Parry The Jab And Land The Right Hand With Duane Ludwig
Countering the Jab is one of the most important skills practitioners need to develop as they get better. The Jab is the most used punch in boxing, and even in MMA today, we see it used as better strikers enter the scene.
The Jab is such a famous and essential strike because fighters can utilize it in so many ways -
So we can see that the jab can have a significant impact on the fight, but how can we counter it? And use the fact that it is used a lot to our advantage?
The Jab might not have many holes in it, but the fighter using it will almost always make a technical or tactical error while fighting, allowing us to counter the Jab. Some mistakes we need to look for when the opponent is working his Jab are:
- Lifting the elbow while Jabbing
- Keeping the same rhythm with the Jab
- Falling forward with the Jab
All of those mistakes happen throughout the fight, giving us the chance to catch our opponents because they allow us to anticipate the punch. Once the Jab is anticipated, we can time it and open up many counters that will hurt the opponent badly.
The next section will talk precisely about that; we will learn how to counter the Jab off the parry, which is an easy counter that anyone can perform once he can parry the opponent Jab consistently.
In the following video, Duane Ludwig will show us how to use the parry of the Jab to set up a right cross or hook.
Who Is Duane Ludwig?
Duane Ludwig is an American striking coach for MMA working at his own gym Ludwig Martial Arts. Duane has coached many pro fighters over the years, and the most notable of them all is the former bantamweight champion, T.J. Dillashaw. Duane was a professional fighter that found great success in the UFC after coming from a kickboxing background training under Bas Rutten. Duane even broke the record for the fastest knockout in the UFC, which is a notable achievement.
Learn More From Duane Ludwig! Click Learn More!
Parry To Land The Cross or Hook
In this video, Duane Ludwig will show us how to parry the Jab and counter it with an overhand cross or a hook depending on the situation; as long as you hit the target, it doesn’t matter which strike you choose.
So we start from a close distance, and as the opponent throws the Jab, we will parry it in a “paw” motion downwards while stepping inside, taking our head off the center and landing the right hand.
Notice that this time we don’t bring our hand back to our face as we parry; we keep it out there to follow the parry immediately with a counter right hand. We want to take a step to the left off the initial defense, so our head is out of danger, but this is not enough; we must push the Jab down with the parry, so we have a clear path to hit his face.
After we understand the setup to the counter, let’s look at its mechanics - when we parry the Jab, we want to carry the momentum downward and roll our hand back and forth again for the punch to land. Many practitioners make the mistake of rolling the hand in a wide arc, making the punch predictable.
Now the next step in this drill is to add motion, so we are going to start moving around, and as the opponent throws his Jab at us, we are going to parry and step our left with a counter right hand, repeat this process until you get the technique down.
Remember now that when we perform this technique, the distance might change with different opponents; if the opponent is taller than me, then I need to do a longer step as I counter, but if he is shorter, I might not need a step at all to set up the right hand.
Crucial detail when we are drilling with our partner - never put the pad/glove too close to your face; our partner might hit us if we’re too close and to get rid of that risk, we just put our hand a little further from our face. Holding pads away from the face might develop bad habits, but we cannot take that risk, and to develop the precision, we need to throw this counter when we spar or fight to get a more realistic feel of the technique.
Learn More From Duane Ludwig
If you liked this breakdown of Duane showing us how to parry the Jab into a right hand, check out his full DVD - “Countering The Jab - By Duane Ludwig” available exclusively on Dynamic Striking.