There was a YouTube clip I saw awhile back, where an instructor was saying that blocking was an irrelevant method for dealing with attacks, because it’s a rarely employed tactic in MMA, with most fighters covering and riding punches, rather than blocking them. I teach both methods, and teach the contexts where each is preferable, and effective. However, these are only two of five basic approaches to dealing with strikes and punches, and in this article I want to take a look at these five, how they compare, and the different contexts within which they should/may be employed. The five are:

  1. Avoiding
  2. Blocking
  3. Covering
  4. Riding
  5. Absorbing

Most untrained people will be “head hunters” – they will be looking to throw powerful strikes against the head in order to deliver one or more concussive blows. In many video clips of real-life fights, you will often see before the fight starts, an aggressor step back and/or load weight on to their rear leg, and then initiate their attack by stepping or moving forward, as they swing their arm in a large circular motion towards their victim/target’s head. It’s a large movement that has one intention: to take the other person’s head of their shoulders. It’s not subtle or discrete, but it can often be very effective. One way to avoid the effect of the punch/strike is to move the head away, out of the area that the person is attacking. Biomechanically, there is a relatively small area where punches can be delivered with any real power, and that’s roughly from the mid chest line to the top of the head. If the head is moved out of this area/zone, then even if a punch lands it will lack power. One way to move the head out of this zone/area is to bob and weave. The “bobbing” action sees the head move in a vertical plane, whilst the “weave” sees it move laterally in a horizontal plane – both actions together move the head through a combination of planes, which sees it removed from the space where an aggressor can generate power. It’s important that both movements are performed using the knees, rather than by bending at the waist, as by keeping the torso somewhat upright you can remain in a position where you are able to counter-attack with punches/strikes of your own. One of the biggest issues with bobbing and weaving is that people try to only move the head without the torso, and so they end up just leaning back or off to one side – with no bend or use of the knees. Whilst moving the head out of the way can work when dealing with an assailant who is solely focused on this one target, it is not so effective against an attacker who is able to use their legs, as it is only the head that is moving, not the rest of the body e.g. if they are able to throw in leg kicks and lower body combatives in conjunction with punches and strikes to the head, then by only moving the head, and not the rest of the body, it is likely that these will land.

By judging and measuring your relative distance to an attacker from hip-to-hip, rather than from head-to-head, it is possible to keep all of the body out of range. Although range control should become an inherent skill that doesn’t require any conscious application, i.e. you should just “know” when you are out of range, as you acquire this skill it is good to have a manual check that you can employ. If you look at the center of an aggressor’s chest, and with your peripheral vision can see their front/leading foot, and a bit of ground you should be out of range – or if still just in range, at a distance where an attacker will have no driving force behind their punches; they may connect but they will lack any power, to cause damage and/or concussive force. This is the range you will need to be at if your blocks are to be effective.

Personally, I don’t see blocking as a defensive action i.e. your control of range should be the primary defense where a block is concerned. If you are closer than this range it is likely you will not have the space and/or time to block, and you will have to either cover, and/or ride and/or absorb the strike. A block should be seen as an “attack” to the incoming strike e.g. if somebody is throwing a large circular strike, and I make an outside block with my forearm to connect with it, I should be looking to ram/drive the blade of my forearm into their arm, to cause pain and trauma. My movement away from the punch/strike should reduce its power, along with my range control, so the purpose of my block is to make an attack on my aggressor’s attack – every time I make contact with them, my goal should be to cause them pain, damage and injury e.g. I am never just “blocking” in a defensive manner. If my blocking can disrupt their balance, movement and timing of subsequent strikes, etc., it is doing its job. Often blocking movements are instinctive, and occur naturally, especially when our natural flinch response has been triggered – a movement causes us to instinctively raise our arm up/out to intercept an incoming attack. However, for all of this to happen, we must be at a range/distance where the movement can be reacted/responded to. If we are inside this range, we may be forced to cover instead – we may also be forced to cover when we are dealing with punches that are too powerful to block.    

It should be noted that “covering” is not particularly effective against weapons, and blocking is certainly preferable, however if somebody is slashing in with a knife at close-range, and there is no time to block, I would rather cover my face/head with an arm, and see this body-part cut/slashed as opposed to losing an eye, etc. I have a scar on my lip, and under my nose where my only defense to a knife slash was to lean back and accept that the lower part of my face would be cut rather than losing an eye – this is reality, where perfect solutions are rarely available. I’m sure there are people who will say I should have blocked, I should have done this, I should have done that, etc., but none of them were there, and this was literally the only motion I could make under the circumstances – so covering, riding, and absorbing may be the only options available to you in a fight with a weapon, despite controlling range and blocking being the preferred solution. Covering, generally means getting an arm up, to take the punch/strike on it, rather than having the head/face left as an exposed target. Most of the time we are talking about protecting the face, which is a relatively small area. If you can take punches on your arms rather than the nose, chin or eye sockets, etc., that is a preferred solution. It is also worth adding in that whilst ears do really hurt when punched, being hit/punched on the ears is rarely as debilitating as taking a punch to the nose, or the eyes. Normally, with covering, I’ll try to “ride” the punch as well, so that the arm doesn’t take the full impact of the strike. 

Riding involves going with the movement of the punch as it hits the body part/target, or the limb that is covering it. The idea is to follow the movement of the punch, rather than offer a rigid/static target which will absorb the full power of the strike, and allow it to drive through. Although this involves getting hit, sometimes it is the only option available to you, and it is better to go with the motion of the strike rather than try to resist it. Sometimes, rather than riding a strike, you may have to absorb it, as riding the strike would compromise your movement, and ability to counter, etc. Perhaps the best example of this is when dealing with low-roundhouse kicks to the thighs/quads. Whilst one option is to raise the knee and block with the shin, this means that you are coming up on one leg, which will slow down and interrupt your forward motion. Another option would be to simply take the kick on the leg, absorb its power and keep moving forward, towards your attacker. Obviously, such a tactic has its issues, and relies on conditioning the legs to be able to make this option work, however it does have its benefits, and shouldn’t be dismissed. If the abs/stomach can be conditioned to take and absorb punches and strikes, then when failing to block, if a punch gets through (and no blocking system is fail-proof), it’s not going to be the end of the day.

To be competent, all-round fighters, we need to develop all of these skills. There is a place for avoidance whether it is through controlling range, or by moving individual targets, such as the head, away from punches and strikes. There is a place for blocking, as there is a place for covering, riding and absorbing. The individual who believes they would just do one of these things in every possible situation is fooling themselves e.g. trying to just use blocking in a multiple attacker situation, where your two arms are having to deal/cope with multiple attacking limbs is not going to be a successful strategy, and you may have to employ several of these tactics/methods. Bobbing and weaving is great, if the only target is the head, but cannot be a universal solution against somebody who is attacking targets on different levels, etc. If we can put all of these methods together and apply them in the necessary contexts, we will be better prepared to deal with all of the various striking/punching situations.