Boxing Training Drills | MMA Training Workouts

Jul 26 2010

Southpaw or Orthodox – How Do You Shape Up?

Category: Boxing Training Drills,Bruce Lee,Uncategorized — Matt @ 6:04 pm

Thanks for coming back, I appreciate you support! Don't forget to grab your FREE Report! =========>

This is a bit of a follow up on Damage Control MMA the other day on how to develop power and coordination with you weak hand I thought I’d do another post about the traditional stance assumed by left and right handers.

Traditionally, in boxing, it is right handers that use the orthodox stance with the power hand being at the rear and the weaker lead hand used for jabs and hooks, and of course vice versa for left handed people.

I am a bit different in that regard as I am right handed and like to assume the southpaw stance. I had a discussion at training one night with someone telling me that I should use the orthodox stance. I explained to them that I naturally shape up that way but I do like to practice and spar both ways.

In a southpaw stance I have more control and power in my jab and hook and what I lack in strength and coordination with my left hand I make up for with leverage and distance. This is something that I learned from Bruce Lee and my study of numerous books on Jeet Kune Do, Bruce’s own personal expression of martial arts.

Incidentally, Bruce was also a right hander who shaped up in the southpaw stance. Alot of his boxing principles were borrowed from Wing Chun Kung Fu and fencing, which both use the lead hand as the main ‘power weapon’ compared to boxing which use the lead hand as set up for the power rear hand. I think it is pretty evident that one can generate enormous power with the lead hand using proper leverage and technique as his famous one inch punch demonstrates.

Bruce Lee also used to say that you should train both stances and this is a good way to mix things up when sparring or even in competition when you start running out of techniques and need to confuse your opponent a little bit.

Of course, in the street, you should always use your most comfortable stance and most effective techniques to protect yourself. I would say that in a competition too that if you are dominating your opponent (but just can’t seem to put them away and need to mix up your attacks then changing stance could give you the fresh perspective you need, but only if you feel confident enough in your ability. If its a close fight and the other guy is pretty tough, perhaps switching stance may not be the best idea. It may open up opportunities for you, but it may also open up opportunities for your opponent too.

After doing a bit of research for this post on the internet the other night I came across an article on Wikipedia which mentioned the benefits of having your power hand at the front and being able to switch stances in boxing.

It also mentioned that in mma and wrestling, wrestlers like to have the favored leg forward to assist them with explosiveness in their takedowns.

Many of the striking techniques in MMA are Muay Thai oriented and their kicking attacks concentrate mainly on the front leg. This can take alot of steam out of your attacks if it is your ‘good’ leg they are kicking the crap out of.

Check out that article here….

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southpaw_stance

Tags: Boxing, Bruce Lee, bruce lee southpaw, Jeet Kune Do, lead straight, Martial Arts, orthodox stance, should i train orthodox and southpaw?, southpaw, southpaw boxing tips, Was bruce lee southpaw

Comments (0)

Jun 30 2010

Damage Control MMA – Weak Left Arm

Category: Boxing Training Drills,Uncategorized — Matt @ 7:00 pm

Unless you are ambidextrous, we all have a more coordinated hand that we prefer to use for everyday tasks such as writing. This also means that athletes then, have a particular way that they swing a bat, or throw and kick a ball.

Ballsports allow you the privelage of using your preferred hand most of the time and it isn’t very often that you need to use your non preferred hand and is rarely necessary to warrant hours of practice to develop that skill.

MMA and the fighting arts is much the same in that regard. Traditionally if you are right handed then you shape up in the orthodox stance (left foot forward with your more coordinated power hand at the back) and if you are left handed then you assume the unorthodox stance (right foot forward).

Something interesting I learned while I was studying my Diploma of Fitness was the difference between a cognitive skill and an incognitive skill. Cognitive (derived from the word cognition: the scientific term for “the process of thought.” )basically means that you have to think about something and incognitive means that you don’t.

When this applies to the performance of a skill, for many of us using our preferred hand (even with techniques that we weren’t that familiar with) is more natural and and we do not have to think about the execution as much.

The example we used was kicking a football. Even if you were not a football player and had never really practiced kicking a ball it was a fairly natural action for most people to do with their ‘natural’ leg. However, when we used our non preferred leg, we found that we had to consciously go through the steps in our mind as we were doing them.

This is sort of what happens with your left arm when punching. It is not as natural and smooth and requires more conscious thought to make sure that all the muscle fibers fire in the right order, your hip and shoulder is behind the punch, etc. This of course, like any other skill, can be improved by practice and repetition.

This video from the crew at Damage Control MMA explains a couple of techniques you can use to help develop power and coordination with your non-preferred hand.

Watch more videos from DamageControlMMA

I was going to end this post here but I just wanted to bring up something else that I find interesting, and that is the fact that each side of our body is controlled by the opposite side of our brain. eg. our left side is controlled by our right brain and the right side is controlled by the left brain.

The left brain has always been associated with logic, rational and sequential thinking and the right side with spatial, colors, and creative thinking. Though it has been found that the two halves share jobs, so to speak.

This could explain at least in part (because a large percentage of the population are right handed), why most of us are so coordinated with our right hand, because it is controlled by the logical ‘step by step’ part of our brain, and the left always feels a bit ‘out there’ because it is controlled by the spatial right brain.

Now I am by no means an expert in any of this but I just thought it was an interesting point to bring to your attention. I hope you got something out of it.

Tags: "jeff jones" fighter mma, ambidextrous kick mma, Brain damage from MMA Training?, circuit training mma leg, cognitive, damage control dvd, damage control martial arts, Damage Control MMA, damage control online training, damage control takingittothemmat, damagecontrol mma, develop punching power, excercises for weak left arm, how to train weak arm, how to use a punch bag weak left arm, http://mmatrainingworkoutsonline.com/tag/mma/, incognitive, left arm feels weak need more powe, left arm feels weak need more power, left arm training, left arm weak workout, mma arm control, mma associations pacific northwest, MMA bodyweight circuit workout Ken Shamrock, power difference between right and left arm, savate conditioning drills, stance for wrestlers in mma, street mma self defense association, strength training weak left arm, tips for training a weak left arm, triangle of death damage control, unconventional fitness training workouts, Weak Left Arm, weak left arm boxing, wealthy workout drills age, www.damage control mma.com