This post is going to be about the “haymaker” also known as the “big right hand”. More specifically we are going to explore why real people in the real world have such difficulty defending themselves against this extremely widespread street attack. When I say the “real world” I really mean all over the world, where every day people are struck, injured or even killed by the world’s most popular punch.
I’m told in Australia it is called the “king punch”. I have heard it called a “winging punch”, a “power hook” or even just a “street punch” because of its universal appearance in street fights and assaults. Call it what you will, it is all the same idea, a fully committed swing of the arm and body that has more in common with the swing of a club then with the scientific punches you would see in a boxing match. A bludgeon attack is the perfect analogy because this hand strike is meant to club you down and take you out with a single very heavy blow.
Let me take a moment to clarify some terminology which is always important to any undertaking with even a pretense to being scientific. This kind of punch is also often referred to as a “sucker punch”. However, I think it is very useful to make the distinction between the mechanics of the punch and how it is applied or set up. The physical motion of the arm swing is what gives this punch its haymaker qualities. Therefore, this kind of punch can be used at different distances or in different ways.
On the other hand, a “sucker punch” is more of a tactic or strategy. The assailant is trying to strike you when you are most unprepared and vulnerable, but could use any kind of punch. The original idea of a “sucker punch” was to make you a “sucker” or fool by getting you to turn away, often by saying something like: “hey look over there isn’t that Marilyn Munroe”!? When you looked away you become the “sucker” who fell for the ruse and also became completely vulnerable to the punch you don’t know is coming and can’t see. This probably worked pretty well in the 50s when people were more trusting and naive but now days the defense is pretty obvious-don’t fall for the sucker play…Sucker. Ah, if only it was that easy.
Now days this term is often applied to any punch that is designed to take you off guard and therefore generally has to be applied at close quarters. A very common modern incarnation of the “sucker punch” is for one scum bag to talk to you and distract you, while the other guy you are not looking at throws the “sucker punch”. Yea, to scum like that your desire to engage in civil discourse makes you a sucker. However, a sucker punch certainly does not have to be a multiple opponent situation. Hence, any punch that is thrown without warning is usually called a “sucker punch”.
This version is very common even in basic face to face confrontation situations. Two people are arguing right in front of each other and with their hands down, and bam, one guy gets off his punch before the other guy can react to it or realizes its coming. This is a typical “sucker punch” scenario where the defender is not in a defensive posture, but because of the distance the “Haymaker” is still the very most common method of delivering the “sucker punch”.
Therefore, these terms are very closely related but not synonymous when we are discussing the “big right hand. Which could also be the big left hand but 85-95% of the world’s population is right handed so it is painfully predictable and therefore something you and all of us must be prepared for. This punch is everywhere, from school yard dust ups to bar room brawls to hockey fights on and off the ice as well as street corner conflicts and hooligan football scuffles. Many studies place this kind of attack at number one for most frequent street assault.
There are many other ways to punch but on the street you very seldom see them. So infrequently in fact, that no other hand blow appears on any top ten list of most frequent street assaults that I have researched. Thus, you do not have to worry about a boxer’s jab or a karate reverse punch and you could spend years training against these attacks but still not be prepared for the Haymaker or especially the “sucker punch”. Forewarned should be forearmed. I don’t care, and either should anyone else, how many Brazilian Jiu-jitsu tournaments you have been to, if you cant defend yourself against a sucker punch then you cant defend yourself.
Therefore, this punch should hold absolutely no mystery in regards to “when”, “where” and “how’ yet even people supposedly well versed in “self-defense” seem completely unprepared for it. You guessed it; this is going to be another indictment of the “pseudo-profession” masquerading as self-defense experts and what they teach people as defenses for the Haymaker and sucker punch.
In fact, I think nothing exemplifies the problems with most self-defense courses and methodologies as well as the unsupported assertions from the “pseudo-profession” then this topic of the Haymaker and sucker punch. The Haymaker is so common an attack and so well understood by all to be a vital self-defense issue and necessity for your “street’ survival that there should be dozens and dozens of proven and documented defenses taught on your very first day at all the martial arts schools out there.
Nevertheless, if we use the basic scientific criteria of observable, testable and repeatable performance as our standard then it sure looks like barely anyone has a clue as to what it takes to deal with this problem under real world conditions.
The specific problems with the Haymaker are the same general problems with the entire “pseudo-profession” of “self-defense” and martial arts. Firstly, much of the real problem and threat is poorly understood because of all the completely unfounded opinions, baseless assertions and untested methodologies that are passed off as expertise. Other “pseudo-experts” think the Haymaker is too crude to worry about since it is never used in their sport fighting systems. Others don’t think of it at all because it is never used in their sport fighting system. Many others have untested overly simple defenses for this seemingly overly simple attack which they have never actually used or even tested in anything approaching a real life scenario.
For example, every one including many, many “experts” from the land of pseudo professionalism seem to think that you can just throw your arm up to block a Haymaker. In karate, which I have a Black Belt in; this is usually referred to as an “upper block”. However, you see this nearly identical defensive methodology taught in styles like Krav Maga that purport to be so much more street effective than the outmoded and old fashioned karate.
In fact, this “upper block” is probably the most common Haymaker and sucker punch defense taught the world over. You can dress it up all you like but it is still really just a stylized version of what you see in a “cowboy” movie or “Western”. In countless movies and not just westerns, the bad guy swings a big Haymaker and the good guy just raises his arm to block and then throws his own counter strike that knocks the bad guy flat (while managing to keep his cowboy hat on). It looks very simple and natural. Such an exaggerated and telegraphed punch has to be easy to block in this intuitive way-problem solved.
My question, as a serious self defense researcher, became: “why do so many people keep thinking that, when no one seems able do it in real life”? The evidence was overwhelming. Take a look at surveillance footage and videos capturing real fights, I’ve seen a lot of real fights but have studied hundreds more this way. Over and over again, I saw people easily and routinely punch each other in the head. In other words, it seems much easier to land the Haymaker then to stop one. If it was that simple to block then we should see a lot more Cowboy movie arm blocks in the real world footage…we don’t. In fact, I’m hard pressed to find any, they are quite rare. Therefore, it would appear that Krav Maga upper blocks, or if you prefer, western movie blocks only work in…well, western movies.
Once again we have an unproven and dangerous assumption that because the Haymaker is a crude and simple punch it must be easy to block. Furthermore, there is no sliding threat scale with this punch. Someone throws a Haymaker to take your head off, so you will probably not get a second chance and cannot afford to make any mistakes or take bad advice from a “pseudo-expert”. As the statistics from Australia indicate, and more recently a Vancouver “Province” newspaper article, serious injury and even death is a real possibility from a haymaking “sucker punch”. Hence, the first question should be: “why is the Haymaker so difficult to deal with in the real world”?
I finely reached the conclusion, after my own fair share of black eyes and facial contusions, that the main reason the Haymaker finds its mark so often in the real world is because of the “flinch reflex”. The flinch reflex is just that, an innate human reflex; meaning it is hard-wired into your brain and there is no way to take it out. All the training and opinions in the world cannot change that so we are going to have to work with it and not against it.
It is interesting to note that the flinch reflex has been around as long as humans have but only in recent years has any serious attention been given to it in self-defense circles. Even now, when much of this information is more readily available many “experts” including most Brazilian Jiu-jitsu people ignore the finding of the researchers and the data, so you know their methods cannot have been tested in a realistic way. To overcome the Haymaker or sucker punch on the street you first have to overcome the “flinch reflex”.
In upcoming posts, we are going to explore in detail the “flinch reflex” and how to harness it to our advantage while unlocking the “secrets” of escaping Haymaker hell. In the meantime don’t be a sucker and get punched…