Defense against the face punch

[GhostFighter]

On the street what is the best defense against a straight 1 2 (left jab and cross)aimed to ur face?

I quess withouth gloves it wont be a smart thing to do to block his coming fist with ur own fist. What would u do?

[tallgeese]

You've got several good options that are very viable. Alot of it depends on which ones you're most comfortable with and what your overall patter on defese will be for the conflict.

The best thing that works for me, aside for movement that keeps me out of range in the first place, is head movmement couples with checking the strikes as they are launched. These aren't so much blocks as minute redirections.

So, if a job is thrown with his left, I bob to the outside with my head. At the same time, I'll use either my lead of reverse hand to reach out a bit and check the outside of this jab hand. Prefeably early in the movement. This moves both his target (my head) and his attack (by intercepting the punch). The cross works the same, just to the other outside.

This approach works well if you're going to counter punch or initate a takedown off of their strike.

I'll also use a destruction off the elbow as well. I cover with a tight boxers parry for hooks already. Now, for a straight atack I simply angle that elbow into the line of the attack and use it to intercept the punches.

Never forget as well, there is truth to the best defense is a good offense maxim. the more he's worried about getting hit, the less time he has to try and hit you.

[The BB of C]

I like to side step an parry the jab.

As an example, I was recently boxing with one of my family members during our New Years' party. I can't box at all. I never have been able. I've never been able to comprehend the footwork in boxing and a boxing style jab means nothing to me The only jab I can do is a Muay Thai style cross-jab. But that might be aside from the point. Anyway, because I suck so bad at actual boxing (or generally fighting with closed hands), I turn to karate blocks and punches with boxing gloves on. Because I know the boxer is going to lead with his left jab, as soon as I see him start to move, I step to my right and do a typical Okinawain side block moving with the jab's energy. It hasn't failed me against a boxer since I figured out how to use it against a boxer. They stumble foreword, I'm behind them and then the counter possibilities are endless.

New Year's Eve, between my ability to duck and parry, my cousin hit me all of once and it was by accident when he tried to throw his gloves off in frustration and clocked me in the head

[ryukasagi]

DUCK!

Just kidding, i'd probally move to one side and then parry anything that was still coming at me.

[joesteph]

On the street what is the best defense against a straight 1 2 (left jab and cross)aimed to ur face?

I quess withouth gloves it wont be a smart thing to do to block his coming fist with ur own fist. What would u do?

Since you did say "on the street," GhostFighter, I'm going to assume that you didn't expect the attack, but he's got the old "one-two" coming at you.

I think the first thing people do, instinctively, is move straight back; that probably means he's going to connect; he'll probably keep moving forward and continue to connect. I really think it's better to move to the side, and toss up your hands into "on guard" immediately. However, there is a sparring exercises that's required for me to know that I think is best in this situation, and that's to move to the side while one hand "waves" a knife hand block at what's incoming. In theory, the move should be your block ("the best block is not to be there"), but that hand could be essential. Then you have to start countering, as no one can keep blocking, blocking, blocking w/o getting hit at some point.

There is another sparring exercise that I do in which you put up your hands ("on guard"), but shoot out a front kick to the midsection. You've remained stationary/grounded, so his forward movement may have magnified the impact of the kick. Again, you'd have to start countering. The weakness I see in this one is that, whenever we practice it, there's more room between my opponent and me than there is in the block described above.

The only straight back that I can see working is raising your hands to "on guard" as you do step back, and shooting out a front kick. My instructor is fast, can keep her balance in moving back yet shifting to kicking forward, and is taller than I am by four inches, so when she demonstrated this against me, it was viable.

Incidentally, when you have your hands up, you're not blocking his punches with your hands. I may have misunderstood, GhostFighter, and you were simply making a comparison with boxing in the ring, but if your fists are both at your cheek level, and a punch is coming in, it's the raising of your forearm and a slight turn of the upper body that's the block for the face.

[bushido_man96]

Tallgeese's checks are a good way to defend against the straight punches. If you can check and step outside that first punch, then you can help negate the second punch by being off-line. We try to do a little of this with our Combat Hapkido work. It also works well with trapping a bit.

[cross]

Your safest bet in a self defense situation is to use a structure based defense(cover, shield etc) which in basic terms only requires you to put the structure in place momentarily and then close range or counter asap. As opposed to an attribute based defense(parrying, slipping, weaving blocking) which requires correct timing, distancing, angle recognition, correct block selection etc.

Here are some examples of default cover positions that should give you enough time to get back into the fight, keep in mind these are not "stand here all day and cover" techniques, you use these so that you can either close the distance, counter or disengage very quickly.

http://www.urbancombatives.com/defaultart.htm

[Kruczek]

DUCK!.

...and then punch. I would consider it a valid defense - not the best one, but a valid defense.

[50inches]

Crazy monkey defense, look it up on youtube if you don't know what it is. It's the best guard if you don't have gloves.

[joesteph]

Crazy monkey defense, look it up on youtube if you don't know what it is. It's the best guard if you don't have gloves.

I found it, 50inches, and it's interesting:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njPgVLPTWZk