Fighting Stance 2 (Patreon)

• LMA Curriculum

Now that you've moved around in your fighting stance and learned a bit of footwork, let's add more details.

Make sure your arms are resting on your rib cage. Your lead hand is facing your opponent, and your rear is defending your chin.

In your L-stance, make sure your feet aren't too close together but not so far stretched where you feel like you can't kick.

You don't want your heels to be on the same tight rope. From where your rear foot is, you should be able to kick sand at your opponent without running into the heel of your front foot. If that happens, your stance is too narrow.

But to your opponent, it should look narrow because you're leaving that little of yourself exposed. If you stand wide, even as wide as shoulder-width (from heel to heel), you expose everything.

Eventually, from muscle memory and experience, you'll find your ideal stance and even hand position. But it'll still be somewhere between being able to kick sand with your rear foot and hip-width (from heel to heel). If your feet and stance remain your first line of defense, this frees up your hands to move away from your chin. Within the L-stance are many stances and hand positions.

Contrary to what you might think, in martial arts, the fundamental rules create freedom rather than oppose it. Once you know the rules, you find your freedom by operating within the rules. This is why I find mixed martial arts as a system to be the least oppressive because it operates within so many styles, the only remaining rules are the most universal (the patterns that are true in the most scenarios). Any one style is too rigid and formalistic for liberation martial arts but that does not mean you can't enjoy them for their own qualities.

With that said, these universal rules give you the canvas to paint. If you don't know any rules, you have no canvas. You're not free, you're lost. And being lost is its own prison. Which is to say, freedom and creativity still need focus to be fruitful and beneficial. This is where I disagree with the West. Freedom isn't the goal, the goal is doing things that feel like they mean something. Freedom is part of that, but to me, it's the cup, not the water in the cup. I could have all the cups in the world and die of thirst if I don't have water. I think people lose sight of water because water is clear and the cup is what you can see. In the same way, meaning is harder to quantify whereas doing whatever I want is easier to understand. For me, how I do one thing is how I do all things and this is a literal truth in martial arts and fighting and I believe the same is true for life.

Knowing the rules doesn't mean later you can break the rules, either. It means you know the rules so well, that it looks like you're breaking the rules when you're not. But sometimes people will break the rules and still be good. It doesn't mean breaking the rules makes them good. It means some people are so gifted, that they're good despite breaking the rules. There are also situational exceptions but, as you know, exceptions to the rules are what make the rules.

Now let's get into the subtleties.

You want to activate your glutes and abs without stressing them. This means putting slight load onto them. Essentially pushing your butt slightly back. This will strengthen your posture while also naturally protecting your chin and body. If the fronts of your legs are getting tired, it means you're not sticking your butt back, and you're sitting too low.

Since power comes from the rear leg, activate your rear leg while making you're lead leg light. This means shifting your weight slightly to the back of your stance. Just as your feet are not in a symmetrical position, your weight should not be symmetrical. This will make it easier for your lead leg to defend kicks while loading your rear body for offense.

You'll almost never get kicked to the rear leg, so don't worry about that. Your stance is not symmetrical because fighting is not symmetrical. However, if you do get kicked to your rear leg, it means something fundamentally has gone wrong, and they have gotten to your blind spot.

This leads me to the most important point. Always face your opponent. Then all your weapons will face your opponent while keeping your vitals hidden from your opponent. Your rear leg is behind the rest of your body, so it's naturally shielded. If they've moved into a position where they can kick it, it basically means you have your back turned to your opponent. 

Even if they move slightly into your blind spot, which can even mean getting too close to you, you're left vulnerable. On the other hand, if you're facing your opponent and keep them in your ideal range of vision, they can't hurt you. You need defense when you're no longer far enough and in position to see all your opponent's attacks.

The point of footwork is to move into your opponent's blind spot or to adjust with your opponent so as they try to move to your blind spot, you stay facing them. So whether you're shadow boxing, working on the bag, or with your training partner, you should always be moving to face your opponent while putting them in a position where they can't face you. This is where the chess analogies come in. It's about footwork. You want to put them in check.

Keep that in mind from now on. Your ultimate goal is to put them in check.

This is a universal rule. If you're wrestling, you want an angle on your opponent where you have a clear line on your opponent, but they can't face you in time to defend. In grappling, it's where you can choke or hit them, but they can't hit you back. This is why taking the back is the most important position in grappling. Being in their blind spot means you're hidden.

Even in de-escalation, you want to be in a position where they can't hurt you, but you can hurt them, but you don't have to. Putting them in check doesn't mean finishing them. It just means you're in a better position than they are. And that's extremely useful in overcoming stronger opponents.

So a stance in fighting is no different than taking a stance on an issue. It's about the direction you're facing. Nothing I've said about your stance matters if it's aimless or facing the wrong way. Taking a stance, whether fighting or political, means facing the issue.

– Sam