The annoying slap drill.

[mook jong man]

I call this the annoying slap drill because it is very annoying.
I came up with it because I wanted to speed up my reflexes before my level 1 instructor grading .

The senior instructor that was likely to do the attacking was an ex boxer and extremely quick , and as they attacked with street style attacks it was likely to be anything and I was very dubious about my ability to defend against this guys quick hands . It is just a reflex exercise done at close quarters.

• get into your stance and guard up
• your partner gets in front of you and with straight arms touches the top of your forehead with their fingers
• this is the range they must stay at and you must work from
• your partner now pulls both his hands back till they are roughly close and on either side of your front hand , but not touching your hand
• the partner now makes very direct and quick light slaps with his fingers to the upper sides of your head at random
• you will attempt to redirect these slaps with a Dai Sau and a light punch to his chest
• to do the Dai Sau just raise one side of your guard on the same side as his strike
• as your hand raises up from your elbow , make a straight line from fingertips to elbow , keep the fingertips on the centreline , and let your elbow drift out slightly so that from front when the forearm is up it looks like one side of a triangle .
• this structure that is somewhere between a Tan Sau and a Bong Sau is used to deflect anything coming around your guard
• when you drive up from the elbow with the fingertips on centre and the forearm angle is correct the incoming strike will be deflected up and away from your head
• aim to make contact at his wrists with the back of your hand and spread the force along your forearm , but don't raise it more than necessary only enough to make him miss.
• now back to the drill , you are not going to stop many of these ,not unless you have the reflexes of Yip Man
• you will get frustrated at getting slapped on the side of the head all the time and it will be difficult to concentrate and stay relaxed.
• But relaxed you must try to be , because any tension will increase your reaction time and you wont be able to get the arm up in time to deflect
• But I guarantee when you go back to a more normal sparring range you will pick up body cues easier and your reactions will be quicker because you have the luxury of distance.
• with beginners you can just let them do the defence , the simultaneous counter attack will be too overwhelming for them

It turned out that in the grading we didn't get attacked by the ex boxer , it was someone else a little bit slower . But I was able to pick up his cues and pounce in quite quickly , at some points when he was still halfway through his attack . I put this down to practicing this little reflex drill mostly along with normal sparring.

 

[Nabakatsu]

Getting hit the in face seems to make me happy for some crazy insane reason, I think I would get better and better each time, I always crack a big smile and .. just feel euphoric oddly enough.. sounds like a blast!

 

[mook jong man]

Getting hit the in face seems to make me happy for some crazy insane reason, I think I would get better and better each time, I always crack a big smile and .. just feel euphoric oddly enough.. sounds like a blast!

Just a light slap with the fingers on the side of the head is all thats needed .
If you start slapping their face they're likely to lose their temper and punch a porthole straight through your chest .

 

[Nabakatsu]

Yeah, I don't like hitting people, lol, just getting hit

 

[paulus]

Yeah, I don't like hitting people, lol, just getting hit

You're the partner for me

Sounds like an exercise I could do with a non MA type person, which is good. Thanks for that one MJM.

 

[Nabakatsu]

Woohoo! finally a partner!

 

[KamonGuy2]

Nice drill. Practically it is sometimes nice to block someone coming in with 'tappy hits' (Ive had that before in a bar fight) in this manner.
You often get a 'teaser' in a confrontation who does little slaps/pushes. This is frustrating because the guy hasn't assaulted you so much that you can start hitting back, but also has struck you enough to be annoying

Therefore, having quick hands, you can block/deflect the attacks and make them think twice about the confrontation

Also, we have a problem with 'happy slappy' attacks in the UK, so it can be very helpful to have fast reflexes, instead of just power all the time

 

[Ben Grimm]

Very true, but sometimes using a little power can also make them think twice.