Sunday, July 13, 2008

Parrying and Counterpunching

Picked up something interesting from Bert. When I sparred with him, he surprised me when he parried my jab downward instead of employing our standard CMD (Crazy Monkey Defense using the forearms).


I then copied his method and used it successfully against few guys later. I threw a quick counterpunch everytime I parried away my opponent's punches. When my counterpunch connects, it stumped my opponent's momentarily so this is best time to unload combos, and kicks if he's backing up. I've to be mindful of parrying it just straight downward without lowering my hands too much, or it will compromise my defense and ability to counterpunch. I suspect that parrying & counterpunching works better using the lead hand than the rear hand since the lead hand is nearer to the opponent.

Works great when mixing it up with basic CMD. Neat repetoire to add in my arsenal. Will experiment with using parrying to secure the clinch, overhook and underhook. And also to add more offenses (hook, cross and uppercut) after the parry.

1 comment:

BBat50 said...

This reminds me of a great blog post entitled: "Why do you block?"

The point was that in each block, you should be thinking about it as a step in the process. If you push his punch across your body, what does that do to your position and to his? If you parry down, what does it set up for each of you.

I can't say that I've really understood it and sparred at that level, but I really like how that one post opened up my thinking to how intricate and strategic the details of each move are.

So much room for improvement....