Position Zero (Patreon)

• LMA Curriculum

Now that we've laid down the rails for the fighting stance and many other concepts, we can go more in-depth on defensive hand positioning and position zero. This is a companion to the unit on the rear hand position.

Position Zero for your eyes means the opponent's torso. You can move your gaze, but its starting position, returning position, and default position is the torso. This gives you maximal peripheral vision.

From your defensive stance, your position zero, without having to do anything extra, you already have a solid defense. For your opponent to get to you, they first have to get past:

1. Your front foot
2. Lead hand
3. Lead hip
4. Lead elbow
5. Lead shoulder
6. Rear hand
7. Rear elbow

Your head and centerline are all behind your natural barriers. Standing square, you expose all your targets. Standing bladed, you only expose half your targets. Since you're slightly sitting and leaning back, as if you're sitting on a high stool, and your stance is longer, there is greater distance between your lead foot and your head. That means they'll have to step past your lead foot to be close enough to hit you. Your lead foot acts as your first sensor and barrier. Not only will you know how close they've gotten, but they'll have to get into your strike zone for them to get close enough to hit you.

Your hands, in particular, create natural obstacles to your chin. Your first concern is always their longest attacks. This defensive hand position also affords you the most versatility.

For instance, you can't hand parry unless your hands are in the path of the punches. I'm only using parries as an example of how hands can be natural obstacles to punches, but parrying is advanced. Wait to work on it until you get all the other basics down.

If you're already an experienced striker with lots of sparring hours, remember to parry mostly with your lead hand. Your rear is the last defense to your chin. Parrying with it would be like moving your goalie out of position to move the ball. It can be done, but the times you'd do it are specific and rare. If it's your primary defense, your opponent can read that and bait you to get your hand out of position, leaving your chin open. Due to the risks, I don't consider parries to be essential. You can be an elite fighter without ever using parries.

Your lead hand is like an antenna. Since you can't see every punch, your lead hand can act as a sensor, feeling when punches are coming. Either it will touch some part of your lead hand directly, or they'll have to punch around it, giving you time to move away. It's also there to jam your opponent's forward movement or get the dominant (inside) hand position in the clinch. Not getting hit at all is better than blocking.

You can easily transition from position zero to long guard, which works on similar principles.

In the long guard, your lead hand is still an obstacle and antenna, but it's also a stiff arm creating more distance. The downside is it restricts your own vision, limits your attacks, and leaves your body open. This is why the long guard is mostly transitional.

From position zero, you can easily block to the body without changing your hand position. This is critical because you don't want your chin exposed and your hands out of position when blocking to the body. You want to leave your goalies in place.

Since your side body is also behind your hips, your opponent has to go further to get to your body. This also means more chances for their punches to be blocked and countered. Your elbows are also already there to protect you if you don't see the body punch coming. You want to force your opponent to punch around your natural defenses, which makes it harder to aim, land clean, and easier to see.

Being further away than they're used to means you can attack them as they're lunging or leaning in, or hit them unexpectedly when they thought you were out of range because you had extra reach in your back pocket. They're already maximizing their length by reaching for you. But you can still stand taller, push off your back foot, and bring your centerline to neutral or even slightly forward to get more reach. Since they've calibrated to your position zero, this will throw them off. Unexpected punches land with more impact without any extra effort because your opponent is unprepared for them.

Your rear hand doesn't just block straight punches, it also blocks uppercuts—one of the hardest punches to see or block. Dropping your hands to block the body doesn't just expose your chin to hooks and straight punches but also the uppercut. The rear hand being in front of your chin will attract the hook. You'll know what to expect, and your right will beat their hook.

Transitioning to other blocks is easy from this position. Since you're already protected against most straight punches and you're already sitting back and further away, you can raise your lead arm into a high block to defend against overhands and right hooks. Since the punch has to travel further to get to you, the high block becomes one of the few blocks that prevents you from getting hit altogether. Removing even a little slack from the punch means the punch can't get to you. If you were using a stance where you were leaning forward, this block would be less effective because they'd have enough room to wrap their arm around your block and still get to you. This is why your hand position is a component of your fighting stance and not independent of it.

Rather than pinpoint blocking at the point of contact, still taking damage, the high block puts a roadblock in the punch's path. As a result, you take less damage, if any damage at all, you don't need as much timing, and you're stopping the punch before it gains momentum, making it easier to block. Also, using more surface area to block means a wider net to catch the punch. Even if the punch still lands, your chin is still behind your lead shoulder.

With the hand in front of the chin, it means moving it to the side to block hooks. (In the future, I'll go into more detail about blocks, like blocking kicks. This unit is about why we start at position zero.)

Fighters like George Foreman would use both hands like lead hands to block hooks and straight punches from both sides and just take the punches to the body. Essentially double long guard/high blocks. This is sometimes called the mummy or zombie guard.

However, despite protecting your chin from hooks, jabs, and straights, you have nothing for the uppercut.

Daniel Cormier used the same mummy guard in MMA, except since there are no boxing gloves, he would use his extended hands to grab his opponent's hands before they could deliver a punch. He also used it to initiate the clinch or takedown. But since he primarily used this guard rather than returning to the defensive guard, Cormier's body was exposed.

From position zero, all the other guards are available. Since your arms are already out in front of you, you can transition to cross guard (as Foreman did) or even the Philly shell. Foreman used the cross guard to defend uppercuts, while Cormier relied on leaning back, being shorter than his opponents, and the takedown threat.

Devin Haney often transitions from the defensive guard to the Philly shell. Like punching combinations, you can chain different guards together. You can even chain your guards while chaining punches.

You are not limited in attacks from position zero. It opens up all your offense. That's why it's position zero, everything starts from here.

If you're already hurt, or your opponent is bombarding you with punches and you strictly want to defend, you can transition to a high guard or self-defense guard. Still stay in your stance, keep your eyes on your opponent, roll with punches, and move away.

Sometimes the way you're shown a high guard is squared up with hands high. But you don't want to be squared up. It defeats the purpose of a fighting stance and exposes more targets.

Boxers do this because they can lean into the ropes to pull away from punches and use the elasticity to take the sting off. But you can't do that against a wall or the cage. You also can't roll with punches when you're squared up.

Saúl "Canelo" Álvarez uses the high double-forearm guard but still maintains his stance. Secondly, he isn't using the high guard defensively but offensively. Rather than the jab, Canelo sometimes relies on his toughness and power to walk his opponents down with just his forearms until he's close enough to land a left hook. It's meant to intimidate opponents and say you can walk through their punches, but can they walk through yours? Look at his back foot; this is not defensive, he's loading up. Look at his head and upper body as compared to his centerline. Like a sprinter, he's leaning forward to explode.

Since he's such a devastating puncher, his opponents don't hit him as hard as they can because that would mean they'd have to plant their feet. Canelo will take a punch to land a punch. If you're planted, you can't get away, and in this game of dual exchange, Canelo usually wins.

With the high double-forearm guard, you've accepted getting hit and being unable to see. In fact, you're blocking your own vision. This leaves you especially vulnerable to kicks. On the other hand, being defensive is about not getting hit and seeing the attacks coming.

The key, however, is to make yourself as small and compact as possible to protect as much of yourself as you can. Since you're so low and squat, the most available punches are body shots and leaping hooks. This is why this guard specifically makes sense for Canelo.

The double-forearm guard is highly specialized, like the long guard. It's not versatile. It also relies on big boxing gloves, long arms with big forearms, and a short torso. The more your arms can cover your upper body, the better off you are.

However, when Canelo faced opponents who weren't intimidated by his power, the double forearms offered little protection.

The high double-forearm guard is often taught as position zero or as the standard defensive guard when it's more of an offensive guard or a defensive guard of last resort. Using it as your primary guard or resorting to it right away leaves you with few options and depends heavily on your physical attributes (rather than learned skills).

Even for Canelo, this is not his primary guard, even though he's the most suited to use it, and boxing doesn't allow kicks. Instead, he uses it to gather information as punches bounce off his big forearms. Once he's gotten a read of his opponent, he relies on a modified position zero to slip, block, and roll with punches.

The lead hand is often low in boxing because boxing is jab centric. Keeping the lead hand below your opponent's eye line makes it harder to see. It also makes threatening and feinting the jab easier because you're just flicking it up. For elite boxers, the rear hand, lead shoulder, and vision are enough for defense, leaving the lead hand free for offense and traps.

However, not all habits of elite pros are basics. Elite basketball players slam dunk a lot, but that doesn't mean this is how you should build the rails for your basketball game. Certain select tools are only available to a select few. Just as economically, there are things the elite 1% do regularly that the rest of us can't. Things the US does that the rest of the world can't. That's their privilege. Don't fall into the reactionary hustle and grind trap of thinking doing everything like they do will equal their results.

Start with position zero, don't skip any steps, and see what develops. Rather than copying others, see what you bloom. Because even if you want to be like someone else, your fighting style will always be personal.

– Sam