If you are wearing gloves try and put them between the punches and you. They provide the most padding. Always have one covering the face at all times. Angle away from the punch coming. (Yes looking at the shoulders is fine. The best way to learn to read punches is through drilling. You have to see the punch coming at you atleast 1000 times. This is a fact. In order for something to be a part of reflex and muscle memory, the action must be seen and reacted to 1000 times to be second nature. You will notice that you will be able read their punches with less and less stimuli. At first you will need to see their arm extend towards you, then it will go down to a turning of their shoulder before their arm extends, then it will be a gradual shift of their body weight, then you won't know how you knew it was coming...you just knew.) The second most important point is to KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN. You will instictively close them when you get hit. UNLEARN THIS. The all purpose cover up is to tuck your chin into your chest, pull your rib cage and pelvis as close together as possible, put your arms ,with half a fists length between them, together infront of you (get the point of your elbows below the top ridge of your hip, if not, you will get hit and your own elbow will clip the top edge of your hip bone, AND THIS HURTS) Practice 'Survival':
Stand against a wall and cover up. For a 3 minute round, have a partner throw any and every punch in the book at you. Then do the same for him for 3 minutes. Go back and forth like this as many times as you wish. Don't throw one or two punches at a time and rest...throw some more...rest. No. Whoever is throwing punches should be throwing punches for every second of the round. Start out with light punches and gradually increase speed and power, until full blown punches are being thrown, over a period of a month. Then move on to stage two when you can CALMLY sit there and watch full blown punches coming at you.
Different stages to do with survival:
Stage 1)Cover up and focus on keeping your eyes open and looking at every punch that is coming. Just cover up and look.
Stage 2)Tell your partner which punch you think he is throwing next before he throws it. Just cover and read his punches.
Stage 3)Every once in a while slip one of the punches, since you have now gotten good at stage 2 and can predict which punches are coming with 50% accuracy. Just cover and slip 'em.
Stage 4)Sit there and let him try to hit you as you cover, and slip his punches more and more. Just cover and try to slip more.
Stage 5)Since you can cover and slip at will, practice your covering and slipping (this is called maintaining the technique), then slip a punch and step behind him. stay tight and don't give him room to rest, because you will immediately start throwing your guns at him. He will take a step back against the wall and practice his covering and slipping, and then slip one and step behind you and repeat over and over.
Don't prematurely move from stage to stage. Here is the test. When one stage gets so easy you can talk to a third person about how you had too much beer lastnight, and that was such a fine chick with the daisy dukes...then, you are ready to move on young Skywalker.
