The Bobbing and Weaving Disappearing Act (diary entry)

06.02.18 The second lesson of my client’s second course on Western Boxing for Martial Arts Cross Training brought us up to the two and a half hour point. We are continuing with our theme on head movement, this time concentrating on bobbing and weaving. The lesson began with mirror footwork, including various cornering and drawing drills. This was followed by line-work, moving forwards, backwards, switching stances and angling off. We then revised the slip/jab/overhand work we did in the previous lesson on the focus mitts. Then we moved onto the main part of the lesson. We looked at positioning and head movement. Both these areas were broken down and trained in isolation as mirror-work drills before being trained as sparring exercises. All technical aspects were addressed, training the fighter to move smoothly in a v-shaped angle around the opponent and punches were then built-on. Bobbing and weaving addresses the tactical advantages of ducking. However, much like the slip this is not just a negative/defensive move. The rolling motion allows for a fighter not to  just move around an incoming punch - in this case it is likely to be some variation of a hook or a wild swing - but move into two blind-spots. In Geoff Thompson's "The Fence" there is a description of an unorthodox pre-emptive striker who ducked out of sight to set up for a punch. When the doorman knew that a fight was imminent, he ducked down out of his enemy's eyeline and came back with his strike. Such a method is often used to set up for an overhand attack and it is the same principle that can be applied to the bobbing and weaving motion. The fighter rolls out of his opponent's vision once he is confident his opponent is used to looking straight ahead. He then bobs up at the 45 degree angle, off the opponent's attack line coming up near his shoulder with a hook or uppercut or both. The final part of the lesson consisted of two restricted sparring rounds, focusing on hooks and uppercuts, and one round of 2 x 30 seconds bobbing and weaving techniques, 2 x 30 seconds bobbing and weaving to speed and 2 x 30 seconds power hooks. Check out our new promotional video https://youtu.be/_SeE3UKt74Y