Guard your head vs. control your opponent's arms

[YouKnowWho]

One lucky punch is all it takes to say goodnight, and an extended arm is easy to avoid, bridge, or trap.

That's why you need to prevent that lucky punch from happening as much as possible. In spear fight, you use clockwise circle or counter clockwise circle to deflect your opponent's spear stabbing. You don't use your spear to "vertical block" your opponent's spear stabbing.

When your hands are close by to your opponent's wrists, it's very difficult for your opponent to throw his punch out without being wrapped by your arm.

[MightyB]

Drunk People, since this is most likely what it's like on "the street"



In both instances, of hits, the arms of the receiving dude were extended. I know, these guys aren't trained

[YouKnowWho]

His arms were not in his opponent's striking path. It's very clear to see that his opponent had all the freedom to execute his punch without being interrupted.

If you keep your guard to be close to your

- head, you will give your opponent all the freedom that he needs to throw his punch. If he can't get you with a jab, he may get you with a hook.
- opponent's arms, you can wrap his arm before he can generate a full powerful and full speed punch.

It's called the octopus strategy. Your full intention is not to punch at your opponent's face but to create a clinch ASAP.

[MightyB]

His arms were not in his opponent's striking path. It's very clear to see that his opponent had all the freedom to execute his punch without being interrupted.

If you keep your guard to be

- close to your head, you will give your opponent all the freedom that he needs to throw his punch. If he can't get you with a jab, he may get you with a hook.
- close to your opponent's arms, you can wrap his arm before he can generate a full powerful and full speed punch.

It's called the octopus strategy. Your full intention is not to punch at your opponent's face but to create a clinch ASAP.

Although I can find some value in extending your arms to block a path, I still think the safer option is to learn how to cover and close properly because in the majority of altercations you see always involve crazy head hunting punches.

It would still be an octopus strategy - with the exception being to keep your hands up guarding your head and your elbows down protecting your ribs until you close and clinch your opponent's arms.

[YouKnowWho]

You start by using your arms to guard your head. Here is a simple test.

- Hold your hands into a big fist.
- Put your head behind it.
- You extend both of your arms and aiming your big fist at your opponent's face.
- Run toward at your opponent like a mad man.
- Let your opponent to punch at your head and see how effective his head punches may be.

You will find out that you only need to move your arms (with your big fist) just a little bit, you can successfully "interrupt" your opponent's head punch. You can still punch at your opponent's face with your "big fist" if you want to.

The more that you train this, the more that you will no longer need your big fist. Your arms then become octopus arms and wrap whatever that you can touch.

[YouKnowWho]

The MT guard is very similar to what I'm talking about - to be away from your head instead to be close to your head. This way, it's easy to get into "clinch". In the following clip, you can see that the MT guy can get his "double neck tie" so easily. His opponent doesn't know how to prevent it and also has no idea how to handle the MT clinch. It's a very interesting fight. More than 80% of the fight is in "clinch". It's totally different from the normal boxing approach and that's for sure.

[GoldenBrain]

In Chinese wrestling, the "double inward circles" with straight arms is used to achieve that goal. When you do that, you have given away your punching ability. But you have gained the ability to be able to interrupt your opponent's punching in the early stage. This is called to fight in your opponent's territory instead of to fight in your own territory.

That's cool for grappling but it's not exactly what I was talking about. I love to grapple but I'm primarily a striker.

I meant that I like to intercept an incoming punch with one hand which creates the bridge and then strike with the other hand at the same time. The flow would be to keep alternating punching and checking hands so I don't loose the bridge. I call them top, bottom, inside and outside bridges. For instance with an outside bridge… an opponent throws a straight right to the head. I check with my left palm on the outside while punching to his head on the inside. From there as a follow up it's easy to bring the right hand down and hook it into the bend of his elbow, moving him to my right to set up a liver shot with my left. If I can I will follow the left to the body with a right over the top. Check/punch face at the same time, hook elbow and sweep arm to the right, punch liver, punch face. Easy right… I think the key to this is obviously timing and speed, but more that you have to be willing to let their punch to brush your beard so to speak.

[Dragonzbane76]

drunk guys fighting=funny.

That guy could barely stand up.

anyways he caught the other guy with a good punch before he was leveled. more of a falling into him kinda punch but still connected.

[YouKnowWho]

I'm primarily a striker. ... I check with my left palm on the outside while punching to his head on the inside.

That will be the approach that most of the strikers will take. When your opponent moves in and punches you, if you punch back, your opponent may move back to dodge your punch. That won't be a grapplier's advantage. When a fish swims toward an octopus, the octopus should try to wrap on that fish and not try to scare that fish away.

[GoldenBrain]

When a fish swims toward an octopus, the octopus should try to wrap on that fish and not try to scare that fish away.

Understood, and I like this quote!

It's good to be well versed in both worlds…grappling and striking. I train both, as well as tactical firearms, other hand held weapons…etc. For self offense I train mostly as a striker and counter grappler (meaning I want to stuff take down attempts and stay on my feet) because in the realz you don't want to be on the ground with the attackers buddies ready to issue some boot stomps to your head. Cowards are plentiful here in the U.S. so it's almost always multiple attackers on one person. One on one I'll roll all day long, but in groups I'm gonna try to stay on my feet. As a Kali practitioner I train knives a lot. When we grapple we sometimes wear our training knives in order to understand just how easy it is to get gutted while on the ground. Knives make sashimi out of octopus.