Curious what you guys employ when facing a southpaw. Personally I find it completely disrupts my primary game.
As a southpaw, I would love to hear how it disrupts your game. What do southpaw's do that particularly frustrate you?
Because you know i would respond to something like this in this way. A very heavy stick. Works everytime. They dont train to fight them every day do they? Other than that, the only thinking i have in my head is to fight south paw. Cant say its based on any experience.
Haha no problem, I shall reveal all. Basically my primary strategy is to manage distance, counter jab, jab, teep and pick off the lead leg with lead inside roundhouses and power roundhouses. After that I work up using fients to initiate a reaction to my established pattern and look to land sweeps to the supporting leg or hooks and straights primarily but I'll take what's given. I also start changing the level of my power roundhouses. Against a southpaw this is tricky due to the placement of the lead leg and lead hand. I tend to end up circling left and hooking body, head then landing the cross and lead roundhouse to the lead leg off that among other things... It can be tricky however and although I seem to be able to avoid damage just as well my offense certainly feels stifled.
In stick fighting class, I actually have certain things I do specifically to take advantage of being a southpaw.
Think yourself lucky - As a Southpaw myself, I (sometimes) find that orthodox fighters can throw my timing/range out of wack, and there are a lot more of those (on average) for me to be concerned about, than there are Southpaws to trouble you. Travess
This isn't quite what you asked for, but jack slack did an awesome hand fighting and footwork breakdown somewhere, and I can't find it (it might be in his book). He also did a breakdown on mcgregor, and he's a southpaw too, I found that, so that'll have to do!
One thing that can help is to change your framing of what they are doing Typically it's because people deal with a "jab" or a "cross" (ie the technique) instead of a straightline of attack (ie the angle). Working with FMA really helped me in this regard Take a jab..an inside slip against it is an outside slip against a cross so you just have to recognize the line and you have inherent defemse already just change your "follow ups" accordingly
Yeah agree. I primarily don't struggle with defence just offence. I slip to the outside of the lead hand and quarter step to initiate mostly and lead with the hook. I'd be interested in other offence strategies and footwork options that others use too though.
Damn you! Shut up! That actually works against me! Okay, seriously, this is what my boxing sparring partner does a lot, and he lands both that lead hook and a body shot way more often than I would like. See, he (orthodox stance) wants to circle to his left. I (southpaw stance) want to circle to my right. It's a collision course. If I'm not careful, and if my lead hand isn't quite defending my own cheek, then I'm walking into his punches. I hate it I hate it I hate it! Generally, whoever gets his lead foot on the outside first, has an advantage. The geometry favors that person. So back to the OP, try to keep your lead foot on the outside. (But of course, the southpaw is trying to keep his foot on the outside at the same time.)
Another one -- throw your cross when the southpaw throws his jab. If you get the timing right, the body mechanics of the cross are such that your head will slip his jab. Your punch will land, but his punch will miss. (I've been the recipient of a few of these. )
Cheers mate, how are you setting up that cross? Hooking head and body off the quarter step left quite frequently at the moment. Yep currently quarter stepping left off the slip and firing the hook. Will give this a go. Seems like leading with the cross is one to explore.
I manage to run more often into it, than I like to admit: I (southpaw) want to throw a jab and one of my sparring partners gets me half the time with a backfist after he redirects(? probably the wrong term here, sorry!) my jab down. He did it once five times. I still try to forget that
A couple of ways. My favourite two combinations on southpaws are right cross left kick, and left hook left hook left hook. The first as has been said, is either slipping or parrying a southpaws jab. I like to think of it as using southpaw tactics against themselves. Everything a southpaw can do to me, I can do to them exactly the same way. If you look up "how to fight southpaw" it's the exact same if you're fighting one. The other triple hook combo is silly and srupid, but it works really well. Got your left foot to their outside, and face them at an angle. Doesn't have to be much, it can be like 15 degrees or something. Just so long as you're on their dead side. Then you hook, and move yourself into the exact same position relative to them. Repeat until they feel stupid. It's just a brain overload. They are so used to stepping off one way that they can't circle. Again, his works the same way if you are the southpaw.
Southpaws aren't supposed to jab. Not in boxing or kickboxing at least. It's just not in your interest. Jack Slack can explain it way better than I can. Or Lawrence Kenshin. Look them uplease.
I will do that later or tomorrow, thanks! I often feel, that I don't have much choice: 90% of the people are not only stronger than me (which unfortunately isn't that difficult; and until my shoulder is healed I can't even work on that) but also bigger (which is even less difficult than being stronger ), so if I want to even reach some of my sparring partners I feel like I have to jab. Doesn't make it better, that I'm pretty rubbish at sparring and slow with my legs, I'm afraid. I'm also afraid, that I'm sidetracking Knee Riders thread, sorry for that!
As I say the step off an hook is something I frequently do already and has high success but the cross is something I definitely under utilise as a leading tool. I'll try it off a step out or as I slip instead of the body hook. Thanks! My main issue is I hide behind my jab a lot and set up most of my combination attacks off it whilst chipping away the lead leg, as I mentioned in my reply to aaradia... these targets/openings aren't as readily available on a lefty. I'll try adding the use of my cross first and coming in with the hook and low line kicks to my hooking strategy and see how it plays out for me. No, its no problem! Keep the convo going I might learn something!
