Tactics In Self-Defence

Percy Longhurst

A long acquaintance with boxing and boxers convinces me that although instructors may direct and books advise just what the learner should do in any given circumstances, it is the boxer himself who, in actual contest, decides. I don’t mean by this to assert that boxers are unable to learn from their teachers or that they fail to recognise the value of advise given to them, but that in the ring the boxer’s own actions are largely governed by his own temperament. Experience will modify this; it doesn’t wholly change it.

For instance, roughly speaking, boxers may be divided in to two classes – those who are most anxious to hit the other felloe, and those who are chiefly concerned with not being hit by him. The on is of the aggressive type, the other the defensive. The most efficient of tutors wont be able to convert the one type into the other. It is temperament that decides to which class one shall belong.

To avoid being hit is prudent; it is also part of the art of boxing, but not being hit is only a negative advantage. It does not hurt the other fellow any – except, maybe, in his temper; for it is annoying to find all one’s best blows continually and neatly stopped. One can easily imagine it must have been most exasperating to the opponent (and a tedious business for the spectators also) of the old Olympic Games winner of the boxing crown who had so perfected his skill in guarding and parrying the he could – and did – keep them at arms’ length for hours, if need were, utterly preventing their getting a single blow home, until in shear physical weariness and disgust they threw up the sponge and gave him best.

That was the art of Self Defence with a vengeance. But one has to remember that in a modern competition the majority of the points go to the boxer who does get his blows home. The value of a sound defence is by no means overlooked, but judges are agreed that the boxer who thinks solely of defence is inferior to him who is not afraid of risking a punch in the hope of landing a harder one.

Your instructor will tell you that the best defence is to attack, and no one will question his statement; but he also tells you that before you learn to attack it is necessary to learn to defend. This may seem contradictory, but it is true. It may sometimes be expedient to take a stiff one in order to land a still stiffer, but the real art of boxing is to avoid the stiff one without at the same time missing the chance of getting home one as good or even better. Such a punch, driven well home, is called a "counter," and it’s the hardest and stiffest punch of all. But before you try landing it, you must know how to stop the one that is sent you.

Watching (as I do) scores of learners, it seems evident that not many do learn the best way of stopping, guarding, or parrying – and though each of the words appears to mean the same thing, actually it doesn’t. "Stopping" is just taking the blow on your guard arm – preventing opponent’s glove from landing on you; opposing force to force, as it were; "parrying" is more artistic. It means turning the blow aside. And while even successful stopping imposes a brief check upon your own efforts, parrying does not – or need not. Even while turning the threatening arm aside you may have gone well on the way to landing a damaging counter.

By placing your guard arm squarely, or almost squarely, across your body (with some novices it almost seems as if arm and body were glued together), you can stop a blow, but you cannot get in an effective parry. Instructors do not always make clear to their pupils the very real difference between stopping and parrying. This strikes me as a mistake. It is not difficult to learn the two things together. The instructor himself knows the difference; experience has taught him, and possibly he thinks the novice should learn in the same way. I differ from him.

Start with the right arm squarely across the chest, and when your opponent leads a left at your face, raise your right arm, still squarely, the forearm being particularly horizontal and held eight or ten inches away from your face, and – if you’re quick enough – you’ll stop the blow all right. Thrust the fists slightly towards your opponent, and you’ll accomplish a most effective guard. But by the time you have so stopped twenty or thirty hard shits at your face, your guard arm will be feeling a bit the worse for wear; the fleshy part on the inside edge will probably be bruised and sore. Much of that sort of thing will take the speed and strength out of your guard arm; and although it is your guard arm, you don’t – or ought not to – want to use it exclusively for guarding. But a bruised and wearied arm is not very efficient for aggressive work.

Some blows you have to stop – drives at the body, for instance, and when such do come it is well to have the arm close to the body, also to draw the body in, contracting the muscles and drawing yourself slightly back from the blow, thus taking much of the sting out of it; but stopping shots at the head or face should be avoided. These should be parried. But they won’t be if you persist in carrying your guard arm squarely across your body. Your guard will be slow and ineffective.

Instead of carrying your guard arm so that your glove (right, unless you box right hand forward) is almost or actually touching your left breast, elbow as high as its own wrist, advance the glove outward without moving the elbow or position of the upper arm. Raise the glove slightly, so that it is practically a straight line from the elbow, which of course, is pointed straight towards your opponent at about the height of his chin.

This position of your guard arm allows you to "parry" effectively. Thus: instead of raising your arm, elbow elevated as well as glove, and meeting your opponent’s arm at a right angle, you simply thrust the right glove upwards, diagonally, and your opponent’s arm meets it, not squarely, but at a sharp angle, and is deflected, turned aside – parried, not stopped.

This is a guard far more efficient than the old square one, for it carries with it far less chance of your arm being beaten down. And your forearm suffers less. Not only is the shock of the meeting forearms lessened, but the part of your forearm which meets his is hard bone, and not the more easily bruised flesh. And this is not the only advantage.

The right glove is left in such position that it may be shot forward, almost without change beyond the raising of the elbow, straight at the other fellow’s face, inside his left arm. All this without the smallest loss of time or drawing back of the fist, a motion which "telegraphs" your intention at once. As your arm straightens for the counter, a twist of the body to the left brings your right shoulder and most of your body weight behind the blow, adding enormously to its force, reach, and effectiveness.

Could you do the same thing from the square guard? Try it before giving an answer. And, since an ounce of practise is worth a ton of theorizing, make a trial of what I have been describing before you accept it as correct. I know what will be the conclusion to which you’ll come. And if your opponent is smart enough to foresee your move following the parry, and makes ready to greet you with his right, why you have your left arm to guard this.

Which reminds me that although the right is the guard arm, this doesn’t mean (though not all instructors will trouble to tell you it doesn’t) that all blows are to be guarded with the right, or that such as you can’t so guard must be either slipped or accepted with as good a grace as possible. Most boxers do some guarding with the left arm, but this is generally an unconscious move, an automatic act of defence. They seldom try left guarding. But they should; some pretty moves depend on it. When guarding with your left, say a right lead (and don’t try that particular move yourself very often!) or a right swing, don’t bed it; simply raise it slightly so that the outside (bony) edge of the limb catches the inside (soft) face of the swinger’s forearm.

It is a good tip to reach slightly forward as you do so. Possibly you may discover a tendency to draw backward, but you need to get the better of this, as any withdrawal interferes with what should be your rejoinder to the other fellow’s intended compliment – which is a right punch, driven in as fast and as hard as you can make it, with a forward thrust of the shoulder to better it. Make a trial, and you will art once see the advantage of the reach forward with the guarding arm.

Should the right hand attack be at your body, then, obviously, your left arm is lowered, and your answer should always be a right-handed punch at the head, as in hitting at your body your opponent is practically certain to move his head nearer to you.

Perhaps it will be objected that the raised and oblique arm such as I advocate exposes the centre of the body, the "mark," to danger. This isn’t so. Get the position: imagine a direct blow at your stomach, and note with what ease and swiftness the elbow of the guard arm may be dropped so that the vulnerable spot is completely protected; your opponent’s glove simply meets your glove.

One direction I find I have overlooked. Your right arm in position, see to it that the hand is so held that the little finger edge, not the back, is facing your opponent. And in order that the most be made of the possible advantages of the guard, don’t stand with the upper part of the body carried backwards from the hips, the right heel pressing firmly into the ground. As a matter of fact, that heel should not be flat on the ground at all – merely hovering above it; and the right knee ought not to be bent.

Source: "Chums" March 1st 1925