The “Superman” Punch is not part of the Krav Maga curriculum but we do teach it in our Fight classes because it’s a useful technique to use in sparring. This video teaches you how to perform the Superman Punch and the common mistakes to avoid. It also will show you how to set it up and when to use it during sparring.
Transcript:
“Hi, this is Randall and Glenda with KravMagaTraining.com and in this video I’m going to teach the Superman Punch. The Superman Punch isn’t a required technique in the Krav Maga curriculum, as far as I know, or at least, not as of this date that we’re recording this video. However, I do teach this particular technique, as one of many techniques, in our fight class because we’re all about, I don’t care where it comes from, whether it’s a Krav Maga technique or not, if it works we use it. And I’ve had several of my students ask me to make a video on this so that way they can practice it on their own and make sure that they are doing it correctly.
All right. This is what the Superman Punch is if you haven’t learn this before. The scenario is that I’m far enough away that I’m at more of a kicking range like this. Not a punching range. So the nice thing about the Superman Punch is I can close this gap and still hit the person. And it works really well off of throwing a kick to fake the person out. So, maybe I’m throwing a front kick to the groin, a front kick to the stomach, maybe a low kick here. When I catch people trying to grab my leg. They bring their hands down to block and try to grab my leg, that’s the best time to Superman Punch them because you can come over the top, punch them in the face while their hands are down. Anyways. That’s how you would actually use it and apply it.
Now let me actually cover the technique now. So this is how it works is I’m going to take my back leg and I’m going to pick it up. I can pick it straight up like this to make the guy think I’m doing a front kick. Or I can bring it off to the side to make the guy think I’m going to do more of a round kick. It doesn’t really matter. If the person sees that leg, I see them dropping their hand down to protect against that, that’s when, that’s how we set them up. So like this. As I’m doing that, I’m going to keep this knee bent. My base knee bent like this so it’s in a position that I can jump off it. As this knee comes up, I’m using the momentum of that knee raise to push off of this foot and skip in. Now when I’m jumping off of my left foot notice I’m landing on my left foot. So it’s a hop. A hop being the definition of you jump off of one foot, you land on the same foot.
Now, as I’m doing that my torso’s going to lean forward slightly and I’m going to throw a cross with my right hand. Like this. The timing being when this foot lands on the ground that’s when you should be making impact on the pad here. As I’m doing that, oftentimes as your arm is extending out the other leg will naturally kick back a little bit to counterbalance. The more you lean forward the more you will probably feel your leg counterbalance out. Like this.
Now the biggest thing is when you jump it’s not even really a jump. It’s more of a, like you’re sliding in. I want to keep my head as level as possible. I don’t want to jump nice and high and come down on the punch like this. When you’re up in the air too long you’re too vulnerable. The guy can move out of the way. If they’re a wrestler they can shoot under that and take you down. They have too much time to see it coming. I want to keep my head level relatively low. Notice how my left foot, when I jump off of it, barely leaves the ground. It’s like, here’s the ground, it comes off the ground and kind of glides across it and goes back down. It’s not this big jump like this. It’s like that.
Now obviously the distance of that just depends on how far the target is away. If it’s farther away it can be a bigger jump. If it’s relatively close you can be a quick jump.
And once you get comfortable doing this on the cross side, you technically can do it on the jab side as well. Pick this leg up. Fake a front kick. Fake a round kick. Push off that back leg. Throw the jab. I usually recommend doing the cross side first because it’s easier. It’s a little bit more powerful. Once you get good at that then you can do it on the jab side as well.
This is one of those techniques that I don’t throw all the time. I just throw it occasionally. Maybe once per round. Like I said, when I catch the person when I’m throwing a lot of low kicks or kicks to the body I catch them dropping their hands a lot that’s when I throw it. Let’s demonstrate that Glenda. Let’s put the mitt off to the side please. So we’re in a fighting stance. Okay. So I catch Glenda dropping her hands. Maybe she’s not well trained. And there it is. I’m punching her over the top of her guard.
Okay. That’s the Superman Punch. Thanks for watching.”
“Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own.” -Bruce Lee
