Whenever you have two fighters of equal skill squaring off, footwork is almost always the deciding factor.

Every movement in fighting is based off of the footwork. It dictates your timing, range, power and speed of any tecnique, be it offensive or defensive. The footwork also determines the rythm of the fight as well as fluidity in movement and transitioning of balance and body weight.

With good footwork you will be able to move in any direction easily. This allows you to slip, pary, counter, evade, run, stop hit, takedown and add speed and power to your attack.

Every serious student of self defense should train his footwork at least one hour a day. Unfortunatly people dont always have this time to give up and even more unfortunate, most are too lazy to give the proper time needed to achieve proficiency in the one thing that could mean the difference between life and death.

well zen i tend to agree with you on this one footwork is very important. its the base of all your attack and defence. nothing worse than a flat footed fighter

Agreed, Chen.

I have sparred with people that have had inferior hand technique to me, but had eqivalent or superior footwork, and found them to be tough to deal with.

Hands become much less useful when you can't get to the opponent.

Cory: Wish I could disagree, so as to enliven things, but unfortunately CAN'T!

I was actually hoping to grab a certain members attention who recently had a debate over whether footwork or body mechanics were more improtant to technique.

What are some good drills for footwork? Because I honestly have no idea what you guys are talking about when you say footwork.

well Bruce got JKD's footwork from boxing and fencing. By foot work we mean 'how you use your feet to move around'. This includes forward, backward, sidestepping, twisting, and circling. Footwork is used to position yourself out of the way of attacks, to move into attack range, and also to supplement the structure of your attack, like you might quickly change your feet stance from the jkd southpaw stance to a right handed stance so you can launch a more powerful thai roundhouse with your (now) rear leg or right cross or shovel hook.

[This message has been edited by buddhabong (edited 02-28-2005).]

footwork IS improtant if you dont have footwork you cant move which does not help in a fight. you could use your hands maybe [IMG]http://www.fightingarts.com/forums/ubb/biggrin.gif[/IMG]

Bruce lee was a very good cha cha-dancer. That definitely affected his own personal footwork. Dancing is very beneficial, IMHO.

Of course foot work is the most important part of fighting, especially in punching. The hand is just a delivery system, without proper foot work and use of the leg muscles a punch is rather weak.