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.
Note: This post was submitted by a friend and fellow student at the University of Utah. If you want to submit an article to be considered for publication, drop me line.
Putting Basic Combinations together
One of the most elementary skills all strikers must learn is often one taken too lightly or quickly forgotten in practice; combinations. Most just associate the act of throwing combination punches more as routine to practice the individual punches themselves or simply as a violent aerobic exercise – but in reality, these punch sets are mainly designed to teach fighters how to roll their bodies with punches to increase the power and speed of each action.
One very basic combo that most people will associate is the basic jab, cross, hook combo. But why in that order? Why not just throw 3 cross punches? The reason is balance and the removal of the next punch’s windup.
Imagine you have just thrown a powerful cross, what does it take to throw that same cross again immediately afterward? It sounds fairly easy but in reality so much force is lost in the recovery. Assuming you threw the first cross correctly, your crossing shoulder would be in front of your body to lead your weight into the punch. In order to re-throw that punch you would need to recoil your arm and twist your shoulder back in your stance to its starting position.
It sounds like a simple motion but in the midst of a fight it is laughably slow especially if your intention is to throw another long cross once the starting position is regained. Instead you want to use your twisting torso to your advantage and allow each to punch to wind up the following action.
So in the cross scenario, the full extension of the punch in your leading shoulder (the one that throws the jab) has been rocked backward just as it would be if you were winding up a hard jab. As you throw your right, you simultaneously wind up your left; and as your throw your left you wind up your right and so on. This allows your punches to fly in at the maximum speed and power possible all while keeping your body balanced and well defended – should your opponent try to sneak through a well-timed counter punch.
From a birds-eye view, your shoulders should look like a teeter-totter with your head as the fulcrum. This same concept doesn’t just apply to basic striking – it applies in a to kicks, knees, elbows and even take-downs. A 1-2-3 combo doesn’t necessarily have to be a jab, cross, hook if you don’t want it to be. Try throwing a left jab, right elbow, left knee or a left jab, right cross, left kick or whatever other combination you feel like suits your skills and situation but remember to stay in balance with your moves.
Here’s a quick video of Frank Shamrock teaching a couple of points on basic punching. If you’re just beginning, don’t worry too much about getting everything right. With practice, you’ll get there. The first time you tied your shoes, you sucked at it. Same thing for all the skills in the combat arts – especially striking.
A lot of times fighters will excel at a handful of moves, perhaps even developing “signature” moves. While this is great, you need to make sure to be aware of the situation and never get stuck in your ways. For example, a competitor will start fighting and try to assert his/her plan A. If it works, great. Logically, if it doesn’t, they should switch to plan B or plan C. However, it’s common for people to just try asserting plan A again, only this time, doing it harder. Some people even do this socially – they tell a joke that flops and instead of dropping it and moving on, they become louder to compensate, repeat the punchline with extra gusto, or worse try to explain the joke, hoping it gets funnier.
Cut your losses and do something else. The real problem, in my mind, isn’t that the technique failed. That happens all the time. The error is the lack of awareness to shift from what’s not working and adapt. We all do it to some extent, so it’s good to be on guard against it. (If you can, tape your sparring sessions and review them with this in mind)
Yin/Yang Combinations
In boxing, it’s common strategy to work the body with strikes and then send some punches upstairs. The idea is that hurting the abs will drop the hands and open up opportunities to head punches. Even if the blows don’t land, often the hands will come down and create the opening. Same thing goes if you’re working attacks that aren’t going through – do the opposite of what you’re doing. If punches aren’t going well, try kicks. If punches and kicks aren’t doing the job, try grappling.
Within grappling, you’ll see a lot of yin/yang setups. A jujitsu player will attempt a sweep, but the opponent posts out his arm, stuffing the technique. Anticipating this, the grappler takes the posted arm into a shoulder or arm attack.
The Zen-like philosophy is that every time someone defends strongly in one area, they simultaneously become weak some where else. Strategies like punching for the takedown fall under this kind of thinking.
Here’s one vid that illustrates the concept pretty well within one specific technique. Attempted scissor sweep gets blocked and opens up a hip sweep.
It takes time and effort to develop a broad skillset, but it’ll pay off. The mental self awareness takes just as long. The days are gone in MMA where guys can only be good at one thing alone. There are probably too examples of how to switch up your attacks to enumerate – can you think of any? Let me know what you’re favorites are.
