Introduction: What you will learn

An adage in boxing: move like butterfly, sting like a bee.A good fighting stance and footwork is the fundamental foundation to efficient and effective strikes.

In the following paragraphs, you be brought through the main guiding principles and tips of maintaining a fighting stance.

Guiding Principles

The 1st thing that one could learn in kickboxing would be to stand properly. Sounds easy?

A "proper" or "good" stance differs from person to person. In my opinion, you would have achieve a good stance if you are able to attain the following:

• Body to be relaxed and able to react and engage in offensive and defensive moves

• Strikes are accurate, fast , and powerful.

Nonetheless, there are still some guidelines to help you attain the stance that’s most suitable.

Again, I reiterate that there are many schools of thought and what’s presented below are gathered from my experiences in Muay Thai based kickboxing style.

Details of foot placement and weight distribution

Consider a person with the master (stronger) arm on the right. This is a typical "orthodox" fighting stance.

• Left foot lead (placed front) and the right foot is placed at a 45 degree angle at the back.

• Hip is square (parallel) to the front and 80% of your weight is supported by the lead(front) leg, in the orthodox stance it’s the left

• Chin is tucked in (almost touching the base of the neck) and eyes are looking straight at your opponent/bag

• Fist clenched lightly, held up at palms-in position,

• Knuckles are in line with the cheeks and elbows stay close to the body

• Shoulders are down in relaxed position and are ready to react or attack

(C) Importance of weight distribution and limbs positioning

More advice which I recommend to my students are:

• Capitalise on the fact that 80% of your weight is supported by the lead leg.

• The rear heel can be lifted off the ground slightly. You can do a small shifting of weight to the front and back to avoid being static and rooted to the ground.

• This could also help you as it masks your intention and makes your strikes less telegraphic.It also helps you be mentally and physically prepared to engage in strikes or other defensive moves and counters.

• Chin down to protect most part of head.

• Probably you can take lots of strikes to the arms or legs. But after a few, especially consecutive head shots, I am sure you would be seeing stars soon. That’s why you got to keep in mind to keep your arms up and chin down and maintain the guard.

• While keeping chin tucked and arms up, the elbows stay close to body, this in turn form a tight defense and can absorb body shots/kick to the ribs and mid-section.

• If your master hand is the left, just perform the above the opposite side.