Move it and lose it

After all these years of training, I still haven’t figured out how to move my head out of the way of punches without giving up other aspects of striking and giving my opponent an opening.

If I go back a few years to when I was kickboxing, I decided to go to a local boxing gym to work on my boxing skills. The boxing coach out there would give me footwork and head movement drills. Then in sparring, I could never quite put it together. One might think this is because I was lacking talent… and you would be correct. However, there was another reason – the boxing stance is lower and wider than the kickboxing stance, allowing you to have a good base from which to duck, dodge, dip, dive (dodgeball reference). When you use this stance in kickboxing, your front leg would get kicked hard and often. Since your feet are wide and set, it makes it slow to pick them up to defend the leg kick with a check (stopping their shin with your shin). An obvious change you would think to make is to bring your feet closer for kickboxing and problem solved, well now you can block the leg kick with your shin, but all is not solved. 

When I was using the head movement in kickboxing, there was one major concern to keep in mind. This factor is that your opponent also uses kicks and knees. If they jab and you move your head to the outside of their jab, sooner or later they are going to throw up a head kick with their left leg and you move right into the kick – which I assure you, is not fun. Fighters with educated feet will throw punches to see if the head moves and time their kicks with your head movement. I can tell you from experience that your head movement gets put on pause after moving into a few head kicks (even with your hands up). The other fun thing is when you lower your level, or duck, and knee comes right up the middle, even if the knee just hits your arm, it really puts you off ducking. This makes your striking very up-right with gloves glued to your head and as much as I tried working head movement when it came down to fights, I only used it very minimally. That would mean I would use it more for counter punching rather than defence, I would move and throw, hope for the best – thinking back, this probably wasn’t the most high-tech system, but it worked for me.

Now, in MMA the problems have compounded. Obviously, a punch is punch and if you keep your head still, you get hit so how hard can it be? For me, in MMA, firstly, those little gloves hurt, and you can’t use your gloves for defence as well as boxing gloves as there is not as much padding. So, when using head movement in MMA there are two concerns, one is having too much weight on the front leg (like the boxing stance) and wearing leg kicks which make walking difficult. Then other issue is if you use the kickboxing stance were your feet are closer together then you are very open for the takedown. As far as I can tell, there is not one perfect stance for MMA, you have to constantly adapt to what you opponent is doing. The elite level fighters seem to be able to do this and make it look easy, but I assure you it is not. 

You are trying to keep your eyes level with your opponent. So, if they drop their level you want to match them as it will usually mean they are going for a takedown. So, you’re trying to figure out what your opponent is trying to do – are they trying to keep it standing or get it to the ground. That is usually the easy part but stopping them getting what they want is a little harder. Whatever you focus on defending means that something else opens up which your opponent is likely to take advantage of. Let’s say your opponent wants the fight to go to the ground but every time they change levels you have your defence in place, so they start dropping their level but throwing punching at your head as your weight is set, it makes it hard to move out the way. You start clicking to what they are doing so you move your head as their drop their weight, which means you have put more weight on one side over the other. They take advantage of it and shoot it and get the takedown. It only takes a split second to get hit or to get taken down. If your focus is in the wrong place you will get caught.

With training in martial arts, for 75% of my life there are a few things I have figured out, but some things have remained elusive. The ability to move the head and not give up other areas of my defence is something I have never got the hang of. I also find it hard to move the head, ducking and weaving and then throwing punches effectively. There is obviously some talent I am lacking, not in a bad way, just that I do not have a boxing world title, so it makes sense that I have not got it all figured out. However, this always makes sparring fun as when you are against those people who really test your fight brain you are constantly in a battle to get the upper hand. These battles are what makes it fun, makes us improve and why we keep coming back.       

Gareth Lewis
Head MMA Instructor