Survive the Shit Storm of Punches Drill
Want to learn how to keep your cool under pressure in a fight? Staying cool and calm while a virtual shit storm of punches and strikes come at your face is not a natural thing. You need a drill to desensitize you…
That drill is called “Surviving the Shit Storm!”
How People Lose Their Cool
The main reason people get knocked out in a fight is because they lose their mental and physical composure. I’ll address the mental aspect in a future article and video.
As far as the physical part goes you see people make the following mistakes.
- Narrow Feet & a Tall Stance – which makes it easy for them to trip over objects like sidewalks, stumble, and fall.
- A Close or Covering Guard – when hands are close to the face punches get through very easily.
- Dropped Guard – need I say more? Keep your hands in front of what is important, your face / head.
- Overly Large Movements – people swing their arms wildly both while punching and defending. This leaves them vulnerable.
- Crappy Shuffling Footwork – I’m going to cover footwork in a future article / video but for now watch the footwork on the video to see what correct looks like.
Connor McGregor vs. Floyd Mayweather Jr. is a classic example of a loss of composure. Granted we are talking about a pro UFC fighter in a boxing match against welterweight boxing champion at the time. So of course the boxer was going to win.
But McGregor actually did pretty good until fatigue got the better of him and his composure dropped. Meanwhile Mayweather kept his composure and won the fight.
Keeping Cool 101 – The Stance
Remember the list of mistakes from earlier? Well this is what you want to do instead.
- Feet Wide – Wide feet equals good balance. Typically 1 ½ to 2 times shoulder width as long as you feel athletic.
- Low & Athletic – No great athlete stands tall, it gives you poor balance. Get low, dug in, and stay springy.
- 45° to Your Opponent – A 45 degree orientation gives you the ability to strike with either arm or leg and it gives you 360° of footwork possibilities, not to mention amazing balance.
- Guard Up & Extended Out – Time and time again compressed guards get broken through, especially when a flurry or shit storm of punches come in. Project out into their space. Get your lead hand by their face for a quick counter strike.
- Elbows Close – Wide elbows are easy to get through and around. Center gait strikes like jabs, crosses, and uppercuts sneak right under your forearms. Likewise outer gait strikes like hooks and overhands go right over the top of your arms. But if you keep your elbows in like one of those steep Scandinavian roofs you will have perpendicular forearm angles making all of those strikes much easier to block or parry.
- Close the Center Gait – Don’t let those hands drift apart too far or you will once again invite punches right through the center gait, which are the hardest to defend FYI. If you slightly overlap your hands the center gait is basically gone. Only an uppercut can get through and frankly your opponent will have to be super close to use it and you can easily defend it with a slight movement of a forearm, a pivot step, or even just a slight step backwards.
Keeping Cool 201 – Tips
Simply here is what I will say.
When people first start this drill it is hard enough just to keep the tips from the stance in place. So get some reps in first.
Once your stance and guard is solid now you can start reaching out to block or parry the punches… BUT here is the key. Move as little as possible!
When you reach out and swat at incoming punches you move your guards out of place… Those guards are called guards for a reason. They are guarding something really important… YOUR FACE! And head and neck.
Just remember, police chase criminals but guards stay at their posts keeping criminals out. Your hands are guards, keep them at their posts. Keep those sneaky punches out.
If you keep this stance you will find that you barely need to move at all, sometimes not at all, to defend nearly any angle of punch that comes your way.
But if you overreach or swat you will leave an opening. And of course in a real fight expect any of the movements you do in training to be amplified, so practice moving as little as you possibly need to to stop those punches.
Survive The Shit Storm – The Drill
The goal of this drill is to stay cool under pressure and to feel supremely confident against a flurry of strikes. To do this you will quickly learn that staying in the correct stance and keeping your guard in place is paramount.
Ok let’s put all of this into practice. Here is the set up for the drill:
- The winner (trainee) gets into position and makes sure they have everything correct
- The coach (feeder) throws slow punches one at a time
- The winner is only allowed to defend, not attack… for now.
- The coach is the most important person here. Their job is to watch the winner to see if they lose any part of their stance. If they do the coach slows down, tells them what they need to work on, and continues throwing punches.
Progress this drill in the following ways:
- Throw combination punches
- Increase the speed of the punches
- Sometimes come in composed like a boxer, other times come in like a wild drunk guy at a bar
- Add tackles, kicks, pull a gun or a knife to deal with
- If you are a sport fighter stay within the rules of your sport but if you are prepping for the street or military combat feed the primary stimuli that you will see in real life.
- Finally add in counter strikes. Technically what I do when I’m in the winner role is I try to constantly fire a barrage of eye jabs at my coach the entire time he or she is attacking me. You learn quickly that you can block / parry and strike with the same arm at the same time. Not to mention you will become so freaking amazing at counter striking that no attacker will ever be able to get more than one punch off before they get hit. That’s a win!
Final Thoughts
This drill goes hand in hand with the Stay on Your Feet drill.
Like everything knowing is not enough, you must drill it over and over till it is autopilot. Do some variation of this drill every time you train and watch your composure go through the roof.
Tell your training partners to blame me if you become nearly impossible to hit and are able to counter them at will.
Until next time,
Brian
