All Warfare is based on Deception
These were the famous words uttered by Sun Tzu and it is true for the sport of boxing as well. The better you become, the better the level of your opponent. This means you need to delve deeper into your bag of skills and tricks to be effective. Deception such as feinting is paramount if you want to be the best you can be.
In the video below we see a couple of examples from the Sugar Ray’s – Robinson and Leonard. First up we see Robinson using a smart outside and inside attack. He first goes around the outside with a right hook to the body, then comes inside with a left hook to the body. Now both of these punches were preceded with a jab feint making the opponent think a jab was coming leaving a small window for Robinson to then fire off the feint. In both instances Robinson threw the right hook and left hook with the head in a similar position. Again this aids his deception because the opponent won’t know which punch is coming as Robinson hasn’t given away any cues.
Next we will see Sugar Ray Leonard throwing the jab to the head and once he has conditioned his opponent to expect the jab to the head, Leonard will throw the lead right. Leonard though will throw the lead right from the same position he was in when throwing the jab to the head. In the second example Leonard punctuates this with a foot feint so not only is he setting it up by positioning himself to throw the jab with his upper body, he is also using the foot feint to make it look like a jab is about to be thrown.
Deception is a key tool used by all of the greats and the feint in boxing is an important tactic to open up your opponent and land some telling blows and set them up for further attacks down the line.
