Stepping Advance and Retreat

You are not afraid, so you will always move forward in a fight. You are stepping backward, so you are afraid and you cannot fight. Well, that's not what it seems from the outside. You will learn different lessons in your martial art training.

Footwork - the way you move forward and backward, side to side, is one of them. We know how to walk naturally. When we walk, you see in front of you. If we want to return from a certain point, we turn and walk.

In a fight, if you turn and get back, you do not see your opponent anymore. You should not do that in a fight, otherwise, you can get hit easily and there is nothing much you can do when you do not see what your opponent is doing. As Bruce Lee said,

Never take your eyes off your opponent even when you bow!
-- Bruce Lee

So when you step back, you face your opponent, move back. It is not usual, and you do not get used to doing it. You learn how to do it in your martial art training. You need to spend some time practicing that. Then it will become easy for you.

As a part of your fighting strategy, sometimes you have to step forward and retreat. In a fight, there is a distance between you and your opponent. No matter which moves you make, you have to consider the distance. In order to throw a punch and hit your opponent, you need to be in a punching range. You cannot do that in a kicking range.

In case, you are very close to your opponent, you can do elbow strikes, foot stomp, or grab your opponent, throw him on the ground. Again you do not want to spend too much time in a close range, you need to step back to make the distance.

When you do sparring or fight, you understand how important it is to maintain the distance. Maybe you are very good at kicking and punching. But you will not be able to touch your opponent if he is good at footwork. Every time you strike, you see your opponent has already got out of the attacking range. As a result, you cannot hit him.

So pay attention to learning footwork, you will find it very useful. Thank you so much for reading this post. Please feel free to express your thoughts and experience in the comment section.