How to defend against the push and hay maker combination

So in martial arts most of the time you are training from favourable positions. You start off in your familiar stance and you have control of all the factors while your compliant partner feeds you punches. Even in sparring it's still 50 / 50 and you are primed and ready to go.

But that's not how things happen in real life is it?

The reality is that unless you go out looking for fights then you are probably not the instigator and therefore you will be the one on the back foot when some drunk, thug or just general douche bag decides to have a go at you.

So you need to be able to react instinctively to these kind of situations, as there’s no time to stretch, warm up and get into the "sparring mindset" if someone just pushes you up against a wall and tries to knock your head off with a big punch.

And the best way to build the muscle memory to do that is, of course, to train for it.

The three most important points in this exercise are:

1. Never get flat backed against the wall, always try to twist to take the impact on your shoulder instead. Apart from preventing the back of your head from bouncing off the wall, this also puts you in a much better position to retaliate.

2. You might not be able to stop yourself hitting the wall but don't stay there! As soon as you make contact blast back towards them, it will kill their momentum, take them off guard and, as you can see above, opens up a multitude of attacking options that just aren’t available when you are pinned up against a wall like a butterfly in a display case.

3. If your training partner is being too nice to you tell them! The better the attacks you train against the more you get out of the exercise.

So remember guys, if you like our content please like, share and comment!

Check out the rest of the site and book yourself in for a free trial on our online booking system https://www.bushinlondon.com/book-a-free-trial

See you in class!