Swinger and Overhand Strikes

Shalom, everyone. Welcome to this week’s technique review. Today, we are talking about circular attacks, the swinger, or the swing, and the overhand hook strike.

So the idea is this, we would like to hit the target in a circular manner. So the basic hook, something like this, from the fighting stance. Something like that. That’s the basics but there are some variations. For example, if that is the hook, I can change the angle of the hook until it becomes uppercut. The question is, can I change it in another way? Can I lift the elbow? More than this, it’s very difficult. Now, where’s the direction of hook? In the direction of the forearm, this one.

If I lower myself this way, the elbow becomes higher, and then you can land better between the hands of the person who thinks that he’s doing that type of action. It’s a bit of deceiving attack. So in this case, hook downwards is really what we are talking about. Look how the angle changes just because the level of the shoulder changed, something like this.

So, if we talk about striking the target, look how I am moving. I raise the elbow and lift the fist, and lower my body and put the shoulder in the center of the silhouette. And that will be the basic overhand hook strike. Again, the idea is to bypass the defense from above. Obviously, with gloves, without gloves. Even an open-hand strike, with the heel of the hand, very efficient, very good.

Compared to the regular hook, we can definitely create something that is partly straight so if that is the hook, and that is the overhand, if you want to continue, you can continue more downwards in a straighter action. So that will be a combination between the hook, this time downwards, and a straight strike.

Another strike that we have, it’s called a swinger. Imi probably from old boxing styles, when he was training boxing it was in the 20s and 30s. In 1929 he was 19, he won an international championship in boxing. After that, he focused on wrestling also. But he was also a boxer. So he taught us a swinger punch, that one. What happens is, at the connect that you are reversing the fist, the thumb comes down and you are hitting with that. Two knuckles still. And in this case, it’s a little bit of, again, deceiving action because you’re lowering, you’re sending the hand down. And then practically, you’re climbing up.

So, this type of motion … look how the hand goes down when the elbow comes up a little bit. So the opponent thinks that you’re going to hit down. And then you’re practically lifting the elbow, climbing a bit higher, and with the front of the fist, with the reversed fist, reversed punch, thumb is down, you are crossing inward, forward, in rather long motion.

So, if you can compare it to a hook, this one is usually longer, and if you are moving … If you move forward and then a little bit to the side, and send the attack, you can hit from the side. You can even move more, put the shoulder more inward and attack almost forward with a hook strike. So the swinger, I’ll do it lightly, with the front hand, and with the back hand. When we talk about staying in the same channel, talk about don’t moving, the staying in the channel, and attacking, sort of a hook strike with the reversed fist.

These are tools, in way, techniques, obviously yes. These are techniques. Make the technique, practice them, then you use them when you feel it is suitable.

For example, while … do you sparring, or while doing interacting with a partner. Partner this moment, you look, but competition, we don’t talk about reality at the moment. Try to put, from time to time, a mission for yourself, to use specific technique. Not talking about the swinger, necessarily. Whatever, yes? Use specific technique. Like this, you enhance your experience in that technique, and eventually, when time comes, hopefully you will use it.

All the best, guys. Thank you for listening a watching. Ciao.