Today's TDA Tip: Training to Miss

I attended a Bill "Superfoot" Wallace in 1994 (when I was only 10, OK 27!), and picked up this bit of advice, which I will pass along to you: "Train to miss." Those may not be his exact words, but his point was that the facts are that you will miss more than you hit, and that therefore you need to learn to miss properly.

The dangers of missing:

1. You will be over-extended (reaching), and therefore recovery time to proper defensive position is lengthened. This means you're likely going to get hit, if you opponent is half-way decent.


2. You will be off-balance. Have you ever tried to hit a swinging back or shield with a full power punch or kick and missed? Likely you've stumbled forward a time or two afterward. What do you think will happen with a live opponent when you do that? One guess...


3. It's possible that you'll hyper-extend a joint and injure yourself. Obviously this isn't going to happen often, but occasionally, if you miss badly, you'll put too much into it and actually injure your shoulder, elbow, or knee. How many times have we heard of pitchers throwing something lighter than a ball and throwing out a shoulder or elbow?

How to train to miss properly:

Shadow-box a lot, AND hit targets. You should shadow-box about 2/3 of the time, then pad/shields, then heavy bags. Don't hit stationary targets much. Even when drilling, do it in the air for form first, then drill on the opponent or target gloves.

Back to work!