Home »The Pros and Cons of Stances

Every martial art or combat sport has an associated stereotypical stance. Whether it’s the bladed side on stance of boxing and point based karate, or the square stance of MMA, everyone has an opinion on which stance works best for which sport. Of course in the real world there is no such thing as the ‘boxing’ stance or ‘muay thai stance’ as every fighter in a given discipline has their own stance which they use to fit their own style.

Today we’re going to take a brief look the width of stance and what benefits a square or bladed stance have for any given combat sport.

bLADED STANCE

The bladed or side on stance is most typically associated with point based styles and american style boxing.

A bladed stance keeps the feet relatively far apart and the body positioned side on to the opponent. This stance keeps your body a small target, when it comes to linear attacks. When an opponent throws punches at you, you have to do relatively little to avoid them, as you are such a narrow target.

It also allows for you to make the most of your longest weapons, ie, the jab for your upper body, and the side kick for your lower body. While the side kick is a special skill that very few kickboxers and MMA fighters actually have, in the world of Muay Thai, the side kick or side teep is an incredible useful tool.

Here we can see Samart Payakaroon, considered the greatest Muay Thai fighter of all time, using nothing but his jab and side teep from his bladed stance.

Now while Samart was no doubt very good at using a bladed stance in a Muay Thai context, it’s important to note that his feet are relatively close together when compared to a fighter like Wonderboy, who uses a wide bladed stance, which will leave you vulnerable to low kicks in Muay Thai.

When it comes to MMA, a bladed stance can be useful not only because it allows for easier use of long weapons like the side kick and jab, but also because it limits your opponents options when it comes to wrestling. In order to takedown Wonderboy, you essentially have to shoot in on a single leg. As Wonderboy knows that the single leg takedown is what his opponenthas to use against him. He is specifically ready to fight of a single at any given time.

While Samart Payakaroon’s side on stance is perfect for Muay Thai, in an MMA context his legs being so close together would leave him vulnerable forany takedown, and he’d have a much harder time fighting them off because of it. However Muay Thai necessitates your legs be closer together in order to defend low kicks.

This is the primary weakness of the bladed stance as seen in boxing and MMA. The width of the legs makes it harder to check kicks, in fact your body is virtually always facing towards a round kick, meaning that a strong low kicker will cause a lot of trouble for that wide stance. For an example of this, watch our video showing how Dustin Poirier beat Conor McGregor.

Square Stance

Squarer stances are typically favoured by punchers. A great example in the world of boxing is Miguel Cotto, Puerto Rico’s all time greatest.

He keeps his guard high and keeps his upper body relatively square. As Cotto is a more aggressive fighter who looks to make use of hooks to the head and body (Cotto is one of few fighters who can effectively use a rear hook) this square stance gives Cotto more lee way to get power into both his left and right hand. The narrower stance in the legs also allows for easier balance on quick pivots when moving.

This type of stance is the one you most commonly see in Muay Thai, as it allows for quicker, harder to see round kicks and easier kick defence. It’s particularly favoured by the punchers of Muay Thai like Rodtang…

Or the many great dutch kickboxers, who’s style is stereotypically built more around punching than Thai Boxing…

In MMA, this approach to stance is quite common, as the wider base will make it easier to fight off a double leg. It’s likely also popular because of MMA fighters general tendency to brawl instead of strike technically. That and the sports small gloves will make power shots all the more devastating.

This disadvantages, come from being a squarer target, easier to hit with punches. While it’s easier to defend kicks, a square stance creates a bigger target for punchers to attack. Which is part of what made Archie Moore so good, making extensive use of cross arm defence to keep himself safe while in a square stance.

The Summary

As expected, there isn’t really a right or wrong answer when it comes to what stance to use, regardless of the sport. Generally squarer stances make kick defence easier, while leaving your slightly more vulnerable to punches. The inverse is true for a bladed stance. Generally I’d say that a fighter who is focussed on offence would be better served with a squarer stance, and a fighter who is more focussed on defence and keeping distance, will be better suited with a more bladed stance. In the case that you’re fighting in Muay Thai, the more bladed stance shouldn’t be taken to such an extreme, Samart Payakaroon’s stance left him side on but still capable of defending kicks. This was also true of Saenchai.

Some people will inevitably wonder if they should learn to fight in both stances in order to get the best of both worlds. The truth is while this can be done, your time would be better served getting strong in once stance and one stance alone. While that stance will have weaknesses, the perfect fighter doesn’t exist and you would have to deal with those weaknesses either way. Your time will be better spent using a stance while acknowledging and being prepared for fighters who will exploit the weaknesses of that stance.

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