Countering The Switch Kick To Set Up Combos By Carlos Condit
As a striker it is important to develop the skills needed to block and counter kicks. You can effectively increase your chances of landing combinations by utilizing good countering setups, using the right techniques will often lead to more accurate and efficient strikes.
Being an efficient striker means being able to land a higher percentage of strikes. The best way to achieve this is to learn great counters that leave your opponent off balance or leave his back turned. In doing this it gives the fighter an opening to land various combo attacks or takedown opportunities.
The problem with not countering kicks is you leave yourself open to damage, a fighter who thinks they can avoid kicks will often wind up suffering blow after blow. It can only take one kick to leave a fighter unable to continue the fight, and multiple kicks unchecked can break a fighter down and inevitably lose you the fight.
Using the right set ups to counter kicks is a necessary skill in being successful in a fight. When attempting to counter kicks we must have the right footwork in place and our hands ready. For example keeping one hand on our chin and the other protecting our ribs, shelters us from taking significant damage and prepares us to scoop and parry the leg as it's thrown. Utilising the right footwork then allows us to create the right amount of space so we can counter with a switch kick of our own or any other sequence of combinations.
Who Is Carlos Condit?
Carlos Joseph Condit is an American professional mixed martial artist who competes in the welterweight division in the UFC. Carlos is a former UFC interim welterweight champion, former WEC welterweight champion and has also competed in shootboxing and pancrase in Japan. Carlos has the nickname “The Natural Born Killer” and for good reason with an impressive MMA record of 32 - 13 with wins over greats like Frank Trigg, Nick Diaz, Rory MacDonald and Martin Kampmann. Carlos began wrestling at the age of 9 and continued his training through high school, then at age 15 he started training with the legendary Greg Jackson to hone his striking ability.
In this video Carlos Condit shows us how to block, scoop then parry the leg out of the way in order to land effective combos on our opponent.
Cross Block Scoop Counter To The Switch Kick
Carlos starts the video by talking about his cross block series and what works well if your opponent throws the switch kick at you. He explains how the technique is easy to accomplish wearing big gloves and even easier with MMA gloves on, which also translates into a real life fight situation you might encounter.
The first thing we need to do is guard our chin with our dominant hand and use our non-dominant hand to cross over and block the kick. We then scoop our opponent's achilles as we step our non-dominant leg backwards, this creates enough space to parry their leg out of the way, leaving our opponent vulnerable to numerous attacks like a low kick, high kick, takedowns and punch and kick combinations.
Commonly when we execute a switch kick counter it forces our opponent to be off balance, giving us the edge and the ability to select the appropriate striking combo. If the technique is done efficiently it can leave our opponent giving up their back, which gives us an opportunity to use a wrestling takedown or puts us in a great position to utilise Jiu Jitsu maneuvers.
It is really important to remember that when we block our opponent's kick, that we make space by stepping back with our non-dominant leg, this allows us room for the parry and also gives us an opening to fire that same leg back at our opponent quickly as a low, medium or high switch kick. Now that we have blocked and countered with a kick we can utilize the opening for jab and cross combinations to ramp up our attack.
Technique Wrap Up
- Guard your chin with your dominant hand
- Use your non dominant hand to cross block the kick
- Then scoop the achilles
- Step your non dominant leg backwards ( allowing space )
- Then parry the leg forcing your opponent to turn
- Then utilize any chosen combination
Learn More From Carlos Condit
If you like this cross block counter to the switch kick, and want to master your modern MMA striking in great detail, then learn it from one of the great UFC legends in Carlos Condit. You can purchase his series Modern MMA Striking Mastery by Carlos Condit available exclusively on Dynamic Striking.