After watching a sparring clip and based on a recent discussion I've had, I wondered what everyone thought about feinting.

My take: it's mostly ineffective and demonstrates a lack of intent. If I'm going to throw a technique, I'm going to throw it with the intent of completing it. It may work or not, but why bother throwing, say, a half-assed punch for effect.

This is not to say that deception is useless. As a concept, deception is much broader and *includes* feinting. While I dislike feinting, deception in the form of, say, an unorthodox entry to a throw is immensely useful.

Thoughts?

IMO a feint has to be committed enough to force the opponent to move. It's intended to not necessarily knock him out, but at least damage him *unless he does something about it*. That something is what you're looking for - an opening, an off-balancing, whatever.

May work against un-experienced fighters, may get you killed against an exprienced one.
Many fighter attack at the first sign of movement, so when you feint you better be ready to counter.
Most feint to creats an opening, some just to keep moving and not offer a stationary target.

How about deception in the form of knives suddenly appearing your hand, and turning invisible and suddenly being behind the opponent? j/k

Perhaps feinting is more of a fencing thing, or even a weapon thing

Well...an effective feint's intent is to draw the reaction of the opponent, ie that is your strategy. But that is the end of it. What you do with this reaction is all in your strategy, and no longer a function of the feint. If your feint doesn't fool the person, it means your feint isn't good enough, not that feinting in general is bad.

That being said, there are lots of good strategies that involve drawing your opponent to attack you, and effective feints are great for that. They are also good for stopping someone's attack if they think you are going to hit them in a particularly vulnerable spot.

It certainly isn't easy to do consistently, and doing it too much makes people expect it. However, used right, it can be quite useful and effective in giving you openings you can lay into.

I love fakes.

The thing I find with feints is that the reaction to your feint depend a LOT on the experience of the other fighter and what you know about him. I look like a wrestler so other grapplers expect the shoot, so if we are sparring with head gear I will do a really high bullshit shoot, wait for the sprawl and then pop my head up and catch them in the face with the back of my head. With an unknown fighter there is no way of knowing whether they would sprawl or just start whaling away. I know how a fighter with a certain background will react either to a feint or being "baited" but in any sort of real life situation with it's unknowns I would rather fully commit to real techniques.

Ronin's got the right idea


Many fighter attack at the first sign of movement, so when you feint you better be ready to counter.

This has been an issue I realised my sparring was really failing big time. I have a Bruce Lee book and he calls it 'progressive indirect attacks' (PIA).

I reckon the key to feinting is you use it as a definite setup by forcing the opponent's response, AND BLOODY KNOWING WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO DO YOURSELF!!!!!!

My biggest failing has been my feints were nothing but a distraction to my opponent when he was moving in to attack, or I had a definite lack of speed to exploit the opening (bloody laziness more like it).

I usually find trying bizarre follow-up angles are the way to go. I've hit some good fighters in sparring with it (after they've scored 50 million points on me...) and got some respect for it, which was nice for a beginner like me.

well, if they don't buy the fake, hit them with it. if they buy it, be ready to go elsewhere. easier said than done, however.

My coach has always said that feints are useless. If you throw it, then it should hit, otherwise why would he bother reacting to it? I think it's better to think of combinations rather than feints - you throw a jab and he counters by slipping, so you nail him with a cross. He weaves the cross so you tag him with a hook.

My coach likes to mention how he did TKD when he was a teenager and got into a fight with a grown man. My coach's best technique was to feint a roundkick, then hit the guy with a punch. He tried this on the streetfighter who didn't know what a roundkick was, so ignored the feint because it didn't look dangerous and he didn't know what the feint was supposed to represent.

Imagine throwing a feint at a drunk guy. The guy is having a hard enough time seeing straight, let alone seeing your backfist feint to set up your reverse-punch. Why not just nail him with the back-fist then the right cross depending on his reaction?

My instructor USED to say "Never feint, throw to hit, and if they block you they're open somewhere else". He has since changed his tune.

One way to get a guy to "buy" the fake is to hit him with a real one first. Keep hitting until he decides to block it. Then act like you are going for the same place again, but hit him somewhere else.

If you're going to feint first, which I don't recommend, you have to make it very obvious. I've got someoen people with some pretty stupid moves. Like drawing back your rear hand and yelling, but then popping them with a jab.

hahah I think I'm with Punisher

IMO you CAN play the mind games in the dojo, but they don't work too well TEH STR33T!

correct hitting is invisible

Ask Mark Coleman how he feels about feints in the form of leg kicks. Great point by Punisher.

misdirection can be accomplished in many ways. you can feint in attack and in defense.
feinting in attack generally involves a change-up at the halfway way point in terms of both
distance and commitment. this can be done in various ways, from individual motions of the
hands or feet, or with overall body motions ( like ‘juking someone out’).

feinting in defense most often involves leaving an apparent opening, or invitation, which is
intended to lure your adversary into striking. Experienced fighters wont fall for this, but
rookies are usually big time suckers for this tactic. It works best against over eager
attackers.

feinting is just one element of the overall strategy of deception. the intent of which is to
confuse the opponent. feinting, however, connotates a mere trick, used once to facilitate
an singular attack. Deceptive strategies however seek to ‘crash his sensory net’, with both
false information and to overwhelm his decision making cycles by delivering rapid attacks
with very tight intervals from multiple angles. (I should state that the last remark is more
‘kuntao specific’, other systems have a different functional interpretation of deception)

the core of functional deception lies in ‘convincing’ your opponent that you are going
right, when indeed you are going to go left. Of course you must go right first, then at the
critical moment, you reverse everything. from a distance, this is done visually, at close
range is accomplished primarily by pressure.

This is the strategy of the forest bird.

Bruce Lee took the "5 methods of attack" from fencing.

They are (in no particular order):

1. Direct Attack
2. Attack by Combination
3. Attack by Feinting
4. Attack by Immobilization
5. Attack by Drawing

And and all of these can and do work when done properly. Baiting your opponent by leaving an opening like kuntao described above is the "Attack by Drawing".

Most people try to do one and fail, because it is damn hard. Most people mostly do #2. #3 involves trapping or grabbing your opponent to create the opening or prevent from defending.