Body Punching – Achieving Success With Uppercuts!
Using uppercuts when body punching is often overlooked. Most go for the short hooks below the ribs, which is fine as this approach is very effective, but if you mix in uppercuts to the equation then you have a much more dynamic option for bringing an opponent down!
Uppercuts are much more difficult to defend against, which means that there is more chance of them landing. Furthermore, the area of the torso in which the uppercut will land contains the solar plexus. Ask anyone who has ever been hit in the solar plexus (or just below) to describe the impact. The explanation will go something like “I didn’t feel it for a second or so, but then came the pain and the accompanying inability to breath. When I finally did breath, I sounded like a farmyard animal giving birth. It took me the next 2 rounds just to regain my fighting strength!” Yes, it’s really that bad!
This simple mid-range boxing combination combines 2 punching skills, 1 footwork skill and 1 body movement skill. The combination is broken down below, but then read on and I’ll describe why the uppercut has such a high chance of landing. I’ve defined this as a mid-range combination because at the end of the passage, you’ll be at mid-range and can continue the assault or withdraw.
The combination then:
- Throw a jab
- Combine a move in with a duck
- Throw a mid-range right uppercut.
Now, there’s a few things to note here. Firstly, when throwing the right uppercut to the body, the shot is technically the same as that to the head. The difference is that you intend it to land on a horizontal plane (the body) as opposed to a vertical plane (under the chin) which means that the risk increases as your right hand is away from the guard position for longer. You can overlap the uppercut with the duck, thus combining 2 skills. Combining the shot with the duck reduces the amount of time that your right hand is away from the guard position and therefore reduces the risk.
Now the money shot. The reason that this mid-range combination has such a high success rate is that the opening jab has confused the opponent’s defences. Common responses to an incoming jab are to a) lean back or b) bring the hands up to defend. Either way, the opponent creates a low-level blind spot which this uppercut is used to exploit; your opponent will simply not see it coming which in turn will increase the damage that the shot will do!
Body punching that is simple, economic and deadly!
Feel free to ask questions or offer comments below! Alternatively, for more background, check out this article on boxing combinations.
Cheers
Fran
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