Tips for a sparring guy with longer reach who paws his lead hand like Jones?

Alanf7

Black Belt
@Black
Joined
Aug 23, 2015
Messages
5,743
Reaction score
230
Just started with sparring (Dutch Kickboxing) and i'm doing fairly well but i struggle with this guy who does this. I have average reach and height. This guy is the same height as me but he has a very long stance and keeps his lead hand pawed out like Jones the whole time. Any tips how i could counter this or punish him for it? What i tried was chopping his legs but he gets out of the way just on time the whole time. He switches stances often btw and this pawing of the lead hand is the most difficult when he's in his southpaw stance (Im orthodox).

Thanks in advance.
 
Just started with sparring (Dutch Kickboxing) and i'm doing fairly well but i struggle with this guy who does this. I have average reach and height. This guy is the same height as me but he has a very long stance and keeps his lead hand pawed out like Jones the whole time. Any tips how i could counter this or punish him for it? What i tried was chopping his legs but he gets out of the way just on time the whole time. He switches stances often btw and this pawing of the lead hand is the most difficult when he's in his southpaw stance (Im orthodox).

Thanks in advance.
Parry + close distance
lead uppercut off an angle

If he's backstepping your kick, and is just playing the long range game. Work on cutting off the ring (short answer: stay square with him, even if he takes angles, predict where he's going to move laterally, and meet him there). Pursuit combinations also work well here, esp. if he just backsteps. No one backsteps faster than someone walking forward, also its harder for him to check walking backwards, when you learn the timing its almost a free leg kick for you.

Against southpaws, do the usual of circling to your left (keeping your foot outside of his). Your regular right leg middle kicks work well, SP's are open on that side.
 
Parry + close distance
lead uppercut off an angle

If he's backstepping your kick, and is just playing the long range game. Work on cutting off the ring (short answer: stay square with him, even if he takes angles, predict where he's going to move laterally, and meet him there). Pursuit combinations also work well here, esp. if he just backsteps. No one backsteps faster than someone walking forward, also its harder for him to check walking backwards, when you learn the timing its almost a free leg kick for you.

Against southpaws, do the usual of circling to your left (keeping your foot outside of his). Your regular right leg middle kicks work well, SP's are open on that side.
Thanks man, great tips.
Do you have any more tips of letting my right hand go? I'm mostly working with my left now, rarely use my rear hand, i think maybe because i feel my left side is exposed too much everytime that i throw it.
 
Thanks man, great tips.
Do you have any more tips of letting my right hand go? I'm mostly working with my left now, rarely use my rear hand, i think maybe because i feel my left side is exposed too much everytime that i throw it.
Against a SP, your right works well. You can slip their jab and throw your cross. Slip to the outside (head moves left at 45 degree), opposed to an orthodox fighter where if you slip their jab you have to do it on the inside.
Keep in mind, since SPs are in an opposite stance they can do the same as well (slip + throw power hand).

If your opponent/partner had a very stiff and tight high guard (Lets say he's orthodox), you can bs a hook, and use it to pull his left hand away (so his right arm to you), while throwing the cross, it'll be a bit more arced, but you can get him right on the chin there.

Work on combinations if you don't already, and learn to throw bs, while keeping 1 strike your main kill strike. So a basic one is 1,2,3,kick. Most have the kick as the main strike, and everything else is pure bs to get their parnter/opponent thinking about it. You can try, 1, kick, 3, 2 with the last one (cross) being the main one. Sell the bullshit well so they don't know its bs. Sometimes as bs on my end, I throw my punches even farther than I'm supposed to (1,2,3,kick); My punches touch their guard. Realistically if they didn't guard, my punches would be about 3 inches away from their face, it would never hit, but they feel it on the guard, and thinks that it could hit, and it works well. I'm at the right distance to land the kick without it being jammed. Thats just one example.
 
Last edited:
Good answer in the first response, but something else you can do is glove trap. Works especially well in opposite stances as the lead hook should be a good weapon for you. Throw out a jab, and if he stiff arms you literally pull his posting hand down with your glove and come over the top with a hook with that same hand. It doesn't have to be a big motion, just pop the top of his arm and immediately hit him with the hook off the rebound. It won't KO him but it gets really, really annoying and it's surprisingly hard to defend and keep stiff arming.

You can also treat his extended hand essentially as a punch and slip it with a quick step in and follow with an uppercut. If his left hand is out, take a step to your left and forward while slipping to your left (it'll have to be a big stance if he's a lot longer than you) and follow with an uppercut/shovel hook with your rear hand.
 
Last edited:
kick his arm or punch his elbow. stiff arming is the devil
 
If he is sticking his lead hand out, then just smash it down with your lead and follow up with a jab ASAP. Once you get in the pocket, you stick him and cut him off.

For ortho vs sp, you want to step on his outside. Step on the outside by going to your left and if he goes to his left you cut him off and get into his pocket. Either by ducking under his lead hand and body jab or use your rear hand to push his lead to your right opening his whole right hand side up. And don't forget to chop his lead leg up as you do this too. If he moves to his left when you go to the outside, then he is setting himself up for a lead leg chop.

Key is to move his lead hand away and attack his right side (his weak vs your strong). As a shorter guy, you must pressure pressure pressure. Stick and move to avoid damage or just stick onto him and never let go.
 
you could try timing his jab if he´s doing it constant as soon as he jabs immediately low kick to the inside leg, especially if he commits a little on his jab
 
I used to do that a lot until one of my sparring partners threw a level changed power cross at my exposed floating ribs. That was the first time I'd ever been dropped. Probably one of the worst 5 minutes of my life afterward.
 
kick his arm or punch his elbow. stiff arming is the devil

This! Punching at this elbow with a hook from the outside can cause some discomfort from a little hyperextension on the joint.

Punching the crook of the elbow or bicep from the inside is good also but takes a little more balls...people aren't used to getting hit on the bicep (especially the inside).

Or parry the arm down and kick the shit out of his exposed body on that side.
 
Back
Top