how to deal with bigger reach ?

What works for me is waiting for him to commit to a strike then working against that. Can't say it always work but it helps me move in for other options like takedowns and other strikes.

Well, it really depends on your style. I'm assuming you are doing striking for MMA.

I have trouble with this all the time. One guy I spar with regularly is 6'1. I'm 5'6. Yeah. The best thing to do is get inside his punches. If you get good at this, you cn turn his reach advantage into a disadvantage. Try punching someone that's standing really close to you. You lose a ton of power and it's just awkward to do. But to do that you need to get past his range.

Try to move your head as much as posible while moving closer to him. Duck in, come in at angles, or do my favorite (if this is MMA) and fake for a double leg and instead of shooting all the way in, throw an overhand right. This will cause them to drop their hands to defend a takedown, then BAM! Chances are, you'll have to be a counterpuncher at first (at least that's what I did) so you can get used to moving in on your opponent while they are off balance with the punch/kick.

But whatever you do, do NOT get really close and stay there. If knees are legal, all your opponent has to do is bring his knee up and it'll nail you on the chin. Boxing is a different story, you can stand inches away from him and not need to worry as much.

It's the goal of almost all long reached fighters to use straight punches and jabs to keep you at a distance, a la Tim Sylvia. It's like using a pole to push you away. Try overhand rights and wide hooks to get in, and do NOT forget to move your head while doing so, otherwise this advice will have the adverse effect! You have to get inside, which means possibly taking a few shots to get there. Decide if you want to be a counter puncher or an aggressor, and build your game from there.

But the best advice is, go in, nail a few quick shots, and scurry away. Get good at moving around your opponent. After a while I was actually able to zip behind my 6'1 sparring partner so quick after hitting him he lost track of where I was. It was hilarious, I stopped trying to hit him and just stayed behind him, he just kept looking around for like 5 mins lol.

double and triple the jab to get inside. when a taller guy tries to play the jab game, every time he jabs your jabbing back two or three times.

and work the combos off your jabs

Striking is the weakest part of my game, but I have been working a lot on this very thing of late. I am a big guy with very short arms. I am with everyone else, the key is to get inside. The first step in that is to keep moving forward. I have been concentrating on constantly moving forward and it results in closing the distance or the taller opponent backing up, again losing power in their punches.

If we are talking MMA, get the clinch and use dirty boxing or take them down. Stay in tight and use your knees. You will find much more success here than trying to stay at arms length.

As I said, I am no expert, but I have been doing much better since I have adopted this strategy.

Good luck on finding what works best for you.

Dave

I definitely read some good tips here. One that is missing for MMA is to use an inside leg kick to nullify your opponents jab. Most people jab and slide putting weight on the front foot. Kick that lead leg as they set for the jab. I like to use this to throw off their timing and rhythm. When i first started MMA, I came from a long boxing background. I could get inside of the long reach or counter punch all day. MMA was different on the set up. I used to just slip a jab and counter, but that could lead to me being taken down because of distance. I began to incorporate the inside leg kick to stop momentum of the jab and set up my counter. I worked on it to the point that it is as fast as my jab is now.

In addition to the above advice of using effective footwork, lots of head movement, faking the single/double and counter punching YOU GOTTA LEARN TO SLIP PUNCHES.

An old school boxing drill that's good for building the muscle memory/conditioning for slipping is to stretch a length of cord up about shoulder height across a room (about 20 ft is good).

Get in a fighting stance and put the string on your left shoulder (if you're orthodox) so that you're looking down the length of string. Now, while keeping your hands up and maintaining a good stance, step foward and to your left (in line with the string) while using your legs and head movement, duck under the string, come up on the other side, throw a punch combo and duck back under. Repeat until you get to the end of the string, turn around and do it again.

Key points:

1. - Keep your eyes on the string as if it were the arm of your opponent's punch extending out.

2. - When you step and duck under (slip) make sure you're staying over your feet, maintaining a good center of balance and using your legs more than your waist for the duck.

3. - As with any new technique, perform the movement slowly until you've got it down, then take it up to full speed. Pretend there's an opponent in front of you throwing a punch when you step in, slip and DRILL HIM with a hook or uppercut before he circles out or counterpunches YOU.

I'm no boxing expert, so there's probably some points I'm forgetting with this drill, but these are the basics to get you started. If I'm not mistaken, JHamilton has a pretty extensive background in boxing. You may want to hit him up for advice too.

I'm the taller guy with the long reach that most guys hate to fight.

Several tips:

1. There is no secret technique or strategy that will allow you to overcome an opponent's reach. You can, however, learn to overcome them but only through experience, time, and study. Like you said, you are fairly new to striking. Asking the question, "How can I do this?" is the first step but everything takes time. It is not going to happen over night.

2. Head movement is key. Like many have mentioned before learn to slip, bob, weave, and block. Forget about offense for now and focus on your defense and movement.

3. Learn how to use lateral movement. This is the movement other than moving straight forward or straight backward. Learn to use angles that will give you an advantage over your opponent.

4. Work the body. The body, the body, the body.

5. Use your shorter height and thus lower center of gravity to get maximum power and speed. Because of your physical makeup, you can turn your body at a smaller and tighter circles which increases your speed and power.

6. Study Mike Tyson (Boxing) and Ramon Dekkers (Muay Thai).

Also, with all due respect to some of the previous posters about wide hooks and overhands ... do not attempt them at your level or you will be counterpunched and be discouraged. A wide hook and overhand punch are easily countered by straights and they are much harder to land if you dont understand the basis of distance and timing. Work on your defense first.

Finally, have fun and good luck!

One of the guys I spar with is 6'4" and I'm 6'0" so I know how you feel. My strategy consists of slipping his punches and closing the distance. When you get your range and are in the pocket this effectively nullifies his reach advantage. The longer you stay on the outside the more you play into his game and run the risk of getting tagged. Counter punching is a great way to move out of harms way and get to the inside.

I stand at 5'6 so I feel your pain. I have worked extensively on my striking over the past 2 years and as everyone has already mentioned you have to get inside and stay there.
The only other advice I can give is while bobbing, weaving, and slipping make sure you bend at the knees and not the waist, boxers can get away with it but as MMA fighters we have to worry about stuff like KNEES and SHINS.

Also the cage/ropes are a short man's friend, be a bully, learn how to use your head, shoulders, and footwork to keep your opponent against the cage/ropes. I like to slip, immediately close distance, and shove to work my opponent backward into the cage or ropes. Closing distance is important, always move forward after a slip, dodge, or parry, stay in their face.

Depending on the rule structure, your options are more or less varied. I will start with the most restrictive rules and move from there to less restrictive. Those concepts covered in the more restrictive rule sets should also work in the less restrictive rule sets.

Boxing:

You will always be attacked when you try to bridge the gap against a taller opponent. Thus, it pays to be patient and counter attack, allowing your opponent to bridge the gab for you, slipping or bobbing his initial attack (usually a jab or straight right) and countering with an uppercut, hook or overhand (right or left).

Thaiboxing:

When your opponent tries to punch you, step off on an angle and use your Thai Round Kick or Teep. Your legs will usually be longer than his arms, even when you are shorter. He may try to counter by kick you back in which case you again lose to his length. You can counter the his kick by catching it and using his caught kick to bridge the gap.

You can also use constant forward pressure and force a Prumb fight for the majority of the rounds. This takes a lot of the height advantage away from your opponent.

Some will argue that the Prumb favors taller fighters too, but I disagree. It favors neither the taller or shorter person. It favors he who knows the Prumb better. Taller fighters will statistically have an advantage going for the head and using the traditional Prumb game, but shorter fighters will have an advantage using the T-Body Position Prumb game, getting to a side and using your hips at a 90 degree angle against your opponent's hips and continually disrupting his base with your knees, hips and body lock attacks.

Slipping and Bobbing is possible but should be used vary sparingly as Thais will knee or kick the head, in which they have a 50% chance of guessing right and taking your head off. Taking advantage of a zig that was supposed to be a zag.

MMA:

Move back, baiting your opponent to chase and over commit. Then lower level and shoot.

You can also force a clinch fight.

Or you can use Philippino/Kali style destructions/guntings that work very well against small MMA gloves.

Or use any of the above methods.

If it's o.k. with you guys, I think I might include this question and some ideas for answers in one of the future episodes of Taking It To The M.M.A.T.

If I do, I'll post the stuff in this thread for your review.

two words: mike tyson. yes he was a weirdo, but he was an incredible boxer. it was rare that he had a reach advantage on his opponents. look up some of his earlier fights on youtube to get some ideas. his game included a lot of slipping. my philosophy on training is: learn from the best, because there's a reason they're the best.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBy4uNPyL9U&feature=related[/video]

i've noticed that a lot of mma guys without a boxing background throw a lazy jab (if they jab at all). slip it and capitalize. I recommend setting up a maize bag and/or a double end bag to work your slips. I use them both and I can slip pretty well.

tyson uses the maize bag at around 1:33 in this vid-

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPkn8VCpNmc&feature=related[/video]

(you don't punch it)

I think it's easier to do what you said above in boxing, and yet I think that even in boxing the fist destruction is a viable tool. I don't need to guide my opponent's fist, I just need to know the general direction it started from. I know where the punch is generally going to go (to the tip of the chin... body shots excluded of course). The scissor gunting is definitely more difficult to use in a traditional sense, but sometimes it's just as much about the concept as it is the actual tool.

Working only head movement and footwork will have limited success in Muay Thai and MMA. We tell our fighters to throw a heavy head kick following a feinted punch. You've got a 50% chance of getting the direction right against a good variable head mover and a 75% change against a guy who has a tendency to slip or bob to a particular side based on what hand is thrown.

Thus, the fist to elbow gunting gives you one more tool to confuse and vary your response to your opponent's attack. Just draw a straight line from where your opponent's fist starts from (lower for a uppercut, higher for an over hand, from a side for a hook etc.) to the tip of your chin and simply put the point of your elbow such that it intercepts that line. Tuck you chin down, cover with your other hand and use your gunting arm shoulder to brace and protect the other side of your face and it works pretty well. At least for our guys.

The more a guy knows how to punch and the harder he swings the easier it is to break his hand. Newbies tend to spray and pray, they don't even know where they are going to hit. More experienced fighters tend to be more precise and are easier to gunting in the sense that they generally go to the chin/nose triangle when they strike. And the smaller gloves make it easier to split their knuckles. I see about 1 broken fist once every two to three weeks at the fights around here and that's just from guys punching heads (that are usually pined by the floor). I'd hate to see what happens when someone pulls this off on the tip of an elbow.

Not disagreeing, just trying to put up my $.02 on the subject. I almost wish I didn't write the gunting part because we love the technique so much and kind of want to keep it to ourselves.

It's all good. You don't like the move and I do. Martial Arts are like a jacket. One size doesn't fit all. You take the basic design then tailor it to fit. I'm confident in my ability to pull it off, and my ability to train my students to pull it off.

By no means am I God's gift to fighting. But by the same token it could be inferred by your statements that you question my credibility and experience. I don't want to say that the following legitimizes in any way, my stance, but if my integrity is what is in question, I have in fact fought. 2 Muay Thai (Mat May twice) and 2 MMA (Josh Buck and Adam Riding). I am an Associate Instructor under Ajarn Surachai Sirisute (8 years of study and counting), a Coach Level I in Combat Submission Wrestling under Sensei Erik Paulson, a Blue Belt in Pedro Sauer Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and an Brown Belt under Khuen Khru Will Bernales (Certified Instructor JKD/Kali, Full Instructor Muay Thai, Black Belt Pedro Sauer Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu) and I have trained a number of fighters who are State champions. All I'm saying is that I believe in my training methods and the techniques I employ and the gunting happens to be one of them.

Yeah, you got me on validating the percentages thing. I'm guestimating at best. But just try it yourself. Ask your training partners to watch you for a second while they flip a few punches at you. If they can reason that you favor one side over another tell them to kick you in the head on that side. Otherwise tell them to just pick a side, feint a punch and toss a head kick. If you use slips or bobs as your only counter, it's just a matter of time before you eat some shin. Otherwise you'd be seeing the Thai Champs slipping all over the place, and they don't.

Oh, by the way, I noticed you mentioned Randy Couture in one of your posts. His Muay Thai Coach for his fight vs Sylvia is a good friend of mine. Cade Anderson. He actually teaches out at my gym every once in a while. So again, if you question whether or not our stuff is battle tested... well, that's just one more fella we work with if that counts for anything.

I'll leave it at that as I don't want this to devolve into meaningless bickering. I believe that the gunting is a very important and viable tool, and you don't. And that's cool.

For the rest of you guys. Try it for yourself and decide on your own whether it's useful to you or not. If it is, then you can thank the Kalistas. If not, then toss it to the curb and develop your other tools.

Best of luck and happy hunting!

OMG Ive been hit by the grammar POLICE! :roll: