Fighting Stance 1 (Patreon)

• LMA Curriculum

This is going to be your MMA and boxing fighting stance. For muay Thai and K1-style kickboxing, you probably want to be more squared up to attack from both sides, clinch, knee, and throw, but for MMA this leaves you open for takedowns. MMA is fought from further away, where a square stance leaves you at a disadvantage.

Also a square stance leaves you more vulnerable in punching exchanges, and in MMA, to remain grounded, more punches are thrown than kicks.

From a square stance, if I move laterally, I'm completely defenseless and off-balance. If I retreat my lead leg, I'm also in the same predicament. If I defensively lean back, not only am I exposed for more punches to the face and body, but I've also put myself halfway to a takedown. A square stance also makes it harder to cut off an opponent because I've shortened my own radius.

For all these reasons a long narrow stance makes the most sense for MMA and even for self-defense.

Your first line of defense will be your feet, followed by your hands, shoulders, then hips, before they can get to your head and body. Much like wrestling defense, they have to get past your limbs before they can get to you.

Rather than shrugging your shoulders and tucking your chin, causing yourself chronic neck and shoulder pain, standing bladed will automatically hide your chin behind your lead shoulder. (Also reduces places to be hit.) Also shrugging your shoulders and tucking your neck just ends up making you stick your neck and chin out. This is the problem in MMA except it's more noticeable than in kickboxing because you can't use big gloves to cover your face and in kickboxing you're closer to each other so you're less likely to run forward to hit your opponent.

Rest your elbows on your rib cage so there's minimal effort in holding your hands up. Your shoulders shouldn't need to hold your hands up.

Your lead hand and shoulder act as natural obstacles and your rear is naturally protecting the other side of your chin. Your stance however is fluid so you won't always stay like this but this is position zero.

Sit slightly into your stance so you're rooted. Rooted feet, fluid hands. Apply this to grappling as well.

You also want to sit your weight slightly on your back leg, which leaves you slightly looking up with your chest and eyes. So from here, look straight ahead. What does that do? Naturally tucks your chin with little effort without sticking your chin out. You also can't stick your chin out when bladed, only when square.

Sitting into your stance is part of why running and cardio is important because your stance needs strong sea legs. If your legs get tired, you'll begin to stand tall which is the last thing you want to do in any athletic endeavor.

People emphasize upper body too much in a fighting stance when like most athletic endeavors, it's mostly your legs.

Sitting into your stance in sports is called your athletic stance or athletic position because you always need your springs coiled and center of gravity dropped. Otherwise you can't generate power, speed, or balance. You also can't take a hit.

Now from here if you ever lean forward to bait an opponent, you have more ability to lean back. If you're already leaning forward in your stance and you lean further forward, you'll be defenseless.

Also from leaning back, like drawing a bow, you have maximum power in your punches and kicks.

What do people do when they load a punch? Pull their arm back. But here we're already leaning back and when we throw, rather than swinging an arm punch, the power comes from our rear leg and the full weight of our body.

Defensively when you move, you'll always be behind your feet. If you happen to throw yourself out of position, since you started behind your feet, you'll still be relatively safe rather than your head dangling in front of your feet running head first into a punch or kick.

You want your front foot pointing forward and back foot pointing out. Your feet should resemble an L. I call this the L-stance.

This also puts you in a better position to throw straight punches and gives you the most distance to see and defend incoming strikes (and also check kicks).

To get into stance, stand hip width apart, turn your rear leg out, take a step back, slightly further than what you're comfortable with. Get bladed. Rest your elbows on your ribcage. Sit into your stance and shift your weight slightly back. Look straight ahead.

Memorize how this feels, it should feel slightly uncomfortable. But you should also feel like a tank, strong and grounded. Build comfort here, this is your home.

Also, as noted in the training thesis, practice this on both sides. You want to build symmetry to prevent injury.

One last note: whether you stand orthodox or southpaw is up to you. It doesn't have to be based on whether you're left-or right-handed (or what you think you're supposed to be or what you've been assigned). See what feels most comfortable and natural. It's your stance, not anyone else's.

– Sam