An Unbeatable Stance

Date: Weds, 12 April 2006

What's the best stance for fighting?

Deep and rooted?  High and narrow for mobility?  Constantly changing?  No stance?

It really depends if you're doing sport or self-defense.  For sport, it depends on which sport.  When I competed in pushing hands I had a really deep stance to keep from getting up rooted . . . either when I pushed or was pushed.

When I fought in stand up tournaments I was moving around so much I didn't really have much of a stance at all.  By the way, in those matches, anytime my opponent got in a deep horse stance or even anything close to it, I was ready to go with a front leg sweep if the rules allowed it.

What's a front leg sweep?

Let's say you're both fighting left side forward.  That's called a closed stance.  If one guy's right side forward and the other guy's left forward, that's called an open stance.

Anyway, with both fighters' left forward, one guy gets in too deep a stance and/or has too much weight on his front foot.  The other fighter should sweep the guy's left heal with his right leg.  That's a front leg sweep.

In mixed martial arts the fighters tend to keep hips away, but really, a lot of them don't have much of a stance at all since they tend to just launch right into the fight.

To my way of thinking, that makes the mixed martial arts matches pretty close to self-defense in that you're either attacking full power, or you're getting the heck out of there.  There's not much time or place for "stance."

In a friendly match in the school, I switch up and try different things - that's what a friendly match is for.  I'll get really deep on purpose to see if the other guy will do the same and then I'll try a sweep.  I'll fight high and in close tying him up, then see if I can spin away and get a scissor take down.

If you've got comments on stance - or anything else - reply email me and I'll see if I can't include it in the next newsletter.

Hope your spring is starting out great.

Train like you mean it.

Rob LaPointe