How To Move Correctly With The Jab By Dyah Davis
Modern boxing is laid upon a few fundamental pillars, and one of them is footwork. It was developed in the 18th century when boxing changed its concept from standing toe to toe and punching each other into an art of moving the feet and transferring punches through footwork.
The problem many athletes face is connecting the right punch with the right type of footwork, and Not all strikes allow you to move your feet optimally.
Every strike has an optimal type of footwork that can work with it, for example, the right hand: we cannot use any kind of footwork because the punch requires us to rotate our body out of stance. We have limited options - we can use bumps/sidesteps to create an angle or we can use another rotation to return to our stance and only start moving from there.
The jab, however, is a unique strike because it doesn’t involve any rotation out of stance. The jab can be used optimally with most types of footwork as we can use bumps, L steps, sidesteps, and general movement in all directions while striking simultaneously, which makes it the best strike to combine with footwork.
In the following video, Dyah Davis will show us how to use the correct footwork for the jab.
Who Is Dyah Davis?
Dyah Davis is a retired professional boxer, and he is a former super middleweight champion and the son of the great boxer Howard Davis Jr who won a gold medal at the Olympic games. Nowadays, Dyah works as a boxing coach at - American Top Team, working with some of the best MMA fighters on the planet like Dustin Poirier.
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Footwork For The Jab
To start the video, Dyah tells us a common mistake he sees many fighters make when they step forward with the jab; they are bringing their feet too close together.
We never want to do that in boxing; if our feet are too close together, any opponent that will give us a little push will break our balance. We always want our feet to be under us shoulder-width apart so we can stay balanced; this way, when we’re being pushed from any direction we will just fall into our supporting leg in that direction for a base.
So now that we know we must keep our feet shoulder-width apart at all times, we can start stepping forward while throwing the jab simultaneously; when we do it, we keep our feet under us and move in all directions while throwing the jab.
What this helps us to do is that now when we step in with the jab, and we find ourselves in trouble, we are balanced, and we can quickly move back or sideways to get an angle, we always have the choice of which direction we choose to move into as long as we’re balanced and are able to push from both our feet.
A good drill we can do in order to perform this movement smoothly is to simply step forward with the jab and then quickly step back or sideways. This way, we can move in all directions knowing we are balanced because we can move nimbly while throwing our jab.
Learn More From Dyah Davis
If this breakdown helped improve your game, go check the full DVD and see everything else Dyah Davis offers you- “Fluid Boxing Fundamentals - Striking Mastery For All Levels” available exclusively on Dynamic Striking.