I was talking to someone yesterday and they mentioned their style of fighting was to stand fully at the opponent saying that normal stance you are very defensive but you can't strike as well. Facing them full on allowed you to get more hits in and be more aggressive. What do you guys think and what do you know about this style of fighting?
I think you could be more descriptive about what you mean. Here's my interpretation: you're comparing a traditional one-foot-to-the-front-one-foot-to-the-back stance (a la Ryoto Machida or any boxer) versus an MMA-stance (where your two feet are closer together). Well, the latter is better to defend against the shoot. If anything, the "normal stance" that you mention is worse at defense. With your front leg so forward, it's easy to get a single-leg takedown on you.
My instructors make us stand almost square, with your strong side back just a touch. This way we don't keep that front leg over exposed. This is for MT though, not MMA. And if you keep more squared up your oponent wont see what side you intend on striking with.
In boxing you want to stand to the side. Front toe, to back heal. This gives the right hand more distance and more leverage for pwr. Makes you a smaller target. However if you are a two handed puncher (or the left hook is where your pwr is) and offensive minded you may stand more square. But your defense would suffer. Head movement would then be even more key. It would be harder to block punches with your shoulders. MMA. Stance more to the side more vulnerable as stated before to single leg, and harder to sprawl. And harder to throw back leg kicks.
A squared up stance, like these other guys have said, has the advantage of a more even and varied attack vocabulary. It also has the disadvantage of making defense from strikes more difficult (except leg kicks). This stance is also good for grappling in both defense and offense, in my opinion.
You loose a lot of punching and kicking power when you are squared up because your ability to get rotational speed(hence getting your hips and legs involved) is reduced significantly. Plus if you don't have a lead foot, like the left foot infront of the right, you will loose balance when you punch and start over reaching/pawing like all too many new people do that start taking any kind of boxing/kickboxing. Being off balance and pawing makes a fighter vulnerable against any trained individual. In terms of striking, being too square is not an advantage at all.
I stand very square on. I have the right foot back for power generation, but my torso is square. I find it works fine for me, then again, I have decent head movement (esp for a MT guy)
Yea, Bas also likes to stand with his hips square. I like it, because it gives strength to your jabs.
Let me clarify that I am not talking about a taekwon do stance here. When I mean square isn't good I mean square like a wrestler for instance.
diego corrales uses the squared up stance a lot. felix trinidad does. it's good for slugging hard.. it's wanderleis stance most of the time. you can defend shoots and power punch with a normal boxing stance though. ' on the subject of head movement, in a normal boxing stance you have more stability and control in your head movement than going side to side in a squared up stance but it definately takes some practice and requires special footwork. most boxing head movement loads up for a power punch if you should choose to throw one unlike if you were to simply lean from side to side the square stance doesn't give you more power or speed in a jab than a regular stance and it has less range. well i guess it gives you a little more pushing power but not as much snapping KO power
Today I sparred for the first time with gloves and a ring, and I used a sideways stance. My partner was nice enough not to drill the kicks to my hamstring, but let me know they were there. I agree that a more full on stance is better for fighting.
Up till my first fight I always did have a more side on stance and relied on foot work to get in and out. Then I fought and because I was so side on I missed a check for a low kick but still reacted. Result, probably a hairline fracture to my left ankle because the guy kicked the side of my ankle inside of the front on my shin. Hence I adapted to have a more square on stance so to check is pretty damn easy now. As a result my head work has gone up, my manuverability has gone down (but I'm working on adapting to my new stance), but jab and range has gone down, but my left hook, MUCH stronger and my right hand faster to the target (if a right hand follows a left hook the right is as powerful as before, ie the shoulder is cocked). The real downside is teeps have a bigger target. So at range I'm at a disadvantage (but I always was because I'm stocky and short for my weight).
