greynotsoold - Fundamental Position: Your 'Stance'

greynotsoold
Fundamental Position: Your 'Stance'
________________________________________
Since the purpose of boxing is hitting, the fundamental position is that most favorable for hitting. Effective hitting requires that weight be constantlyshifted fromleg to leg,which requires perfect controlof your balance so balance is the most important consideration. Achieving this control requires correct body alignment; the head, feet, legs and torso are allimportant in this alignment. The arms are not. The onlypurpose of the arms is to carry the punch to express the body's force. So the hands and arms should be positioned to most facilitate that expression. The feet are the most important part of balance; they must be kept in proper relation to each other and to the body.
If your stance is too wide, your alignment will be off, sacrificing speed and efficient movement for power and destroying balance. Too narrow allows no basis from which to work; speed is gained at loss of power and balance. The key is to keep the feet under the body, weight either balanced between the two or slightly favoring the front leg (though some will argue for shading to the rear leg). The left side (or the front side) should form a straight line from the left heel to the left shoulder. This is optimum for speed balance movement and allows for tremendous power with either hand.




Scrap
Re: Fundamental Position: Your 'Stance'
________________________________________
Think Bow and arrow, The body is the bow the arms are the Arrows.With the back foot your distance.All power is generated of it, remember 6 3 6. That is the lateral movement of your hip knee ankle 15% degree;s in all. If you bend your legs the same you will generate maximum power and balance. Don;t drop your chin more than 15% it throws your body mechanics of balance stops the eye;s from working properly,and diaphram from working by up to 50%. It also tighten;s your back upper and lower, so your shoulder and hips can;t work properly Remember you walk in Balance




AdamGB
Re: Fundamental Position: Your 'Stance'
________________________________________
My coach uses that as an example for moving the shoulders when you jab... Firing a bow and arrow




mBiOkXe08
Re: Fundamental Position: Your 'Stance'
________________________________________
When you say dont drop your chin more than 15%, can you explain that a little more because I do have my chin pretty low and I can feel my back tighting up some, so I might be having it too far down. Could you expand on it a little bit so I can understand it and fix it please. Thanks




Scrap
Re: Fundamental Position: Your 'Stance'
________________________________________
MB When Boxing your chin should be in not down Ican;t think of one great fighter who did If you drop your chin on your chest your Diaphram will not work as it should.Try it,you actually cut your oxygen supply off.Your eye site works mostly off oxygen so after a few minutes they won;t work so good. It also tightens most of your punching muscles giving them response when they don;t need it,wasteing your energy and flexabilty.Plus it puts your nueromuscular system of balance,hope thats enough.




AdamGB
Re: Fundamental Position: Your 'Stance'
________________________________________
When first started running a few years back I used to heart the muscles to the side of my lower spine... I got into a bad habbit of either tipping me head back when I started to struggle to keep going or would look down at the floor...

Stopped doing that and was better in a few days.


greynotsoold
Re: Fundamental Position: Your 'Stance'
________________________________________
The chin should not be 'tucked' behind the shoulder; the reasons being exactly as Scrap said. The chin should be dropped directly forward and fastened to the breast bone, as this allows for proper alignment of the bone and muscle while offering only the top of the head as a target.



ThomasTabin
Re: Fundamental Position: Your 'Stance'
________________________________________
i like your views on the fundamental purpose of stance as a means to optimize the blend of offense/defense and for this, there is of course, only one way to stand and any other way is bunk. but i am confused at one part, namely the bit on a wide stance. now exactly how wide is too wide? was schmeling too wide, or perhaps maybe burley? they stood in ways that i would consider wide and would counterpunch you to an early death with that supposed handicap. i am biased here because i resemble them and yes, we are not so mobile but you see i dont think this as a natural consequence of the stance -- more of a natural consequence of the philosophy behind that said stance. consider floyd mayweather, the kid stands way wide --and not like this is some kinda feather is his cap mind you -- but man can he dart around in every kind of way.

and scrap, how do you stand, with the shoulder in front? if you have tyhat shoulder out there you need to sticker the chin to the collarbone. any drift from the trunk causes a weak chin i would think.




greynotsoold
Re: Fundamental Position: Your 'Stance'
________________________________________
This is interesting subject. Schmeling, in the first Louis fight, kept his feet rather far apart. I think that was to (1) stay low as he was trying to make Louis reach in order to counter him and (2) cheat on distance by retreating to the rear foot or advancing to the front, depending on what Louis did. I've only seen tape of Burley against Oakland Billy Smith and in that tape his stance is quite wide, but it is Smith who is the 'runner'. Again, Burley had a plan: namely, he was nearly sideways to Smith, offering no target for a jab orright,andto land ahook was to run around to his (Burley's) right hand. This stance served Burley's 'rising' jab more than a traditionalstance could possibly do, but I've also read that he was more effective when more mobile.
These two, and others like McGirt and Ricardo Lopez of recent vintage, tended to do things a bit differently, but there are two things to remember. They always had a plan to what they were doing and, when the punches were thrown and landed, the feet were under the body. There is a middle here from Phoenix, Jesus Gonzalez, a southpaw, who not long ago was kod for his first loss. I've seen him workout numerous times and fight on three occasions. His stance is too wide and he cannot move, maintain balance, or punch in more than 3 punch combinations without nearly tipping over. The Title training dvds advocate a stance that is sheer lunacy as a primary base of operations. They try to teach all the moves from this position, touting the fact that you don't have to move.
At this point I'd like to point out one simple fact. In the case of Schmeling or Burley, Lopez or McGirt, the fighter is constantly shifting his weight from leg to leg. This enables him to maintain balance and to suddenly be righthere with a hard punch. Gonzalez and the Title guys do not do the same thing; they try to move and duck and punch without shifting any weight. Thus they can't do anything properly. Whereas Burley or Schmeling et al could shorten their stance and bound away like a woodland deer Gonzalez cannot do much more than slowly and awkwardly 'pivot' around at ring-center.
Last, in hislate years Archie Moore often used a very wide stance, which he would narrow should hisopponent pull in close. He tended to pivot off the rear foot unless throwing his right, when he would swing his whole body to the left. (I think because, at 46, his legs didn't have the spring to provide the impetus for that twist)




Scrap
Re: Fundamental Position: Your 'Stance'
________________________________________
Quote from: greynotsoold on April 18, 2006, 08:00:37 PM
The chin should not be 'tucked' behind the shoulder; the reasons being exactly as Scrap said. The chin should be dropped directly forward and fastened to the breast bone, as this allows for proper alignment of the bone and muscle while offering only the top of the head as a target.

Greys I never said any such thing I said don;t box like that. Its shoulder to chin not chin to shoulder All the fighters, you mention addapted late in their careers through experience and age to get by.Charley Burley a bit of a Hero of mine,only ever seen one tape of him at the end of his career fighting at L/heavy, but he wasn;t.as he got older he adapted.Had many happy hours talking to Eddie Futch about him when in camp.They adapt their style;s to get by, it worked for them but not for everyone





ThomasTabin
Re: Fundamental Position: Your 'Stance'
________________________________________
hmm, i remember max was always wide not only for the louis bout. this was simply his way. he would only ever move when his opponent moved as he wished to be in front of you always. your look at burley (and moore) is dead on but when was charley ever a mover? they say he hated runners and i dont blame him, im not so hot on them too. defensively max and charley was solid as a rock, stood wide, sat in front of you, and had real pop. now i dont advocate that noise you say they have on that how-to dvd but at the same time i dont look at the wide stance as some kinda ultimate evil. to be real i even think of that stance (the old world max and charley type) as the best way to optimize the throw of counterpunches: stand in front of him, make yourself as hard to nail as you can, make him reach, then stick him. ultimately this line of reason is very much the same as a runner type (make yourself hard to hit then counter) but in this way you waste zero energy unlike the man who does laps. not to mention you have more ways to counter thanks to the way you stand dead in front of him. like say you run from the man, he cant throw as many punches! that means not as many ways to counter for you. i think you would want to let him throw as much as he can. heck that would be how i would explain the reason for that old world stance anyway -- a means to an end.




Scrap
Re: Fundamental Position: Your 'Stance'
________________________________________
Tom good post and open I think that makes a lot of sense





greynotsoold
Re: Fundamental Position: Your 'Stance'
________________________________________
I think a key thing - and it is clear in the stances of Burley, Schmeling- is getting the left shoulder and hip out front of the rest of you. When positioning your feet rotate your left leg inward and that will keep the line from heel to shoulder. Also, as it presents a narrow target to an opponent, it brings your left shoulder around in front of your chin. Notice any fighter that uses his shoulder as defense against the right- you can't do that if you are square facing him. Many of the great old fighters fought with the left side so far in front that they were practically sideways: this I think is why they used that "upper-jab". Being so far turned doesn't allow for what is considered a proper jab.