Defensive Martial Arts

Martial arts fighting has two components: attack and defense

. In every fight, you will attack some and you will defend some, and you will strive to combine attack and defense into a single seamless, fluid fighting style. The more you learn about defending, the better you will become at getting around your opponent's defenses, and the more you learn about attacking, the better you will be able to anticipate your opponent's attacks and avoid them. This article is about defense, and the various moves that you should now and be able to incorporate into your defensive strategy.

An old maxim of martial arts says, "The best block is not to be there." This is good advice, and if you think about it applies on multiple levels. First, instead of blocking an attack with your arms and legs, it is preferable to dodge the strike altogether by moving out of the way. Also, second, anytime you lock and attack you are making it so that the part of the body that your opponent is trying to hit is "not there", either because you put another part of your body in front of it or because you parried out of the way.

If you are in a fighting stance, either the classic boxer's stance or your specific art's variation of it, you are well placed to defend yourself. You arms and elbows are already guarding your midsection, and you can easily move your hands up, down, or to the side in order to block. You can do this using the basic low, high, middle, and outside and inside forearm blocks. These blocks all make use of the arm as the blocking instrument, and ideally you will make contact with your opponent at your wrist joint. If you go up higher, on the fist, a hard blow might bend back your wrist joint and hyper-extend it. If you went lower, nearer to your elbow, you would not have the leverage that the wrist joint gives you, since the end of your arm moves faster and has more power than the lower arm.

However, do not be snookered into thinking that your arm is the only thing that you can block with. Your leg can also be a fantastic blocking instrument, particularly your shin. A shin block can cause a lot of damage, both to you and to your opponent, so use it with care. However, it can also save your bacon, so do not hesitate if you are in an actual fight. Some Muay Thai fighters even combine leg and arm blocks, bringing up their shin and then using their forearm, with the elbow right above the knee, to create a solid wall between them and their opponents that immediately forestalls and planned high/low combinations.

by: Jay A. Jenkin

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