Boxing / MMA Guard vs Muay Thai Guard vs Flinch Spear

Why 3 Different Guards?

One of my YouTube viewers asked about 3 different types of guards often taught and wanted my thoughts.

As someone who has been doing this a long time I often take for granted what I find to be simple but can often be confusing when someone is seeing competing ideas from various sources.

So hopefully I can make this simple to understand and apply.

Different types of guards serve different purposes, different people, and different circumstances.

Today I’ll cover the 2 most common guards that I use and a 3rd response that technically isn’t a guard.

Classic Boxing / MMA Guard

The classic boxing, kickboxing, or MMA guard is… well a classic. Sure you will see different variations on it but at it’s core your hands are held up and projected slightly in front of you.

Generally your rear hand is as if holding a phone to your ear and then pushed forward just in front of your face.

While your front hand is at the same height but pushed a little further forward.

You typically leave a little space between the hands to lure straight punches so you can parry them and counter.

Now sure, some fighters will change it to suit their personal style, flair, etc. But this is the meat and potatoes of it.

Mike Tyson was known for his peek-a-boo style guard where he kept his gloves closed and would just peek his eyes over the tops of his gloves. It favored his shorter reach, amazing headwork and footwork, and desire to get close to his opponent and launch bombs.

Roy Jone Jr. – more of a flair man – would be found often keeping his front arm low… even lower than this photo, while he would keep his rear hand high. This would favor his odd angle sniping attacks and allow him to slip or parry away counter strikes.

Pros of the Classic Guard

Your hands are at the ready to strike at any moment without needing to wind up

You can generate speed and powerful punches from here

You can lure punches to counter-strike

Cons of the Classic Guard

Your defense is not as good as with the Muay Thai High Guard

You must respond to each punch thrown by your attacker very deliberately as opposed to the accidental defense of the Muay Thai High Guard

In close range your reaction time will not be as good and you can eat a lot of punches unless you change your guard

Muay Thai High Guard

The Muay Thai high guard is designed to stop punches with little effort from the user.

It is often seen in Rapid Assault Tactics to set up elbow destructions… where you put the point of your elbow right in the path of your opponent’s fist… a bad day for them!

It simply blocks most of the angles to the head and puts the burden of getting through on the attacker… which of course lends itself to counter attacks. Primarily from lead hand eye strikes… money!!!

Generally speaking your hands are much higher and arms projected out further. How much further? I wouldn’t recommend more than a 45° elbow bend or you lose some of your defensive angles… especially against hooks.

Speaking of defensive angles keep those elbows tight. Wide elbows opens you up to uppercuts and hooks. You want nearly vertical forearms to cut the space off.

Or else you can wind up like the gentleman below getting front kicked in the face.

Pros of the Muay Thai High Guard

Automatic defense in most cases. You can barely move or not move and still block punches.

This guard just cuts off so many angles to your head, especially when you project it out a little

This guard is great for lower skilled (new) fighters and when you can’t be as agile (such as standing on a slick surface or having an injury)

Elbow destructions happen easily and even accidentally here

Great for quick counters with eye strikes since your hands are nearly dangling in your opponent’s face already

Cons of the Muay Thai High Guard

Since your arms are projected out you can’t generate the same powerful strikes without pulling your hands back first

That’s about it

The Flinch Spear

Tony Blauer coined the term “flinch spear” where he weaponized the primal flinch response that all humans are hard-wired to do.

When you do a trained skill response such as a parry, block, head movement, etc. it must process through deeper levels of the brain (less-sciency way of saying it). Whereas the flinch response happens faster as it does not need to go through those decision making steps.

Think about a time when you touched a hot object like a stove. You immediately pulled your hand away before you knew what you touched. And you didn’t choose to do it, it happened reflexively.

Then you looked to see what happened. This is a built-in feature, a reflex of the human body.

We push danger away and pull away from danger reflexively. And a reflex happens faster than a trained skill because once again it does not require your brain to go through as complex of a decision making process.

All of the people below are pulling their heads back and putting their hands up to protect their faces. Some are at various stages of having their hands up based upon how recently they saw the broken bat flying at them.

The flinch spear looks a whole lot like the Muay Thai High Guard… it is just done reactively instead of proactively.

For instance if someone is trying to get close to you to sucker punch you… and because you read my blog, watch my videos, and/or train with me you are ready for that nonsense.

Your hands are up in prayer hands or some other position and then when the sucker punch comes you flinch out in a spear shape to stop the attack… then spin the story on them and smash them up and down!

The flinch spear can be used to defend any type of ambush or surprise (sucker) attack such as a knife stab or tackle.

Pros of the Flinch Spear

It is the single fastest response you can do because it relies on natural hard-wired flinch responses you already have as opposed to learned skills that have to go through deeper levels of brain processing

It blocks most of the main angles to your head and body

It allows you to survive an ambush so that you can make space, get your mind focused, and use those hard-earned martial arts skills

Cons of the Flinch Spear

There really aren’t any… It is the best response to a sucker punch that you have got.

Scenarios for the 3 Guards

You would potentially use all 3 guards in a single fight. Here are some examples:

Scenario 1) Flinch Spear

You are walking to your car at night in a parking lot. You are doing your best due diligence to keep aware of your surroundings. A man comes out from behind a van and is now in close proximity to you and is walking deliberately towards you.

You put your hands up and say “hey can I help you?” or “stop!”

He fires out a sucker punch, your arms flinch spear out to block the incoming attack. Then you smash your forearm into his neck, straight blast his face, Thai clench and terminate the fight.

Scenario 2) Flinch Spear to Boxing / MMA Guard

Same scenario. Man jumps out, your hands come up, he punches, you flinch spear.

Now in reality you might have to weather 3-4 punches before your brain switches into combat mode. After all you were just grocery shopping, not out looking for violence like this person was. He was ready mentally you still have to get ready.

So you block his punches while moving back to make space.

Now you realize you are in a fight and get into your awesome MMA stance and are ready to do what you have been trained to do.

Scenario 3) Flinch Spear to Muay Thai High Guard

Everything is the same as the scenario above except you are a either newer to martial arts and maybe not quite as skilled. You flinch spear, move back to make space.

But this time you opt for the Muay Thai high guard and when your attacker comes in with his next barrage of punches you put your elbow up and he smashes his fist right into the point of your elbow stunning him for a moment.

You straight blast his face, Thai clench him, and proceed to smash his testicles and face with knees.

Scenario 4) Flinch Spear to Weapon Draw

Same scenario but perhaps you recognize you are in a high or lethal threat scenario. Perhaps you are a female being attacked by a man. Maybe you are being jumped.

You have a concealed weapon (handgun, knife, etc.) but you need to create space to get at it.

So you flinch spear to block the punch(es), smash them in the throat with a forearm, shove him away, move back, and draw your weapon.

Scenario 5) Boxing MMA Guard to Flinch Spear to Boxing MMA Guard

What?

Why would you switch back and forth.

So you start off in your MMA guard stance. You come in with your attack but it fails (for whatever reason). Your opponent rapidly counter attacks with a flurry of strikes and you flinch spear holding that Muay Thai high guard position as you make space.

Once you have space you switch back to your MMA guard to set up a different attack.

The reason you used the flinch spear which turned into the Muay Thai high guard is because the flurry of strikes from your opponent was too overwhelming to keep up with.

It overrode your OODA loop processing ability.

If you had tried to parry, block, or use headwork the punches would be coming in too rapidly and from too many angles for you to keep up with. You would have been clobbered. So your flinch spear reflex and Muay Thai high guard blocked as many angles as possible while you got to a safe distance.

They allowed you to survive the shit storm!

Now at safe distance you can switch back to your MMA guard and plan a better next attack.

Summary

So the flinch spear is to survive the sucker punch or other ambush attack.

The boxing / MMA guard is for when you are cool headed and are setting up your attack. You are also highly skilled.

The Muay Thai high guard is for when you are not as highly skilled or you suddenly get overwhelmed and need to block as many angles as possible as you make space.

Frankly a highly skilled fighter can still use it as a way to set up elbow destructions or quick eye strike counters.

Every time I throw a kick I always put my Muay Thai high guard up until I know I am back at a safe distance in case my kick didn’t work and my opponent fires a counter strike that is too quick for me to block in time.

In any fight you will likely switch between 2 or all 3 of these. Make sure to train them in the correct way so your responses are correct for when (God forbid) it ever really matters.

Until next time,

Brian