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Hi I'm John Graden from the Martial Arts Teacher's Association. Faking is one of my all time
favorite subjects. A fake attack is an indirect attack. There are direct attacks and indirect
attacks and faking is indirect. You must become a master at faking. Goals of all fakes, number
1) gain time. How do I do that? I make my opponent hesitate for just a second. When
they think I'm going to hit them and I'm not really going to hit them, they hesitate, they
go into a block, they may counter, they may move, I'm in control for that fraction of
a second. Number 2) I gain distance, how do I do that? On the fake I close half the distance
to my opponent. So I get half the work out of the way so faking is critical. The rear
shoulder fake is that I am trying to communicate that I'm going to throw a right hand or a
rear hand, a cross punch to my opponent. So in order for a fake to really work it has
to have three components. Number 1) I want to make sure they see the weapon coming towards
them. So I'm going to extend that hand out about half way or three quarters of the way
so from a side view is about that far. I don't want to over extend because then I'm open.
I want to get that back and protect myself. Number 2) the arm is not convincing enough,
is it? I've got to convey power so I'm going to push off that back shoulder and you can
sense that I'm turning the body and I'm coming at you with the right hand. At the same time,
I close half that distance so now it is coming at you like that. So it is really a sense
of I'm coming at you and part of selling that fake is to communicate bad intentions. In
other words I'm going to do the snarly, I'm really aggressive going after you. It may
not be my fighting demeanor but when I want to sell a fake sometimes I will exhale real
hard like I am really coming at them hard. So I want to just shoot all kinds of energy
to my opponent that here comes a real attack. Typically on a rear shoulder fake I want to
step in and quickly recover. Joining me from Pro Star Mixed Martial Arts is Mr. Joe Brignoli
and here is why. If I step in on a shoulder fake and drop my hands well his reaction to
the fake might very well be to smash me in the face. So I want to make sure with my shoulder
fake that I am either in position and either rock back, get out or to follow through and
take care of business. Thank you. So that's it, the rear shoulder fake, indirect fighting.
I'm John Graden. For more information contact me at johngraden.com. Thank you.