Well-Rounded Striking Drill With Kirian Fitzgibbons
CSA gym is one of the most successful USA based Muay Thai gyms. They have names like Miriam Nakamoto, Gaston Bolanos, Kevin Ross in the Muay Thai space and Henry Cejudo used them for striking in a period of time in his UFC career. They have a good sense of mixing Boxing, Muay Thai, and some Dutch influence as well.
14 Point Cover Drill
The CSA gym's system for countering punches is called the 14 point cover drill. The 14 is geared towards the defender as they are practicing 14 different defenses for punches.
- Slip outside the Jab
- Slip outside the Right cross
- Pull back from Jab
- Duck under the right cross
- Duck under Left hook
- Duck under Right Hook
- Block right hook body
- Block left hook body
- Block Right hook
- Block left Hook
- Elbow deflect the jab
- Elbow deflect the cross
- Parry The Jab
- Parry The cross
The beauty of this drill is the amount of variety and different scenarios for punching that could happen in a fight. The 14 points is a structure to have and a base for defense. You can take it and make it your own.
Also another good thing is the attitude to drilling to counter not just to defend. The idea of defending is to put yourself in a position to counter and to do damage. This drill also rapidly lets you focus on defense and counters in such a short, efficient, and rapid manner. So the progression is learn the 14 point base, add 3 punch counters, then add two punch counters ending with a kick
Countering With Punches
So after you proceed to learn the 14 point defense and drill them for a bit and get comfortable. You will start to add counters. So first it will be cracking back with three punches after every defensive movement from the list above. So a good example would be slipping to your right from the jab and throwing a 2-3-2 or a cross-hook-cross and the same goes for all the 14 points defense is that you throw the punches from the hip/leg you are loaded on. When you slip to your right your right side is locked and loaded to shoot the right punch
Countering With Punches And Kicks
Here in this drill The CSA system allows freedom in their drills. So this time after every defense the counter is 2 punches and ends with any kick it could be knee, front kick, usually low kick, Body Kick, Head kick or spinning stuff. And eventually with MMA you can do the same counters but end with a takedown as an example. Here is Coach Kirian and his two fighters from CSA explaining and demonstrating the 14 point cover drill countering with two punches and one kick.
Make sure you and your partner start slow once you have these ingrained in your system you can drill them anywhere with your partner. If there is no double end bag available is an option or shadow but ideally drill this with a live partner. Lastly you can have fun with it by adding the freedom and creativity in your drill. Where one person does the 14 point defense but counters with whatever they see at that moment
If you are looking for more top-tier partner drills check out Kirian Fitzgibbons' latest instructional!
