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CHAPTER 2

Adopting Proper Stance and Movement

Whether you fight in the ring or on the streets, your stance and your movement are the foundation of your fighting skills. A good stance will allow you to execute your techniques quickly and efficiently in a relaxed, balanced and protected way. Mastering movement for a fight is all about retaining your stance while you’re in motion. Whether you’re advancing, retreating, moving left or right, striking or defending—you always begin and end in your stance.

Remember: A good stance is your first offense and defense.

The Basic Fighting Stance

The primary purpose of your stance is to be able to hit and defend. A good stance allows you to shift your weight constantly as you move, defend or strike without compromising yourself.

Note the fundamentals for a good fighting stance: relaxed posture, chin tucked, hands up—balanced and ready to spring into action.

The stance begins with your feet, which you should keep a little wider than shoulder-width apart. This helps maintain your body alignment. Always aim to keep your feet under your body as you attempt any move, defense or strike. I like to keep about a 60–40 weight distribution on the balls of my feet. Even though my lead foot is flat on the floor in the picture, in actuality, when I move, I feel most of the weight on the balls of my feet.

The knees are bent to allow for a springy motion and to keep a semi-crouched stance.

Notice that the hands are up and at about eye level. This allows you to protect your face and see your opponent. You can make a loose fist or keep your hands open, as long as you remain relaxed. Your upper body “shield” runs from the tip of your elbows to your fingers.

Carry your head forward with your chin tucked. Your head should feel relaxed. Keep your eye on your opponent and be aware of objects that you can utilize as weapons, additional opponents and escape routes. Keep an eye on your surroundings with your peripheral vision.

Footwork

The whole point of footwork is to advance forward, retreat backward, move left and right or circle around your opponent easily, efficiently and with balance. Aim to develop a rhythmic motion, rocking back and forth and side to side like boxers do.

The following are some strategic footwork concepts:

• Step and slide forward to create an opening and force your opponent to strike or move. This allows you to gauge how your opponent reacts to you, which you can use to your strategic advantage.

• Step and slide backward to draw your opponent into you or to make your opponent lose their balance as they attack you. Depending on what your opponent does when you move backward, you can determine if they are aggressively attacking or patiently calculating what you’re up to.

• Advance shuffle to surprise your opponent by closing the distance and defending or attacking aggressively.

• Retreat shuffle to escape out of a dire situation when your opponent is overwhelming you with attacks or stepping into you too aggressively.

• Movement to the left or right for the same reasons you would when you step and slide forward or backward, except you’re moving left or right instead of forward or backward.

• Quarter-turn to the left or right to circle away from an opponent’s strongest attack and to try to off-balance your opponent.

Note that the instructions for these movements are for a left-foot forward position. If you fight with your right foot forward, then adjust your position as needed.

Step and Slide Forward

Before you run you need to walk, and so, before you can do the advanced shuffle and run circles around your opponent, you need to learn how to step and slide. The step and slide is a formalized way of learning movement and can be used when you want to get in and out of range safely while remaining balanced.

Once you are moving masterfully, you will also be able to make quarter-turns to the left or right around your opponent. Quarter-turns are clock-like movements around your opponent that don’t require you to slide. Instead, you pivot yourself in the direction you wish to face your opponent. This is an extremely useful skill to learn for counterfighting.

Begin in your stance.

Distribute your weight to the rear as you take a step forward. Keep your hands up as you move.

Land softly with your lead foot.

Slide the rear foot forward to return to your basic fighting stance. Be sure not to slide your foot so far forward that your stance isn’t shoulder-width apart anymore.

Step and Slide Backward

With the step and slide, you can move backward (and left and right) as well. As you get comfortable with the movements, you will integrate them to make them more fluid so that you can easily move in every direction.

Begin in your stance. Distribute your weight to the front as you take a step backward. Keep your hands up as you move.

Land softly with your rear foot.

Slide the lead foot backward to return to your basic fighting stance. As when you’re moving forward, be sure not to slide your foot so far backward that your stance isn’t shoulder-width apart anymore.

Advance Shuffle

This is basically the step and slide forward with additional speed and constant movement. You will take a sudden, long step forward.

The key here is to develop explosiveness and springiness by keeping your weight mostly on the balls of your feet when you move.

You should do rounds of shadowboxing in which you are just isolating your movement.

Retreat Shuffle

This is basically the step and slide backward with additional speed and constant movement. You will take a sudden, long step backward.

As with the advance shuffle, you should do rounds of shadowboxing in which you are just isolating your movement.

Step and Slide Left

The step and slide left can be used when you want to get into better position for a strike, or dodge an opponent’s maneuver.

Begin in your stance.