KerwinBenson.com Hidden Gems of Martial Arts

Excellent Exercise: Getting Faked with a Fake

Let's cut through all of the circumlocution, (if I haven't been obvious enough) ...

A key in the discussion of today is "commitment." If the technique that your opponent offers you doesn't feel committed, you won't respond to it.

You have to feel that a kick or punch coming at you could actually reach you and do damage -- enough harm that you should respond, to prevent the technique from making solid contact.

A wimpy attempt made by your attacker will not convince you that a real strike is being fired at you.

The more advanced martial artists can sniff non-committed action. And they don't respond ... or they don't respond in the expected manner.

So, how can you learn to get better at perceiving fakes?

Detecting Fakes

The key to making the following exercise work is that your partner will start with super-obvious, bad fakes. I mean really bad ones.

Then, your partner will start to adjust the fakes. They will get better and better -- ever more subtle.

You quickly progress through the obvious stages of the exercise, but as the feints get more imperceptible, it becomes harder to distinguish the real from the set-up.

You should create your own application of this exercise. Work it with kicks. Try having your partner leave openings. Try feints for an elbow strike with fake punches. Really do try a variety of techniques applied to the principle of contrasting fakes with real techniques.

Contrasting Fakes With Real Techniques

Your partner circles you and occasionally jabs with a punch to your ribcage, under your arm pit. You respond when the technique gets close enough to score.

After three or four jabs from your partner, your partner varies the technique with an obvious fake. The jab starts for the ribcage, but its path changes, and with a lot of extra motion, it orients on your head. You easily deal with the punch to the head. (Respond with a familiar technique.)

Have your partner mix in real jabs to the ribs with this obvious fake a few more times.

Next, your partner makes the fake a little less obvious. How? By making the fake more similar to the real jab. Maybe the two motions (going towards the ribs -- changing direction to the face) start to blend as one.

Again, you practice distinguishing between the two types of attack.

Next, we add in the magic component that we talked about in the beginning of this article -- "commitment." Your partner starts to add a shoulder lean with both the real jab and the fake. Both techniques only have one smooth motion at this point.

Because of the commitment of the shoulder and the rest of the body, you really feel that either technique could be a punch to the ribs. It's becoming harder to tell which punches have your face as their destination.

And this is where it becomes crucial that you master the differences between the two punches. The better your partner's acting skills, the harder it will be for you to distinguish. So, if you learn to perceive the minute differences, the good fakes will seem as obvious as the pronounced, sloppy techniques.

As you apply this exercise to all different kinds of fakes, you'll gain enough experience that you too, can choose when and how you will respond to your opponent's attempt at fooling you into thinking the strike is a committed, real (SDA) attack.