your right hand, that's a same-side parry. If he follows up with a right cross, you've still got your left hand completely free, and even your right can do double duty on it from that position if you get lucky.

[Walk the Torque]

Chris,

Thanks for the clarification. I must have misread your original post (at work).

[dragontigerpalm]

Chris,
Thanks for your insight. This is a good thread with lots to think about.

[DeusTrismegistus]

Shooter,

A hearty das vedanya to you and Scott (he still owes me for stealing my learning theory methods...wanker ). But, but...you just can't give up your root!! The world would end! Your root has to be unmoveable, even by a bulldozer, like all those invincible Chinese masters, right? Maybe I should just quit drinking my lunch.

dragontigerpalm,

Bak Mei is similar enough to Wing Chun that it shares that art's vulnerabilities to parries. Namely, lots of attacks along vertical, as opposed to horizontal, arcs. This results in less lateral stability with respect to the horizontal plane and makes parrying a lot easier. In fact, WC uses parries as a staple movement. I've never run into a Mantis guy who gave me much trouble, mostly for the same reasons as WC, other than the fact that their hands are wicked fast with lots of open-handed attacks, and as such, I would have been admittedly a little more vulnerable to eye/throat strikes that way. White Crane guys can be fast, too, but I've never touched hands with one who had any fight "game" whatsoever outside of Yang Jwing-ming, and frankly.....ehh. :|

Deus,

Let's say a guy throws a left jab. If you parry it with your left hand to the inside gate, that's an opposite-hand parry. If the guy throws a one-two, he's gonna follow up that jab instantly with a right cross. If your left hand can't recover position back over to the left side of your body, you don't have a lot guarding you against that right cross.

If he throws a left jab and you parry it to the outside gate with your right hand, that's a same-side parry. If he follows up with a right cross, you've still got your left hand completely free, and even your right can do double duty on it from that position if you get lucky.

Thanks.

I tend to think of parries more from the perspective of across the body or not across. So if someone is using a left lead or jab I would use either a right handed block that starts from the left side and open to the right side, which would open up my opponents centerline but leave me in the way of his right cross when I try to enter. I could also block by using my right arm and going from outside to inside, which protects me from the cross punch because he would have to strike across his own body, as near as I can tell this is what JW always meant about the "outside gate". So my second example is an across the body parry, and my first is a not across the body parry. Then I suppose you can do both of these with same side and opposite side as well.

In your opposite hand parry example I have found that a big reason that people can't recover their left to defend the cross is the extend their parry too far. People tend to push the striking hand away farther than they need to, you just need to interrupt the line by enough to move it off target, this can be a very small movement if you do it right.

[yusuf]

hey

not exactly on topic but there was a drifter from the east end of london called Harry 'two gun' Cohen. He learn;t street fighting, so called dirty boxing. He ended up in CHina being bodyguard to Sun Yat Sen around the same time that Du XIng Wu was around / body guarding Sun. If you look at video of some of the players from the natural boxing school it seems clear they incorporated western boxing methods driven by cma power.

yusuf

[Chris McKinley]

Deus,

Yeah, your descriptions are pretty much what we're talking about here. As to what John Wang means on something, I have no idea, you'll have to ask him. In the common vernacular of martial arts in the U.S., the gates are described as follows:

Hold your arms straight out in front of you:
1) Inside Gate - everything between your two outstretched arms.
2) Outside Gate - everything outside of either arm, stretching all the way around to your back.

The concept is really more from Filipino/Indonesian arts, JKD, boxing, Western fencing, etc. Now, with that in mind, the idea of parrying to the inside gate against either hand does leave you more vulnerable to the opponent's other limb in most circumstances. It doesn't mean you shouldn't ever use it, just use it knowing the facts. Parrying to the outside gate ideally leaves you protected from his other punch...unless...and this is where we get into what makes boxing mechanics more difficult to deal with for parries:

1) the opponent is somewhat squared off against you as opposed to leading distinctly with either side. You see a lot of this "three-quarter lead" in boxing, and even more in MMA.

2) he throws his punches from short to medium range, where doing so doesn't turn his shoulder girdle enough to prevent him from recovering his body angle regardless of whether you've parried his punch or not.

3) he throws those short to medium punches with a horizontally circular trajectory, i.e., hooks, shovels, shallower overhands, etc., where the structure of the incoming limb doesn't act nearly so much as a lever to be parried as it does in longer and/or straighter punches.

All of these factors make it more difficult to parry even to the outside gate, since your parry may not create much of a result. Parrying to the inside gate of rounder punches such as those described in "3)" above is almost impossible, since the trajectory of the weapon forces almost any kind of parry to glance off at a shallow angle. Further, the superior lateral stability of the structure of such punches will blow right through a parry even if it contacts the incoming limb straight on.

These are all lessons learned the hard way by yours truly, btw. I started Kali in '82 while I was already studying other things, and at first I thought it was the cat's meow. I was in slap-happy heaven for a little while, since I was rapidly able to completely dominate my opponents in full-contact TKD sparring. I already had great feet, but now I was starting to get better hands than anyone I faced. This was all great fun till my TKD teacher, "Tornado" Tommy Williams (also a former amateur boxer) introduced me to boxing. All of a sudden, my newfound Kali skills were like so much useless fluff. Eventually, with Tommy's help, I learned how to box and I also learned how to adjust my Kali against a boxer so that it worked again. Now I had something.

[DeusTrismegistus]

Deus,

Yeah, your descriptions are pretty much what we're talking about here. As to what John Wang means on something, I have no idea, you'll have to ask him. In the common vernacular of martial arts in the U.S., the gates are described as follows:

Hold your arms straight out in front of you:
1) Inside Gate - everything between your two outstretched arms.
2) Outside Gate - everything outside of either arm, stretching all the way around to your back.

The concept is really more from Filipino/Indonesian arts, JKD, boxing, Western fencing, etc. Now, with that in mind, the idea of parrying to the inside gate against either hand does leave you more vulnerable to the opponent's other limb in most circumstances. It doesn't mean you shouldn't ever use it, just use it knowing the facts. Parrying to the outside gate ideally leaves you protected from his other punch...unless...and this is where we get into what makes boxing mechanics more difficult to deal with for parries:

1) the opponent is somewhat squared off against you as opposed to leading distinctly with either side. You see a lot of this "three-quarter lead" in boxing, and even more in MMA.

2) he throws his punches from short to medium range, where doing so doesn't turn his shoulder girdle enough to prevent him from recovering his body angle regardless of whether you've parried his punch or not.

3) he throws those short to medium punches with a horizontally circular trajectory, i.e., hooks, shovels, shallower overhands, etc., where the structure of the incoming limb doesn't act nearly so much as a lever to be parried as it does in longer and/or straighter punches.

All of these factors make it more difficult to parry even to the outside gate, since your parry may not create much of a result. Parrying to the inside gate of rounder punches such as those described in "3)" above is almost impossible, since the trajectory of the weapon forces almost any kind of parry to glance off at a shallow angle. Further, the superior lateral stability of the structure of such punches will blow right through a parry even if it contacts the incoming limb straight on.

These are all lessons learned the hard way by yours truly, btw. I started Kali in '82 while I was already studying other things, and at first I thought it was the cat's meow. I was in slap-happy heaven for a little while, since I was rapidly able to completely dominate my opponents in full-contact TKD sparring. I already had great feet, but now I was starting to get better hands than anyone I faced. This was all great fun till my TKD teacher, "Tornado" Tommy Williams (also a former amateur boxer) introduced me to boxing. All of a sudden, my newfound Kali skills were like so much useless fluff. Eventually, with Tommy's help, I learned how to box and I also learned how to adjust my Kali against a boxer so that it worked again. Now I had something.

Ah great story.

What you say is true about the horizontal punches but I guess that is where knowing your distance comes into play. Except for ridgehands and maybe knife hands horizontal strikes like you describe have shorter range than jabs, leads, and crosses.

[TaoJoannes]

As far as parrys go, I guess I use more of a deflect-and-follow strategy. The incoming strike is redirected and I stick to the limb as it goes back in, which allows you to stuff the next shot with that weapon.

[Chris McKinley]

Tao Joannes,

That strategy is always put out there as the solution to fighting a boxer if you're a neijia guy. Heck, I've probably done it a time or two myself. However, there are two problems with it:

1) It's much, much easier said than done. Even blending with it in the first place is a fine art, nevermind adhering enough to both follow in and redirect it to put yourself into a position for your own counterstrike. Not saying it can't be done, but it's much harder with a boxer than with most CMA guys.

2) Even if you do correctly blend/adhere/redirect, you're still far more vulnerable to his follow-up shot with the other hand because, as I noted in my previous post, boxers fire their punches off in such a way that, unlike many other stylists, they do not overcommit their shoulder girdle (nor reach far over their balance point) and are therefore not nearly as susceptible to allowing you to exploit a parried punch to achieve a superior tactical position. Even if you follow it in, you may only be being drawn into his combo....maybe even on purpose, if he's started to notice that you like to stick and follow a lot.

Still, it can be better than trying to "block" a boxer's punches, which is futile to the point of entertainment.