Head Movement!

This morning I ran across this video on RSF and the topic of head movement.

This is a great example of how valuable head movement can be in confusing your opponent and make it very difficult for them to hit you.  I have been exploring head movement quite a bit lately and trying to incorporate more in my sparring and have noticed a vast change in how my sparring partners are reacting. I like watching how boxers use their head movement with footwork and angle change, it get's me thinking about my bagua and xingyi and how the body movement principles of those arts can be tweaked to focus more on the head/body movement we see in boxing. I then look into my xingyi and bagua goodie bag and see what I have that has a similar body movement, and then I tweak it. While sparring have been pulling a couple of things out of the Xingyi animals, in-particular the bobbing and unpredictable movement of monkey. Monkey has a lot of level change and angle shifting which allows the head to travel relatively quick in different directions. As far as practicing it, obviously sparring is a great medium, but I don't always have folks to work with. If that's the case I'll usually try and plug it into some shadow boxing or bag work. Very fun and useful stuff!