Evolution_Zero

A friend of mine told me that muay thai fighters dont generally switch their stance when they are training/fighting. Could someone tell me why?

gregimotis

I'm southpaw and I trained orthodox for a while hoping to be able to switch. I got to the point that I could spar somewhat well standing orthodox, but I found that unless I constantly practiced orthodox I lost the ability to do it. Additionally, I had trouble keeping track of which stance I was in - which led to mistakes in footwork.
While I might switch stance sometimes to psych people out, I find that it's usually more trouble than it's worth.

My thoughts: It sounds good in theory and I'm sure somebody can do it, but switching stance doesn't really gain you much (anybody with any exp. has worked with both orthodox and southpaw) and it screws you up as much as them.

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Khun Kao

gregimotis is very, very correct.

It is a sound theory, but the painful truth is that there are very few people who can fight this way effectively. Look at the pro boxing ranks. How many of those guys do you see switching stances? I will, very occassionally, see a fighter who has trained to switch stances for a particular fight to take advantage of a particular opponents weakness, but that usually is it! I can't recall ever seeing any good fighters switching stances during a Muay Thai or Boxing match on a regular basis.

The thing is, those who train to switch stances typically get caught up in a mental trap. They will typically ALWAYS switch stances to kick with power, rather than train to be able to effectively use their kicks as a lead-leg technique. Therefore, they are losing out on a valuable range of techniques that they can add to their reportoire (sp? oh heck, "arsenal". LOL)

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doubleouch

The thai stance is much more neutral than the boxing stance anyway. I've often heard it described as having 2 back legs.

squidd

hi khun,

just wanted to clarify something. my muay thai teacher discourages me from delivering kicks with my lead leg (i.e. switch my lead leg to the back before kicking with it). i'm told that the power i can generate is well worth the switching of th legs. also, i am told that the switching shuffle can be quite confusing for the opponent.

anyways, i just wanted to know your thoughts on this.

many thanks!

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Khun Kao

squidd....

Ah, but there is a distinct difference between a switch-kick and switching your stances. Merely bringing you lead leg to the back in a skipping motion is a standard technique to add quite a bit more power to the lead leg kick, but it will still be technically your lead leg due to the hip position.

I will also clarify that training to kick (or other attack) from a switched stance isn't useless. For instance, there are a number of combinations that I train with that result in the attacker winding up in the opposite stance. You have to be adept at continuing your attack or defending from a switched stance for a moment while you regain your position.

My comments were primarily aimed towards those who wish to train to switch their stances all the time. It is my honest opinion that they are short-changing themselves. What I have often witnessed is that someone who trains in this manner winds up fighting "ok" from both stances, but not really good (or great) from either.

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fugetsu

Take a look at how Ramon Dekkers worked the switching if you can get a hold of some of his fight tapes. He did a lot of switching leads in order to set his opponents up for kicking/punching combos. It seems to have worked well.
Fugetsu

sari-an

i take muay thai and i honestly dont know why, but in my gym they teach us to use only one stance.. i myself use southpaw...

TheDeadlySquid

What are the advantages/disadvantages of a southpaw fighter? I know that Alex Gong was righthanded but fought left. I assume that he didn't do this on a whim. Any clarification would be great since I've never really had it explained to me to date.

Thanks!

seany85

When I first started sparring, I use to do it all the time, just they never came up against it before.... HAHAHAHA, but my instrutor soon showed me the problems with it.

As it already has been stated, it sounds good in theory...
but the truth is that it upsets your rhythm as much as theirs, thats when you start think about what stance you are and which led's to mistakes in footwork.
Also when you changing stance, you expose the inside of your power leg by bringing it foreward, one good roundhouse to your leg, could seriously damage it.

I was talking to my trainer about this, and he said, that,the only possible way to train so that both sides feel comfortable in southpaw and orthodox, would be to practice everything you know in each stance, 1000s' upon 1000s' times over. So eventually it would be second nature.

This is just my opinion.

squidd

thanks for all your thoughts guys!

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cfr

Something Ive been wondering along the same lines as this post. Do any of you full time MT guys purposely fight strong side forward? My school is this way. Im at a school that does some MT with some other stuff. Im a southpaw so I fight with my left up front. The logic being that this way your jab/left hooks(the closest tools you have) will really mean something. Im pretty sure this is more of an FMA thing but just thought I'd ask.

shadowkiller

Most likely he just felt more comfortable fighting that way. I notice that when I dont pay attention and just jump onto a bag or something that I tend to use southpaw as well. I am trying to train myself to work the other way but I can throw fast hard jabs with either hand so it depends I guess. I know that regularly you have more power in your dominant hand but the job I did for a while built my left arm up a lot more then my right(which is my dominant). My left shoulder and tricep are twice the size of my right(no embellishment) I can lift about 15-20 lbs more with my left tri then my right as well if using dumbells.