The Definitive "HANDS UP!" Thread

[Discipulus]

Somehow, I'm still not sick of arguing this with people. :icon_lol:

I want to talk about good defense, and the various reasons for a fighter's hand positioning. First, a video I recently watched, of a fight many of you have likely seen before.



Somehow it's survived on Youtube for a little while without being taken down. If and when it eventually does, there are numerous other examples of the phenomenon I'm about to discuss that can just as well prove my point.

So, watch that bout, with a specific mind to Cung Le's defense. Throughout much of the first round in particular, his positioning and footwork defend him very effectively from Cote's punches. He has virtually no need of his hands, and in fact throughout the bout he is able to land several good counter right hooks solidly on Cote because he maintains good position and posture while Cote lunges forward and exposes himself (luckily for him he's got a serious chin).

Now, as Cung starts to run out of gas later in the bout, watch how Cote starts landing punches on him with much greater frequency. Why do you surmise this is? I suppose you could argue that Cote starts pushing the pace more, which is true. Or that Cung was less able to avoid strikes as he began to tire, which is true as well. But those facts are really corollary to the one major flaw that I noticed while watching this bout, and something I've begun to see in many fights.

Just about every time that Cung starts "putting on the earmuffs" so to speak, he starts eating punches left and right--pun definitely intended. When he is relying on head movement and prescriptive good body position (and mind you, Le doesn't have an exceptionally good stance defensively, which only goes to show how little an adjustment is really needed to strengthen your defensive game greatly), Cote's punches sail by and go wide. When his hands are high, he gets tagged. His lessened vision is one reason for this.

But I think a large part of his failure in this respect has to do with the fact that putting one's hands up is lazy. It's lazy defense, plain and simple. Le is probably used to being able to pull this sort of thing off with boxing gloves on in sparring, which accounts for the number of punches that easily slip around, through, and past his raised hands and arms during the bout with 4 oz. gloves. His go-to reaction is to just raise both arms and stick his gloves against his head, regardless of what attack is coming his way. By doing this kind of thing in sparring, you limit your options severely. Your hands are unable to counter, you can't see as well and, worst of all, you end up basically doing this as a standard flinch reaction, which is to say that you tense up and stop thinking about defending. You stop actually reacting to your opponent's attacks, and give him the initiative completely. Try it out with the small gloves and see. It's not hard at all to slip hard punches through that kind of guard, and when his hands are up, Le doesn't do a damn thing about it.

Now this isn't to say that a good defense has to be energy-expensive. When I say that Le's hands-up defense is lazy, I mean mentally as well as physically. A good defense should be prescriptive and anticipative rather than purely reactive. You give yourself more time to react if need be by virtue of your stance and positioning, as well as keeping yourself out of range of likely attacks. It doesn't take a lot of energy to do, but it takes more time, knowledge, and effort to learn than simply someone constantly shouting "hands up!" in your corner. And by learning to fight this way, you always have some measure of initiative on your opponent.

Well, I don't mean to ramble, but what do y'all think?

tl;dr - "Hands up" is a lazy and ineffective method of defense, and in fact limits both your defensive and offensive capabilities. It is essentially a self-imposed handicap to resort to this sort of thing for defense, especially in MMA where the gloves won't be able to supplement your lack of skill.

 

[Nuclearlandmine]

On another thought, i watched a video about Manny Pacquiao's boxing tricks. It amazed me how many times he had been able to split Margarito's guards even with his earmuffs on, and Margarito simply just stood there and ate 5 hard shots to the face. Isn't the point of boxing is hit and NOT getting hit? Is it me or it turned into "hit and getting hit back". And that's boxing with big gloves. How's the small 4oz gloves gonna help you when you put your earmuffs on?

 

[SummerStriker]

Most punches come towards your head. Lets say a punch costs 1-3 deciseconds to throw.

Recognizing the punch takes 0-1 deciseconds.

Moving your hands from a low position to a high position takes 0-1 ds.

Being slow because you are hurt or tired costs 1 ds.

Making a defensive move (parry or dodge) takes 0 seconds once your hands are in place. You can only parry once you move your hands into position. You can only dodge if you recognized the punch in 0 ds.

If an opponent's punch is in fewer ds than your defense, you get hit. Having your hands up always saves you a ds.

Having your hands up isn't just so that you can get punched in the hands. It is so you can gently redirect a punch coming right at your face with a gentle tap, without using any footwork or head movement, if that is what you want to do. It also lets you pull your folded arm against the side of your head faster if you decide you need to. On top of that, even if a punch can slip around, it can just as easily hit your forearm on accident because you can still be moving, making it hard for your opponent to be accurate.

 

[Nuclearlandmine]

Most punches come towards your head. Lets say a punch costs 1-3 deciseconds to throw.

Recognizing the punch takes 0-1 deciseconds.

Moving your hands from a low position to a high position takes 0-1 ds.

Being slow because you are hurt or tired costs 1 ds.

Making a defensive move (parry or dodge) takes 0 seconds once your hands are in place. You can only parry once you move your hands into position. You can only dodge if you recognized the punch in 0 ds.

If an opponent's punch is in fewer ds than your defense, you get hit. Having your hands up always saves you a ds.

Having your hands up isn't just so that you can get punched in the hands. It is so you can gently redirect a punch coming right at your face with a gentle tap, without using any footwork or head movement, if that is what you want to do. It also lets you pull your folded arm against the side of your head faster if you decide you need to. On top of that, even if a punch can slip around, it can just as easily hit your forearm on accident because you can still be moving, making it hard for your opponent to be accurate.

But if you using correct head/body positioning and footworks, you wouldn't even need to raise your hands up. Look at Machida. His brand of using positioning and footworks as defense is amazing enough to let him netted a 16-0 pre Shogun KO. Why be reactive when you can be pre-emptive?

 

[SummerStriker]

But if you using correct head/body positioning and footworks, you wouldn't even need to raise your hands up. Look at Machida. His brand of using positioning and footworks as defense is amazing enough to let him netted a 16-0 pre Shogun KO.

I think Machida can fight that way because he has better reflexes than the people he was fighting and a lot of skill.

I know a lot of MMA people that try to emulate that. They back up or side step with their hands down. I catch them all the time by throwing a punch to get them to move and meet their head with a kick because I know their hands won't be in the way to stop it. If they were better, they could figure out my game and stop it. If they were safer, they would have their forearm up providing some shelter. Because they are neither conservative nor better than the person they are sparring, they get hit.

Fighting with your hands down is like showing up with a gi on to a match where you don't have to. If you are certain you are way better than the person you are fighting, you can use your gi to tap them out or perform some sweet and interesting technique you wouldn't normally see. What you don't see are people wearing them when they don't have to against equal grapplers.

 

[Discipulus]

Good defense is about giving yourself more time to react, and putting yourself in an objectively safer position to begin with. Now I like handfighting, don't get me wrong. I like to catch jabs with my rear hand, and I like to reach out and grab the opponent's hands for kicks and knees and the like. So I often carry my hands pretty high.

But the idea that keeping your hands up saves you time in reacting is misleading. First of all, if your position is off in the first place, then having your hands in high position might save you some time. But you fully occupy your hands if this is your sole method of defense. Furthermore, the increased distance and field of vision created by good positioning means that you gain the same or better advantage in reaction time without needing to occupy your hands defensively, as well as being in a harder-to-reach position to begin with. You could argue that having your hands up and being in good position is best of all, but again, if positioning alone is enough, and hitting the opponent is part of the goal of the fight, then why would you incapacitate your hands by holding them up to your head constantly when you're already in a capable position defensively? Use those things to counter and make your opponent pay for his reaching attempts to touch you.

Also, how does making a defensive movement with the hands take 0 seconds, even when they're already held high? That doesn't add up. It takes time and reactive ability to defend the opponent's punches before the strike can land. The first line of defense should never be your quick reaction time. Even worse for you if you don't happen to have very good fast twitch responses, because now you're going to get beaten to the punch. Ever watch Pavlik vs. Hopkins? Or what happens to you if you try to parry a feint and you're not in the right position to avoid the counter punch or kick?

People seem to think of having the hands up as some kind of insurance, in case proper defense fails. Not only, as I said above, does this limit your offensive and countering options, but I think it encourages mental laziness when fighting. You start to tend toward the mediocre one-size-fits-all defense of just holding both forearms up against your face or temples, and that doesn't work against a skilled opponent. Keeping the hands high can also give you false confidence in your defense, much like wearing headgear. You'll still be absorbing plenty of damage, and now you'll walk into things you should have avoided because you thought you were protected.

 

[Nuclearlandmine]

I think Machida can fight that way because he has better reflexes than the people he was fighting and a lot of skill.

I know a lot of MMA people that try to emulate that. They back up or side step with their hands down. I catch them all the time by throwing a punch to get them to move and meet their head with a kick because I know their hands won't be in the way to stop it. If they were better, they could figure out my game and stop it. If they were safer, they would have their forearm up providing some shelter. Because they are neither conservative nor better than the person they are sparring, they get hit.

Fighting with your hands down is like showing up with a gi on to a match where you don't have to. If you are certain you are way better than the person you are fighting, you can use your gi to tap them out or perform some sweet and interesting technique you wouldn't normally see. What you don't see are people wearing them when they don't have to against equal grapplers.

I really hate it when people pulled the "it is a physical thing, so you can't do that". Like it is implying that "OMFG there is no way you can be technical about it". Yes, like SRR still had his superb reflexes after 100+ boxing bouts.

 

[SummerStriker]

I really hate it when people pulled the "it is a physical thing, so you can't do that". Like it is implying that "OMFG there is no way you can be technical about it". Yes, like SRR still had his superb reflexes after 100+ boxing bouts.

I didn't say that. You can do it if you are better than the person you are fighting.

Reflexes and skill come from training. I didn't say it was physical or that you can't do it. I just hope that you are better than the person you are fighting when you do it.

Some people plan strategies around being stronger than the person they are fighting. Other people plan strategies around having better reflexes. I guess that is fine as long as you are always going to be able to know who that is and what they can do.

 

[NAKMUAY18]

Do you not think Le start to cover up because he was too tired to use footwork and head movement. I'm not arguing for or against, but the reason Le started to get cracked wasn't because he consciously changed his defensive style, it was because of his gas tank. I think your confusing lazy and exhausted.

 

[endus]

I definitely do not get the same thing out of watching that fight, haha.

Cung's hands were higher at the beginning of the match and he ate less shots then. His hands start to drop as the match goes on and that is leaving him less ready to be able to parry or counter. Yea, he covers up more but I think that's more a result of trying to block shots that were clearly going to land or which already had landed. He's not overwhelmed per se, but he is definitely tiring and his reactions are starting to slow. I think there's a pretty clear difference in the feeling of when you see your opponents attacks coming and are able to easily block/parry/slip and when you are moving slower or otherwise getting caught...the mentality shifts, and it shifts for a good reason.

I agree about it being a matter of timing.

It all depends on your own skills and what opponent you are fighting too. How quick do they close the distance? How fast are their hands? How effective and unpredictable are their combinations? What is their reach like? Are the punches coming in wide and wild or on angles or are they coming straight down the pipe at you? All of these contribute to how to best defend.

I keep my hands up ALL the motherfuckin time because when i don't I get caught....but I have seen some of my sparring partners keeping their hands higher as my punches and combinations have improved.

 

[Discipulus]

But if you using correct head/body positioning and footworks, you wouldn't even need to raise your hands up. Look at Machida. His brand of using positioning and footworks as defense is amazing enough to let him netted a 16-0 pre Shogun KO. Why be reactive when you can be pre-emptive?

Right-o.

I think Machida can fight that way because he has better reflexes than the people he was fighting and a lot of skill.

This is mostly BS. There are Roy Jones Jrs. out there, true, who rely on innate talent to outclass their opponents. But most of history's best fighters claimed that status by working harder and fighting smarter than their opponents. You hear this all the time. It was in Nuke's last thread. He said he was emulating Sugar Ray, and someone told him "Well, you're not Sugar Ray." So what? Was Ray an amazing athlete? Hell yes. But he also trained hard and had one of the best technical coaches in history. He was a technical virtuoso as well as a natural athlete, and that's why he fought competitively into relative old age.

I know a lot of MMA people that try to emulate that. They back up or side step with their hands down. I catch them all the time by throwing a punch to get them to move and meet their head with a kick because I know their hands won't be in the way to stop it. If they were better, they could figure out my game and stop it. If they were safer, they would have their forearm up providing some shelter. Because they are neither conservative nor better than the person they are sparring, they get hit.

The bolded part is important. The reason you catch them isn't because they don't have their hands up. I mean: yes, a forearm or glove put in the way of that kick would probably mitigate the damage. But it would also prevent that person from ever developing the skill necessary to avoid such a kick in the first place. In effect, it prevents their defensive game from ever progressing to the level necessary to figure out your game and stop you, because all they know is to put something in front of whatever's coming at you. That's untrained behavior. That's a flinch response, not martial artistry. If, on the other hand, these partners of yours were coached by someone who understood good positioning and stance, then they would be learning from the get-go to not ever be put in a position where you could even throw that head kick or, if it did happen once, to prevent it from happening the same way again.

"Hands high" as a defensive mantra limits progression.

Edit for condensation of this important point: Why not learn to be better than your opponent and WIN the fight rather than merely learn to survive while letting a more skilled opponent bully you?

Fighting with your hands down is like showing up with a gi on to a match where you don't have to. If you are certain you are way better than the person you are fighting, you can use your gi to tap them out or perform some sweet and interesting technique you wouldn't normally see. What you don't see are people wearing them when they don't have to against equal grapplers.

No, fighting with your hands lowered isn't like wearing a gi, unless you do it stupidly, in such a position that you're just asking to eat a punch. A better analogy would be to say that, just like in grappling, position comes first. Standing front-foot heavy with your hands high is like letting your opponent trap you in an arm bar and then trying to escape. Good defensive thought says that you should never let him mount you in the first place.

 

[Nuclearlandmine]

I didn't say that. You can do it if you are better than the person you are fighting.

Reflexes and skill come from training. I didn't say it was physical or that you can't do it. I just hope that you are better than the person you are fighting when you do it.

Some people plan strategies around being stronger than the person they are fighting. Other people plan strategies around having better reflexes. I guess that is fine as long as you are always going to be able to know who that is and what they can do.

You don't really specified what kind of "reflexes" did you talking about so that's what i took from it. Also, isn't reflexes supposed to be "involuntary"? If it is honed through training then it is not reflexes anymore, it is a skill. It also kinda scratch one of my pet peeve about how some great technical fighters are labelled "physical specimen" when it is clearly NOT the case. Just look at my threads to see that happened.

 

[SummerStriker]

Good defense is about giving yourself more time to react, and putting yourself in an objectively safer position to begin with. Now I like handfighting, don't get me wrong. I like to catch jabs with my rear hand, and I like to reach out and grab the opponent's hands for kicks and knees and the like. So I often carry my hands pretty high.

I think there is a break down between what we picture because so few people learn to parry punches. In no MMA gym have I ever seen people practice using a bare hand to tap a punch directly to the side when it comes close to the face. The motion is so much faster than a punch that even if you complete the movement do to a fake jab, your same hand will still be in position to block the second punch.

Yes, I like the insurance, because it is just that. I can just happen to block a hit because they are up. What I do though is gently parry them. All of the force is straight forward. It takes a very small orthogonal force to make it miss and you can deliver that while only barely moving your hand.

But the idea that keeping your hands up saves you time in reacting is misleading. First of all, if your position is off in the first place, then having your hands in high position might save you some time. But you fully occupy your hands if this is your sole method of defense. Furthermore, the increased distance and field of vision created by good positioning means that you gain the same or better advantage in reaction time without needing to occupy your hands defensively, as well as being in a harder-to-reach position to begin with. You could argue that having your hands up and being in good position is best of all, but again, if positioning alone is enough, and hitting the opponent is part of the goal of the fight, then why would you incapacitate your hands by holding them up to your head constantly when you're already in a capable position defensively? Use those things to counter and make your opponent pay for his reaching attempts to touch you.

I do not feel like having my hands up makes my punching any slower. I can block, parry and throw full speed all from the same position. I can counter strike with any hit thrown with high hands, elbows, knees, or 1 of the 1000 kicks that hit on any angle. I don't need low hands to open up options. I can already hit on any line.

Also, how does making a defensive movement with the hands take 0 seconds, even when they're already held high? That doesn't add up. It takes time and reactive ability to defend the opponent's punches before the strike can land. The first line of defense should never be your quick reaction time. Even worse for you if you don't happen to have very good fast twitch responses, because now you're going to get beaten to the punch. Ever watch Pavlik vs. Hopkins? Or what happens to you if you try to parry a feint and you're not in the right position to avoid the counter punch or kick?

You get two chances to stop a hit. You can move your body and you can put something in its way. If you voluntarily decide that you just aren't going to do one of those things, you are limiting your defense. I do not believe you are limiting your counter attack because you can hit with your blocking hand right after, your other hand at the same time, or your knees or legs at the same time.

People seem to think of having the hands up as some kind of insurance, in case proper defense fails. Not only, as I said above, does this limit your offensive and countering options, but I think it encourages mental laziness when fighting. You start to tend toward the mediocre one-size-fits-all defense of just holding both forearms up against your face or temples, and that doesn't work against a skilled opponent. Keeping the hands high can also give you false confidence in your defense, much like wearing headgear. You'll still be absorbing plenty of damage, and now you'll walk into things you should have avoided because you thought you were protected.

Mental laziness in fighting doesn't come from having your hands up. It comes from sparring boxing with big gloves on and then fighting with small or no gloves. It isn't even really lazy. It is more like ignorance. You believe that having your hands up makes you safe because you are used to eating fair and / or gentle punches with big gloves on. Then, you try with small gloves and they slip through and hurt much more. The solution isn't realizing, "having hands up doesn't work," its, "I need to adjust how I use my hands to deal with small gloves."

 

[Popsaregood230]

Hands up defense isnt something to just shrug off as useless like this thread implies. There is a time and place for it and everyone should learn when it is necessary. Not to mention there is skill involved in proper hand placement and adapting to different combinations.

 

[Discipulus]

Do you not think Le start to cover up because he felt too tired to use footwork and head movement. I'm not arguing for or against, but the reason Le started to get cracked wasn't because he consciously changed his defensive style, it was because of his gas tank.

Yeah, I agree. I tried to acknowledge that that was part of the reason for his change in defense. And it's not like Le's boxing defense is even that good to begin with. But the fact remains that he started to get tagged more the exact moment he hugged his arms around his head. He took his eyes off his opponent, stopped moving to a better position, and handed Cote the initiative in those moments. Cote could angle around him, search for the gaping holes in his guard, and pretty much land whatever he wanted. So that even during the rounds when he was exhausted, the most punches landed when he covered up. It was like a damn buffet for Cote.

I definitely do not get the same thing out of watching that fight, haha.

Cung's hands were higher at the beginning of the match and he ate less shots then. His hands start to drop as the match goes on and that is leaving him less ready to be able to parry or counter. Yea, he covers up more but I think that's more a result of trying to block shots that were clearly going to land or which already had landed. He's not overwhelmed per se, but he is definitely tiring and his reactions are starting to slow. I think there's a pretty clear difference in the feeling of when you see your opponents attacks coming and are able to easily block/parry/slip and when you are moving slower or otherwise getting caught...the mentality shifts, and it shifts for a good reason.

I agree about it being a matter of timing.

Here's the thing--it shouldn't entirely be a matter of timing. Cung isn't ever in a solid defensive stance to begin with, and his reactive style of defending is obviously taxing on his limited gas tank.

He may have been holding his hands higher, but he wasn't using them to cover his face and defend. He was slipping and fading damn near every one of Cote's punches in that first round, regardless of hand position. Relying on this sort of defense in tough moments actually made it even worse for him when his hands did start to drop, because then it took even longer to put the guard up when his hands were absently floating around his hips.

And I encourage good stance and position in relation to your opponent for exactly the reason you mention in the end of your paragraph. You get more time to see strikes coming, so you feel better and more confident in your defense overall. Moreover, you don't get tired as quickly, because you don't have to move way out of the way to avoid the strikes coming your way. You give fewer openings to your opponent from the get go, and thus you up the efficiency of your style.

It all depends on your own skills and what opponent you are fighting too. How quick do they close the distance? How fast are their hands? How effective and unpredictable are their combinations? What is their reach like? Are the punches coming in wide and wild or on angles or are they coming straight down the pipe at you? All of these contribute to how to best defend.

I keep my hands up ALL the motherfuckin time because when i don't I get caught....but I have seen some of my sparring partners keeping their hands higher as my punches and combinations have improved.

Yeah, those things all factor in, of course.

But I guarantee you that if you had someone to teach you better positioning, you wouldn't be getting caught every time you drop your hands. The way that good fighters "get away with" keeping their hands low is not better reaction time, or some supernatural ability to predict their opponent's next move. It's because their head isn't right there to be hit. In a good stance your head doesn't even look like a damn option to be hit, unless your opponent is excellent at moving and finding angles. And then you can make just a small adjustment with your feet and become an unreachable target once more. And once you get that down, you can free your hands up to do other, more important things. Like punching the other guy.

Your statement should also tell you that, were you to fight in MMA, you'd get tagged all the damn time, because your little-ass gloves would greatly diminish the effectiveness of your hands-up defense, which is an argument in itself for learning more practical, efficient, and comprehensive ways of protecting yourself.

 

[Nuclearlandmine]

Hands up defense isnt something to just shrug off as useless like this thread implies. There is a time and place for it and everyone should learn when it is necessary. Not to mention there is skill involved in proper hand placement and adapting to different combinations.

Of course there is. Like Manny Pacquiao and his brand of high guards. However what we are trying to say is to highlight the faults of using hands-up as defense while neglecting skills such as footworks or positioning, and how often people deemed hands down (with proper positioning and footworks, mind you) as not "textbook" and "should not attempt unless you are Roy Jones Jr reincarnated"

 

[SummerStriker]

You don't really specified what kind of "reflexes" did you talking about so that's what i took from it. Also, isn't reflexes supposed to be "involuntary"? If it is honed through training then it is not reflexes anymore, it is a skill. It also kinda scratch one of my pet peeve about how some great technical fighters are labelled "physical specimen" when it is clearly NOT the case. Just look at my threads to see that happened.

Sure, fair enough, sorry I wasn't clear. I think Macheta is a very skillful fighter and he is able to fight that way because he trained so hard.

When I was a kid, I was shit at soccer. Real shit. Like I played fullback for 5 or 6 years and basically never got the ball shit. There were a couple of kids I knew who were my age and I was on their teams at least twice. They were amazing. They ran circles around everyone else. Their parents put them on the same team together every year and whatever team they were on always got first place.

I played as many games as them. I played as many years as them. So what was the difference? Well, I only played at the official game. They played every day they weren't their, even if it was just them. This gave them stupid abilities. They could dribble the ball right directly towards me, put it right in front of my foot, then do a circle step and be in front of the goal and score. Most kids would run a wide circle around me out of position, pass, or get squashed when I kicked the ball through their leg. Not these kids. They didn't need passing or distance or time or teamwork or anything, and half the time not even each other. They were just so superior they could, "do everything wrong," if it meant they got near the goal ahead of the rest of the team so they could score.

Some people train so hard and so well, and develop so much that they can do things to their opponents that they could not do against each other, and if they do, it would be because their was an element of compliance with it (like their styles countered or something).

 

[Popsaregood230]

Of course there is. Like Manny Pacquiao and his brand of high guards. However what we are trying to say is to highlight the faults of using hands-up as defense while neglecting skills such as footworks or positioning, and how often people deemed hands down (with proper positioning and footworks, mind you) as not "textbook" and "should not attempt unless you are Roy Jones Jr reincarnated"

I can't seem to think of a reason anyone would disagree with utilizing a full arsenal of defensive maneuvers lol. So what is this thread about then? Is someone here saying footwork and proper placement are less useful than hands up? I would completely disagree with that.

 

[Discipulus]

I think there is a break down between what we picture because so few people learn to parry punches. In no MMA gym have I ever seen people practice using a bare hand to tap a punch directly to the side when it comes close to the face. The motion is so much faster than a punch that even if you complete the movement do to a fake jab, your same hand will still be in position to block the second punch.

And relying only on that for your defense also opens you up to feints, fakes, and follow-up counters against a skilled opponent. If a good striker sees you parrying every punch that you can, you're gonna get timed. And then, because your stance isn't your defense, he's gonna touch you on the chin with ease.

Yes, I like the insurance, because it is just that. I can just happen to block a hit because they are up. What I do though is gently parry them. All of the force is straight forward. It takes a very small orthogonal force to make it miss and you can deliver that while only barely moving your hand.

The fact that you feel you need insurance implies that you don't have confidence in your other skills to defend you, which means you begin to rely on your hands to defend you. And when that fails you, like I mentioned above, you get tagged every time unless you can react very quickly. And when that happens a lot, you start to get tired more quickly. Preemptive defense is better than reactive defense every time. The latter should only ever supplement the former.

I do not feel like having my hands up makes my punching any slower. I can block, parry and throw full speed all from the same position. I can counter strike with any hit thrown with high hands, elbows, knees, or 1 of the 1000 kicks that hit on any angle. I don't need low hands to open up options. I can already hit on any line.

No, I don't think it makes punches slower at all. In fact, it brings your hands closer to your opponent's face, which is a great reason in favor of carrying your hands high. But you can't deny that by being able to lower your hands and still be well-defended you have a far greater variety of offensive options and, better yet, ones that your opponent won't be able to see coming, since they come from odd angles beneath or outside of the line of sight.

You get two chances to stop a hit. You can move your body and you can put something in its way. If you voluntarily decide that you just aren't going to do one of those things, you are limiting your defense. I do not believe you are limiting your counter attack because you can hit with your blocking hand right after, your other hand at the same time, or your knees or legs at the same time.

Preemptive defense, man. Rather than think of defense as "stopping a hit," you should think of it as "preventing an attempt to hit" first. Again, your way is like letting your opponent grab an arm and then starting to defend. Why did you let him wrap your arm and fall back in the first place when keeping him in your guard would have worked so much better, and required a hell of a lot less effort on your part? This isn't lazy defense; rather, it's efficient defense. Who doesn't like efficiency?

Mental laziness in fighting doesn't come from having your hands up. It comes from sparring boxing with big gloves on and then fighting with small or no gloves. It isn't even really lazy. It is more like ignorance. You believe that having your hands up makes you safe because you are used to eating fair and / or gentle punches with big gloves on. Then, you try with small gloves and they slip through and hurt much more. The solution isn't realizing, "having hands up doesn't work," its, "I need to adjust how I use my hands to deal with small gloves."

Or you could develop good positional defense from the start and never have to use your gloves. There's so many things your hands could be doing instead of defending your head, like punching the other guy, or itching your ass. Just try it. :wink:

 

[Da Speeit]

Hands Out>>>Hands up

People still arent grasping it.