Feinting for Street Fighting

Loren Christensen and Wim Demeere, authors of Timing in the Fighting Arts, offer this simple partner drill to practice using feinting in a self-defense situation:

Square off with your partner and run trough your entire arsenal of feints using your head, arm, kicks, grabs, footwork, and even shouts. Your partner should give you honest feedback. If he feels your feint isn’t convincing enough, he tells you so. Now, don’t take it personally and come back at him with, “Yeah, but your mama’s a thief.” Learn from the critique and strive to correct the problem.

Here are a few tricks for you to try. They are simple because our fighting philosophy is simple. It’s already hard enough on the streets without getting complex in your self-defense.

Switch levels of attack Fake an attack to your opponent’s legs and when he moves to block, hit him in the face. The bigger the difference in the levels, the harder it is for him to defend against your follow-up attack. If you can’t hit at extreme levels, do less. Fake a head punch, and when he dodges, slam a hard punch into his liver.

Practice 1 or 2 sets of 10 reps of each combination on both sides.