Reload And Fire With Randy Steinke

When someone first begins to learn how to strike, no matter what art it is, from Boxing, to Muay Thai to even more traditional arts like Taekwondo, they are taught to switch sides when they strike in combination. This means that, for example, if someone were to start a punching combination off with a standard jab with their lead hand, the most common technique to come after that would be something using the rear hand, usually a rear straight. Then if the person who threw the combination wanted to continue it, then they would likely throw something with the lead hand again. 

This principle applies in all striking martial arts. In Muay Thai if you were to throw a jab and wanted to use a kick after throwing your lead hand jab, you are probably going to throw a kick from your rear leg. 

Even in combinations that involve multiple kicks or maybe even just kicks, it’s generally taught to newer strikers that you should switch between legs for each strike. This is taught to newer strikers for a few reasons. First, it’s a lot simpler and easier to get the grasp of for people who have never done any kind of striking before. A jab, cross, lead hook combination is a lot simpler for a day one striker to learn and do somewhat well than a jab, lead hook, cross combination, despite both of them being considered fairly basic. 

The second reason is that switching between sides for your combinations is the standard and taught to most strikers early on is that it helps to maximize the amount of power that someone can generate by utilizing the hip rotation that comes naturally from switching the limbs that your strikes come from during combinations. 

It’s a lot easier to get power into a strike from a lead hook coming off a rear cross than it is coming off of a lead jab to lead hook. That being said there is a way to get power into strikes coming off of the same hand. It is somewhat slower than doubling up strikes on the same hand like you might be used to seeing and the traditional way of throwing combinations but it is a good way to break up rhythm and throw off your opponents defense. 

This style of striking is known as recoiling or reloading and involves the striker loading up or returning to their stance and firing back with the same side that they just landed with. In this video former World Series of Fighting fighter and striking coach Randy Steinke, shows a combination/drill that trains this method of landing shots. 

The combination itself combines three very standard boxing combos, the jab-cross, cross-lead hook and lead hook-cross. The drill starts off with the striker throwing a jab cross and then returning to their stance before firing off the cross again followed by the lead hook. Then the striker can either return to their stance or load up the lead hook and then fire it off and finishing with a straight right. 

Like we previously mentioned this method of striking might be slower than others but it is a good way to land shots that your opponent won’t expect, as they are used to having strikes switch from left to right or right to left. This way you can really throw off their defense and timing, making yourself unpredictable and hard to defend against. 

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