High guard is great at longer range where you're still throwing jabs and straights. Once you, or your opponent, have closed the distance, it's time to drop those elbows or your liver is quickly going to become paté
Aye i gotta personal story maybe youd like to hear but ive been watching your channel for a very long time on youtube, ive used your videos to train after we wasnt able to afford taekwondo and mma classes anymore. After that large portion of time i was in highschool and was no longer affiliated with any school near me. I knew i wanted to pursue mma so the way i kept my skills sharp was sparring with friends whom were interested at the time with some intense shadowboxing included and all with your videos to help keep improving. Since i feel like learning striking skills and footwork alone was way easier than learning grappling alone which is close to impossible after those years i graduated and the first thing i did was go into my first amatuer mma match head first. I lost due to my poor skills in grappling as you could guess lol but people who came from the same area i live in noticed me and wanted me to train at their school where i could learn jujitsu, and more mma classes. Even if i still had to pay a fee i was excited to see that the beginning of my journey is just starting. Its been 3 years since my amatuer debut fight and now im 21 trying to make a foundation i can reliably fall down on financially to help fund my mma although thts the most hard part in my life sofar without being sure itll even work since theres not alot of opportunity where im from especially when it comes to work. Regardless your videos and success helped me begin a new chapter in life where i crave to compete. Thanks alot for the tips and instruction it made my dream to be in the ufc more and more clear to me. Again thank you so much!!
Love this. I was in a Kickboxing Cardio class and the instructor brought this up to me, he was a MuyThai instructor as well, who told me to do this. Game Changer.
Works especially well in Muay Thai and Kick Boxing since you can use both your knee and elbow to close out your body. In boxing you get done in by someone who’s a liver/kidney hunter.
@@darkky65your right , i box, when the high guard is like that is a body punchers dream. However nothing is without risk. Personally i use the high guard alot but i dont raise my elbows, i keep my elbows tucked and kind of slouch my head down into my high guard. Like my coach and also tom yankello (roy jones jrs long time coach) taught even when blocking and catching shots on the back of the glove, i "turtle down" with my head into my guard as i block ,instead of raising my arm /and elbow to block the shot. Along with a very slight rotation deflecting the shots as i block at the same time. But im a boxer and that is the way to go. Your are also right that kickboxing/muay thai guys do raise up there guard.
@joaopedrosouza8454 good. Most people in my gym are taller so I deal with having to guard head shots alot. One guy who never goes for the body in my gym finally tried some body shots cause he couldn't get around the guard and I manged to land quite a few shots when he did. Felt good cause 95% of the time he man handles me cause he goes too hard sometimes. Next thing I need to work on is head movement, I just bought a slip bag actually.
@@dangerzone1106 good show! In my gym I'm the tall guy, and when the infighter close the distance, I'm cooked. Those overhands and hooks in close are real frightening fr.
I was taught something similar largely because hands have a tendency to drop over time when we get tired, rather drop and still be covering then dropping below your chin
Practiced Muay Thai and my coach always had us w the high guard like this too. Even had us doing sit ups w high guard so we’d be conditioned to keep it up even when we get tired
I’ve been trying high guard for a minute but always thought it was an entirely defensive thing for the past year. I’ll be trying this when I spar some more. Much love!
I been shadow boxing for the past 5 years to work on areas I know I use to slack in fighting wise back ina day, and in that time I actually inadvertently learned this. Especially the last part about a non telegraphed punch. When I was younger I had speed in power in my right hand, but it was too obvious when I would go for a swing, so I been working on that for years. I been learned to throw quicker no telegraphed punches, but as of late I’ve been learning how to add more power without compromising speed and effectiveness
One way my coach explained this to me is if you continue to get used to holding your hands up high where you're looking through your gloves, it'll be easier for you to keep them up in the later rounds when you get tired, cause you've been used to holding them higher. But if you only train with your hands to your cheeks, once you get tired your hands will be dropping down, leaving your head exposed.
Good tips I've been watching you for years mate and something I learned is with a high guard like that you can throw a feint high up to the opponent with the high guard to make them instinctively lock it in more as you're already setting up a sidestepping mid kick. That shit will work every time in a street fight when someone pulls a high guard like that
You can actually get decent power into your jab by turning your shoulders into it, till they're almost in line with your arm and pushing your bodyweight into it by pushing off your rear foot, as if you're almost jumping into your opponent. That way you can also extend your reach quite a bit. I like to catch my sparring partners off guard with it. Works pretty well to get into distance e.g. with a double jab, hook. But careful though to not overextend
Love high guards like you..the amount of options you give someone with just even a little bit of out the box thinking, High guard also makes you easier to telegraph..you know where their line of sight will be .and it's easier to control their movements..
This is good advice. High guard is not bad, I still like the mid I'm guard but this is good to know. Man I e learned a lot from you as well as my two Sensei. Appreciate cha!
This is great. I’ve only heard of using high guard just to keep your hands higher so when you’re tired in fights they stay at a reasonable level, but the tactical explanation here really sells me on using it in sparring.
It's not my guard but I do appreciate guys who do this like yourself. It didn't take long to catch on I was fighting gravity with every strike while they're blocks fell into their moment for a good counter. And as it happens I did teach my son that for bare knuckle he should keep loose fists next to his temple for the feedback and a crappy cushion just in case.
The only reason I didn't keep it was getting pushed far enough that one day I wasn't able to spare the energy to keep them up, and suddenly the reason dad insisted upon a summer of belly dancing made a ton of sense lol
I have a low stance so I can get more power from my punches, so sometimes a high guard can work, but, usually it doesn't. common sense tells me that blocking primarily my forehead is not gonna do much.
Always love a Morgoth video! ❤Very thought provoking. In the information age, all the data can be compiled to justify different convictions and world views. The only real certainty that can be derived is from the outcomes produced after the analysis is put into real world application. The metric most are using to judge a system's success is if we are happy or not with our lives under it.
This is like using gravity vs fighting against it and your opponent. Im sure in the split second between punches the difference of moving your hand up against gravity to block vs down with it to block will prove useful
Wow really nicely explained; tbh for me I use to put my hands on my chins until coach made me high guard, I was finding it troubling at first cuz it blocks visions a bit but I got used to it, honestly though hands lower a bit more natural and as u said head movement easier
We had kind of the same concept in goalie-inv for hockey, if you keep for catching glove up, it’s easier and quicker to get it down to catch the puck rather than trying to raise it up
Cool, but as a shorter fighter having a high guard doesn’t mean I have “height advantage” it’s better so capitalize from the lack of high and actually get closer to the ground so they don’t see the punches coming from the bottom,
Always heard it refered to as Binoculars in Muay Thai lol. Dont really like the high guard when I'm going forward, but its useful when barrages come at you, crunch down just a little move back start moving bodies good I'm good set up the shot.
A tip I learned from watching canelo was his use of parrying with the rear hand. A lot of the time the rear hand is idle since it’s used more for power shots while the lead hand establishes the jab so it’s good to establish an even workload between both hands to keep your opponent’s mind busy as well. Nothing wrong with parrying with the lead hand but it’s always good to mix and match to make ur opponent more predictable while making u less predictable if that makes sense. Overreaching is the biggest concern with parrying with the rear hand demonstrated by how Campbell knocked down Garcia during their bout so be mindful of how much distance is really necessary to parry. Lastly, right after parrying, have a habit of putting the hand right back where it was as quickly as possible to build muscle memory and endurance while keeping your head protected. I don’t like to square up when I use the high guard like canelo does tho as I hate getting punched in the nose more than anything so I’ll slightly blade my torso kinda like how pitbull Cruz does it
It looks good enough to block high kick/catch legs to the body, but seems vulnerable under boxing rules：1 You can't see hooks inside, 2 more shoulder endurance, 3 easier get punched through, 4 body exposure like you said. Still worth a shot when keeping distance thought.
