We know how frustrating it can be to have an opponent dodge or block all of our punches.
When we realized that we were telegraphing punches, we took time to fix our form and break this bad habit.
In this article, we’ll give you four ways to stop telegraphing your punches.
How To Stop Telegraphing Punches
Here are four ways you can stop telegraphing your punches:
- Don’t Look Where You Punch
- Don’t Clench Your Gloves Before You Punch
- Don’t Wind Up Your Punches
- Mix Up Your Punching Patterns
To “telegraph punches” in martial arts means to give your opponent some hint of what punch you will throw or your intended target.
This hint could be anything: your eyes, your gloves, or even your body language.
Depending on how bad your habits are, you may find all of these tips useful.
If you’re a beginner and haven’t built these habits yet, keep these tips in mind as you practice your form and as you watch other boxers.
The goal with these tips is to give your opponent as little information as possible about your next move.
We recommend that you film yourself shadowboxing or sparring, since what your boxing feels like and looks like tend to be two different things.
On the other hand, you can use these tips to take advantage of your opponent if you notice that he’s telegraphing his punches.
Don’t Look Where You Punch
The first way to stop telegraphing your punches is to stop looking where you punch.
This is a hard concept for beginners to understand.
In most sports, you have to look at your target before you shoot or throw a ball.
However, in boxing, your opponent can use this habit against you.
An observant opponent will be watching your whole body, including your eyes, to see if there’s anything he can take advantage of.
If you’re always looking at a target before throwing a punch, you’ve made his job extremely easy; he only has to watch your eyes.
To fix this, look at your opponent’s shoulder line instead.
This will allow to utilize your peripheral vision and see the whole picture.
By looking at the shoulder line, you’ll also be better able to see punches coming.
The best way to think about this is to consider how you drive. You don’t fixate on the traffic light turning red, you also consider the car braking in front of you as well as the pedestrian crossing the street.
If you’re coming from a high-accuracy, high-precision sport like basketball, baseball, or tennis, it’ll take you some time to get used to this idea.
Another way to fix this is to keep your chin well-tucked so that all your opponent sees is your forehead while you can still keep your eyes on your opponent.
Don’t Clench Your Gloves Before You Punch
The next way to stop telegraphing your punches is to stop clenching your gloves before you punch.
This tends to be an overlooked detail in boxing.
The next time you have gloves on, notice the difference in your hands when they’re clenched versus when they’re open.
Many boxers think that clenching their forearms and hands before a punch will make it stronger.
Instead, it’ll drain their energy in the long run and make their punches slower.
You can also see this tension in a fighter’s face; they’ll frown or furrow their eyebrows before launching an attack.
To fix this, work on only clenching your fists upon impact when you shadowbox or hit the bag.
Don’t Wind Up Your Punches
The next way to stop telegraphing your punches is to stop winding up your punches.
This is a bad habit that we usually see with beginners.
When hitting the heavy bag, they think that swinging their arms outward will give their punches more power, as opposed to throwing them straight from their guard.
The problem with this is that you give your opponent an extra second to dodge or block your punch.
Another problem with winding up your punches is that you’ll tend to throw your whole body into the punch and end up off-balance.
To work on this, watch yourself shadowbox in the mirror and focus on tight, sharp punches rather than focusing on power.
Mix Up Your Punching Patterns
The last way to stop telegraphing your punches is to mix up your punching patterns.
All boxers have their “bread and butter” combinations; that is, combinations that they can always rely on.
However, if your opponent is good, he’ll be paying attention for these combinations and looking for ways to negate them.
If you’re a beginner, chances are that you start all of your combinations with a jab (which is a better habit than launching straight into power punches).
Instead, play around with your combinations to confuse your opponent and give him different rhythms.
Something as simple as starting your combination with a cross is enough to keep your opponent on his toes.
Other tricks we like to do is throw a purposefully slow punch or adding a slight pause before beginning a combination.
Conclusion
Now that you know how to stop telegraphing your punches, you’ll be able to hit your opponent more often and with greater accuracy.
If your problem is with form, we recommend that you stand in front a mirror and analyze your shadowboxing.
On the other hand, if you need to train your eyes, we recommend spending time with the double-end bag and the speed bag.
These will help you increase your accuracy and precision without focusing too hard on a specific target.
We think that training your eyes is the hardest skill to teach if you’re a beginner who is starting from scratch.
Once you break these bad habits, you’ll be able to take advantage of opponents who telegraph their punches.
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