Feints and Fakes

Feint

A feint is some other body movement, expression, or sound made to deceive the opponent. The movement in a feint is not necessarily an attack nor does the movement need to be toward the opponent. A feint may be an eye movement or pretending to be tired or injured. For example, "I will feign Joe into believing I intend to rear leg kick by shifting my weight to my front leg." Everything else being equal, the fighter with the best feinting and faking skills will win. Some types of feints are:

• False movement. Move head or a limb or shift weight to draw opponent's attention.
• Eye misdirection. Quickly glance in one direction while moving in another direction.
• Change of pace. After a furious attack sequence, pretend to be resting and then attack again when opponent relaxes.
• Psychological. Psyche out opponent using pre-match eye focus. Before you match actually begins, slouch and look unconcerned, then at "Sejak" suddenly change into an alert, fierce fighter.

Feints and fakes provide a way to find an opponent’s weaknesses by discovering his or her preferred responses and style of movement. The idea is to make an opponent react to an imaginary attack to create an opening or to draw the opponent into responding so you may anticipate and counter.