Martial Arts Sparring Defense For Beginners - Put Your Shields Up (On Guard - Head Protection)

I remember when I first started to learn to spar. I really did not know much about punching or kicking and most certainly did not understand how to block or defend. Imagine a bad dancer on 5 cups of coffee bouncing around while being punched, kicked and thrown to the ground. It would have been great if I fully understood the benefits of a good shield defense (I might have lasted a wee bit longer).

In the beginning, you should learn a few basic defenses in order to help you understand how to deal with attacks as well as watch your opponent in an attempt to READ them.

So, with that in mind - we are going to talk about the most basic defense, that will take you a long way in your full contact sparring - as well as provide you with a protective defensive wall.

Start with the following two shields (I call them, "shields" because they are all about blocking incoming attacks to the head or body):

01 Get the hands up and protect the HEAD

02 Get the knees up and protect the BODY

As the head is the most obvious target, you will need to learn to guard it. Dropping the hands is a mistake most beginners make and what intermediate to advanced opponents take advantage of. You need to learn to keep the hands up.

In the beginning, you want to program yourself to keep your guard up - your shield.

Note, you DO NOT want to program yourself to follow your opponent's movements with a block - instead, you want to react by bringing up your shields (or having them up already). You can learn to keep the hands up by trying some of the following "Lobes of Fun Strategy":

* Hold your ears during the majority of a sparring session to train yourself to keep your hands UP.

Please use some common sense with this and other strategies. For example, your hands will be up, but not forward in front of the face there they may need to be (though the side of the head often needs more protection as the front of the head has the cranium is already your best natural shield).

When I was first learning from a professional sparring coach, I was forced to grab and hold the lobes of my ears for the duration of class (or any time that did not require me to use my hands). This simple punishment taught me that the default position of my hands should be up. You can do this when you are shadow boxing or working on the bag too. When doing this exercise, be sure to remember to keep the elbows from going up and out (mimicking wings) and instead keep them close and tuck your body in so the elbows almost touch - this is a basic crunch that will improve your shield by:

* Pulling the chin down and keeping the forehead out front
* Tightening the abs
* Covering the ribs or decrease the exposure to attacks to the body

When bringing the hands up to block, try to keep the eyes forward and head up (though the chin should remain down and tucked in pushing the forehead foreword).

Keeping your hands up might seem like a basic concept or too simple to consider as valuable data in the world of full contact sparring. However, as I have been teaching for more than 20 years and working with martial artists of all shapes and sizes (mainly at our live-in martial arts camps where students learn full contact fighting) I have noticed that this is one of the most (if not the most) common mistakes of martial artists.

Usually this happens because many martial artists are taught to bring the hands down when they kick. It looks like they are pulling a rope that lifts their leg. Many beginners cannot kick without bringing their hands down. Ironically, I use this information to teach my students an offensive strategy when fighting other martial artists:

What is the benefit of someone kicking you? The answer - most likely, their hands will be down, so step in and knock them out. Again, we are talking about reading your opponent and will discuss that in other articles. As with many martial art tactics, keeping your guard up is a foundational skill that needs to be a conditioned part of your fighting strategy.

Boxing, Kickboxing and Martial Arts related sports can be dangerous and too much of it will be damaging to your brain or causing long-term physical injuries. Be sure to ALWAYS wear protective gear and learn the proper techniques to avoid injury.

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