fbpx

Inside Defense Against Straight Punch – Redirecting at the Correct Angle


The most common beginner mistake when performing Inside Defenses against Straight Punches is not redirecting the punch at the correct angle. This video explains in detail how to redirect the punch at a correct angle and the reasons why it’s important.

Transcript:

“Hello, This is Randall and Glenda with KravMagaTraining.com. And with this video we’re going to discuss the proper angle when you’re doing inside the defense high.

And this is what I’m talking about. Glenda throws the left straight at me and here’s a common mistake. It’s this big swat that a lot of beginners do. Could you throw it on the other side. It’s this really big movement and their swatting to the side. Now there’s a couple problems with this. The first is it requires a lot more timing to do this technique right. Which for beginners, they have no timing anyways, so why make that shit harder for them. What I mean by timing is that if you’re moving your hand directly to the side, you have to wait for this punch to get pretty close to you before you can swat it out of the way.

Now the nice thing about the redirecting in Krav Maga is that your hand moves out, moves forward at a 45 degree angle. This is what I mean. She throws the left straight at me We’re not catching it straight on. That won’t work very well because in boxing they have nice big gloves so that gives them a larger target which makes it a little easier to do. The other reason why it’s not applicable for Krav Maga is because if she happens to have an object in her hand like, maybe I think she’s punching but she actually has a knife in her hand. I obviously don’t want to catch that. That’s going to be unacceptable.

So what Krav Maga does is a little bit of a combination of the two. It’s not off to the side. It’s not straightforward. It’s at an angle like this. Now this is better on the timing because I can actually defend the punch at any stage of the punch. This is what I mean is if I catch it early I can still do the defense. If I catch it in the middle, I can still do the defense. If I catch a late right before it gets to my face, I can still do it. Thus I don’t have to have good timing to do this defense. I can catch it early, in the middle, or even late. And that’s good regardless of how experienced you are or how good your timing is. So that’s kind of the point with Krav Maga is that you want to be able to do your techniques from what we call a “position of disadvantage”. Which means whether you’re ready or whether you’re not ready, at any stage of the defense it should work.

Now a way to make sure that you’re doing this proper angle is that you’ll feel your hand slide down there forearm. So if Glenda does this I shouldn’t, you shouldn’t hear this slapping movement. You should hear this catching movement. Hear that little slide there? And you’ll actually see my hand and my wrist slide down her forearm. So that’s why it’s called a redirect. Think of her hand is like a bullet. She’s shooting it hits and ricochets off to the side and flies right over my shoulder and past my head. She does it on the other side. See how it’s flying right over my shoulder. So that’s a good indicator that you’re doing it properly. You should feel your hand, heal of your palm, or your wrist area sliding down your partners forearm. If you can do that consistently and not hear this big slap, you’re probably doing the inside defense fine.

So focus on that and that you’ll find your inside defenses will improve dramatically.”

Whether you are big or small, male or female, young or old, you can use Krav Maga to protect yourself.