Blocking Or Re-Direction when faced with strikes?
This is a subject I can imagine there could be great debate about among various practitioners of the martial arts. Over my years of experience, I’ve come down on the side of being in favor of “re-direction” over “blocking”. That does not mean that I don’t believe that “blocking” doesn’t have it’s place. Let me explain…
Blocking to my mind means stopping something. We’ve all seen the strongman in some martial arts movie catch an opponents fist in his hand, with his arm extended, almost like catching a baseball single hand. He is stopping the punch by putting a direct wall in front of his opponents fist. Often, the strongman starts grunting with smug satisfaction as he clenches his opponents fist in his hand and begins to twist the guys arm. Nice choreography in a movie, very impractical in real life. We have also seen numerous examples of the use of basic inner “lever blocks” and outer “cross body blocks” every beginning martial arts student learns. Are these blocks effective? Yes, at stopping the strike. But not necessarily effective at ending the fight. You “block” the opponents strike, they pull the strike back (quickly with a classic jab) and there is still the fight.
On the other hand, if we execute these ( or any other) type of “block” in the manner of “re-directing” the opponents strike, we can end the fight quickly. What do I mean by this? I am saying that we need to move while executing the blocking movement. Angles of movement are extremely important to understand. Looking at ones opponent one must see that in the straight line direction to the opponent there is always right “corner”, left “corner” and center. We almost always move to either the right of left “corner” while executing a “blocking “ maneuver, thereby actually re-directing the opponents strike past us. We should execute a strike of our own at the moment our step to a “corner” is complete. Picture a square roughly 5 x 5 feet. In that square is a circle, the edges of the circle making contact with the sides of the square. You are always standing in the center of that square/circle. It moves with you. Imagine that the 8 Directions of a compass are overlaid on the circle. These are the main directions that you can move to. I look at an opponents strike as an object in 3 dimensional space to move around. A top flight boxer will do this by “bobbing and weaving” using head and foot movement to avoid his opponents punches while setting up his own punches. Sugar Ray Robinson, Muhammed Ali, Marvin Hagler, Sugar Ray Leonard and Roy Jones Jr. were all experts at doing this. We as martial artists have an advantage over the boxer ( besides being able to strike with so many parts of the body other than just our fists ) in that we can reach out and grab our opponents hands, arms, legs and feet. We can “block” what they throw at us with our hands, arms or legs. So, if I see the strike coming at me and I begin moving to the appropriate “corner” for my counter technique and I execute a “block” that in reality is more of a barrier and I move around the object in space, I’m actually “re-directing” the opponents attack, guiding it to where I want it to be, remaining in control of the offending limb while putting myself in the needed position to land a devastating counter strike.
I advise watching as many arts as you can. Go online and pull up an old video of Sugar Ray Robinson when he was in the hey day of his championship years. Watch his incredible footwork and his slick movements to both evade and counter his opponent. Study it and learn. Even if your style is a pure grappling art such as Judo, knowing great footwork will help you to better execute fit ins for throws. If you are a “Mixed Martial Artist”, great footwork will help you better evade strikes, understanding “re-direction” with movement will allow you to better counter your opponents strikes allowing you to set up a great counterstrike and put you in an ideal position for a takedown.
See your opponents attack as an object in space to move around; always attempt through re-direction and movement to put your self in the position of greatest strength against your opponent and your opponent in the position of greatest weakness.
