Here’s UFC champion Frankie Edgar teaching a basic combo, using the standard Jab-Cross to set up a clinch where knees to the face and body will be delivered. Notice how crisp his defense is even while throwing strikes and how he circles while disengaging. We worked a slightly different version of this in class, and its nice to see how its done by an elite striker.
(Above, a clash of style and stance: Lyoto Machida’s karate and Shogun Rua’s Muay Thai)
Your fighting stance governs a great deal about how you fight. All of your attacks will be influenced by it; your defensive structure is set by it. While there are many variations, there is a general sense of what is most useful and a majority of successful fighters only differ only 10-20% from it. Think of it like a steak. Some people like medium-rare, others well-done. If you were cooking for a large group (of carnivores, of course) and couldn’t individually serve them, you’d probably pick medium to medium well to best satisfy all. Serving rare steak or going with uncooked steak tar-tar would probably end poorly.
Below, a great, middle of the road stance (from local MMA instructor Brian Yamasaki) vs extremely low and impractical Shaolin kungfu stance.
I’ll call this middle of the road stance “the standard narrative”. Remember, no one particular technique or stance is the 100% correct thing to do in all situations. Fighting is fluid and dynamic, but this standard narrative does a good job keeping in pace with all the places a fight can go.
Guarding the upper body
The main two concerns here are reducing damage to your vitals and allowing quick and powerful strikes. We’ll mainly focus on the defensive aspect, but the guard described here doesn’t really sacrifice much in terms of firepower for the benefit of great defense – one reason it so popular in MMA.
With protection in mind, your hands should to be held above your collar-bone, your knuckles above your chin, protecting your face. Depending on your style, you can keep your knuckles at your temples (better defense), like you are answering the phone or even lowering them to the chin-level (better offense, riskier) to increase your speed of punching and relaxed shoulders.
Below, upper body high guards.
Here are some suitable relaxed lower guards with the arms.
In almost every case, you’ll want your elbows (chicken wings) to be down and in towards your body protecting your midsection. In the pictures above, many of the fighters are midway into a punch so their lead-hand elbow has drifted away from the standard position.
Especially for beginners, it is vital to keep the hands up and elbows tucked in even while punching, as it can save you from taking damage. Below right, Cain Velasquez’s high guard with the rear hand blocks his opponents punch while his punch lands flush.
Your chin should be tucked in towards your chest, “hiding” it and rooting your head to your torso.
When you are out of range of your opponent’s punches, your hands can drop slightly, but the standard narrative warns against it. This conserves some energy and allows for loose and fast punches as well as increasing takedown defense, but making your head more vulnerable to attack.
One other thing to consider – the tilt of your upper body. Generally, you want your spine pointing straight up (chin tucked in) and only lean 5-15 degrees off vertical. When a fighter is bending at the hips past about 15 degrees, they are typically looking to wrestle (or defend it). Below left, Jose Aldo is tilting forward to be aggressive via strikes while Gray Maynard is tilting slightly away in defense.
Here, Tito Ortiz is looking to wrestle, his torso bent at about 30 degrees of vertical.
Advanced Considerations
When you are good enough, you can break any of these “rules” when the occasion calls for it. Below, Anderson Silva dropping his hands to Forest Griffin, then knocking him out. Lets be clear on this one. Silva uses superior knowledge of range to keep his opponents from hitting him, obviating the need to block. As one of the best fighters of all time, he is allowed to do what he pleases. However, he does teach the standard narrative in his excellent DVD, Striking Combos for MMA. He’s also got a book that goes over the basic stance – if you need a hard copy.
These are just a few of the major considerations – let me know what other things you think are important in comment section.
This is a kickboxing combination we worked on recently in class. I’ve been really digging the use of the uppercut as a counterpunch lately. Remember – stay tight (protected). You don’t have to flap around to generate power in the uppercut. The power comes from your hips and really shoveling from the ground.
When I first started grappling, I heard the word “base” a million times but couldn’t really define it. I remember Sensei Valladares judo-throwing me to the ground like a sack of potatoes and telling me, “You need better root – stronger base.” I totally agreed – but really had no way of acting on the advice, since the whole notion of base was nebulous.
At length, I finally got what everyone was talking about. My hope is that with a few visuals, beginning students don’t have to struggle like I did. My intention is give them some thinking tools to demystify groundfighting and the structures they see. Below are two videos I shot in my spartan home-gym/dungeon while going over some wrestling with my friend John Ares. Certainly, I’m no a master, but I found this type of explanation to help me out a good deal.
Today I was drilling some basic pummelling while being pushed onto the cage wall and wanted to provide some video resources about fighting off the cage, or using the cage to one’s advantage. Pay special attention to how the fighters use their balance, grips and base (hips, legs, and foot placement) to achieve their results.
Click through the pictures to see the videos.
Razor Rob shows how to nerf (obviate) the underhook when being pushed up against the cage and perform a sit-down takedown to get into side control.
Our local Brandon Ruiz shows some cage work defense with two techniques: a chest punch to get back your underhook and a slick two-on-one (controlling their two arms with one of yours) control to get your back off the cage.
UFC champ Frankie Edgar shows how to cut off the movement of your opponent and keep them on the cage with this drill.
Adam “Soul Horse” Song from Cageside MMA shows the proper base and pressuring technique to keep your opponent on the wall. He also demonstrates how to knee, footstomp, etc from this position. The discussion of how to base is brief, but essential.
Revolution MMA’s Joel Gerson shows a foot-sweep type move that exploits the opponent’s balance and base.
A couple of guys from ProFightNetwork show a knee catch takedown from the cage – keep that head tucked! – and then follow up with some excellent instruction on ground and pound.
Kenny Florian shows defense against ground and pound by securing a grip (two on one is great) and then wall walking back to his feet. The move is related to a turkish getup.
Kevin Kearns (Burn with Kearns!) and Marcus Davis show a similar drill, the cage crush, that help you work getting back to your feet. Bosu ball used for resistance.
Another local man, Brian Yamasaki from DamageControl MMA has his wrestling buddy, Dave Seljestad show a single leg takedown when you’re pressing your opponent up to the cage.
Some guys from The Pit show various techniques in this long (12 mins) video instruction, including tips on finishing the double leg takedown while pushing your opponent onto the fence.
Brad Daddis shows how you can escape side control by walking your feet up the cage and rolling your opponent over. Pretty slick move.
Let me know if your thoughts – I learned a ton from these vids and would love to learn what you might have to offer too!
