Jab. Another Way To Stop An Attack

  Here is a move you’re most likely familiar with, but it’s how you use it that we are going to focus on here. In case your not familiar with it, the jab is just a simple punch. It’s usually preformed with the hand closest to your opponent. It doesn’t have a lot of force behind it since it doesn’t have far to travel and it can be hard to throw all your weight into it. But we’re not looking to cause a lot of damage with it. We’re going to use it in the same manner as the Frontal Kick discussed earlier.


The only thing I use a jab for is to reverse the momentum of a fight. So if my attacker has me on defensive I can use a quick jab to try to make him pause his attack for a second to defend, giving me a chance to overwhelm him with follow up attacks.

Instead of trying to explain a jab myself I’m going to simply steal an exert from expertboxing.com:
“….extend (PUNCH) your front glove (left hand for orthodox, right hand for southpaws) towards your opponent, while exhaling a sharp breath.

NOTHING ELSE MOVES. Move only your front arm, and none of your other limbs. Do not shift your weight forwards or backwards, keep your weight at center.

The extension is the speed portion of the jab. It has to be relaxed and fast. If you tighten your fist too early or visualize your fist becoming a brick and hitting your opponent, it decreases your jabbing speed. Try instead to imagine your fist cracking upwards and forwards like a fast whip, with your knuckles slapping upwards at your opponent.

Visualize this “upwards snap” with only your hand, NOT your entire arm! Do not try to hit with the top of your head, lead the punch with your knuckles. If you feel unable to jab powerfully, try to focus more on your arm rotation and tightening of the fist than the whipping motion of the fist.”

There it is, remember, this can be a good technique to do damage to an opponent, but our main goal with it is to reverse the momentum of the fight and press our attack, so don’t freak out if you don’t land the blow just right. Just get him on his heels and start landing as many other hits as you can.

http://selfdefensetechniques.org

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