Right-handed Southpaw

BysonArdvark

In choosing what stance to use, I think there's two things to take into consideration:

1) Your handness. (For best performance, they say that right-handed people should stand with their left foot forward, while left-handed people should stand with their right foot forward).

2) What percentage of fighters use each stance? For instance, let's say that 90% of fighters use "Orthodox" while 10% of fighters use "Southpaw". Regardless of whether you yourself are Orthodox or Southpaw, you'll encounter an Orthodox opponent 9 times out of 10. Also regardless of what stance you yourself use, this means that you'll be less practised at fighting against Southpaws.

Considering these two pieces of information, it seems quite clear that if you're left-handed then you have a win-win situation if you stand as a Southpaw -- you're in the optimal stance for your handness and you also have the advantage of having the less common stance.

If you're right-handed, you'll do fine if you fight as an Orthodox... but then maybe you'll have an advantage if you fight as a Southpaw?

I myself am right-handed and I've been training in Muay Thai for the last six years in Orthodox stance. If I was to start all over again I think I'd train as a Southpaw, but six years is a long time to go and then turn around so I think I'm probably set in my ways by now.

It'd be funny if over the next few years a lot of right-handed people took up fighting as Southpaw. If more than half of right-handed people began to fight as Southpaw then the advantage would switch back to fighting as Orthodox!

Anyway I'm curious, what stance do you think is better today in 2008 for a right-handed person?

challengemaster

What?

Clive

I know quite a few southpaws who fight orthodox and vice versa. There's no real advantage to either, it's just that people are less used to southpaws and so walk into things they normally wouldn't.

mark.leonard

Clive wrote: »

I know quite a few southpaws who fight orthodox and vice versa. There's no real advantage to either, it's just that people are less used to southpaws and so walk into things they normally wouldn't.

+1

There are more Southpaws around than 10% I believe, if the albeit small sample space of fighters in my Gym are anything to go by.

Nothingcompares

well isn't the orthodox stance for wrestlers nad judoka lead hand forward. perhaps a lot of southpaws are grapplers turned MMA.

mark.leonard

Another possibility is coming form a semi contact stance that favors lead leg kicking like TKD often advocates the stronger leg in front. This could give rise to the Right handed southpaw phenomenon. It was one of the first things I had to fix when I was moving across to full contact fighting.

cowzerp

From a boxing perspective right handers are natural orthodox fighters and left handers are naturally south paws! the few that do the opposite are either doing it for grappling reasons as said before or else probably learned wrong from the start or are just simply a bit weird!! i can do both as skillfully but the natural stance is by far superior balance and power wise..

BysonArdvark

For clarity in this discussion, I'd like to make the following definitions:

* Left-handed people and right-handed people will be referred to simply as left-handed and right-handed people.
* Orthodox refers to standing with your left foot forward (regardless of what handness you are)
* Southpaw refer to standing with your right foot forward (regardless of what handness you are)

Cowzerp, you say that Orthodox is superior for a right-hander because of superior balance and power. My question is though, whether this advantage of balance and power can be outweighed by the advantage of "being different"? In my own gym, it's rare that I find myself sparring a southpaw... but I notice it straight away when I do; all of sudden my usual low-kicking techniques go out the window and I feel like I'm improvising, trying to "think" instead of working purely off habit.

I wonder is there much merit in training as Orthodox on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and then Southpaw on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday? Then you could switch during a fight.

challengemaster

In TKD we're taught that we should not have any dominating side, as this leads to weakness. So we do the same amount of training for each side, and when sparring are made use both stances.

Nothingcompares

A little off-topic but I have often wondered what's the best approach to handedness or sidedness. For example, Judo is very much a handed/sided sport in that the majority of people can only perform throws under competition conditions off one side. This means that you usually take a lapel grip with your right hand and sleeve grip with your left hand. The majority of judoka are far far far inferior at attempting throws when these grips are reversed.

So in Judo and you want to learn a throw you practice it over and over again with partner repeating it numerous times and attempt to use it in randori with the ultimate goal of being capable of using it in competition. A lot of people would say, only practice an offensive move like this off one side. It would be a waste of time trying to be good at both sides. The logic behind this is it's better to be REALLY REALLY good at one side and piss poor at the other side rather than ok at both sides (the assumption being time spent practising is proportional to effectiveness). Bad analogy - I don't think Tiger woods spends a lot of time practising left handed swings.

The same could be said for a ne-waza/ground fighting technique. Some people just spend all their time getting good at holding people down on one side. Why? Because by in large you get to choose which side you get the hold on down so you may as well be as good as possible at the the side you use most often.

However, in terms of defence, a popular train of thought is to try and be equally prepared to escape both sides of a hold down. You probably won't know which side your opponent will eventually get you in a hold down on so you best be prepared for both.

I've never really analysed my ground game like this but I'd be interested to see if certain people always try and pass open guard clockwise/anti clockwise or always swing the legs to the left or more often to the right. Or when in a mounted position to they always attack a particular side for a submission etc.

I beleive the concept of "sidedness" goes back to early embryonic development and is widespread across the animal kingdom. I think it's even used in marketing etc. that supermarkets for example are organised in a particular fashion because the majority of people always go to one particular side when entering a "maze".

cowzerp

BysonArdvark wrote: »

Cowzerp, you say that Orthodox is superior for a right-hander because of superior balance and power. My question is though, whether this advantage of balance and power can be outweighed by the advantage of "being different"? In my own gym, it's rare that I find myself sparring a southpaw... but I notice it straight away when I do; all of sudden my usual low-kicking techniques go out the window and I feel like I'm improvising, trying to "think" instead of working purely off habit.

I wonder is there much merit in training as Orthodox on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and then Southpaw on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday? Then you could switch during a fight.

in my opinion you should become excellent in 1 side for striking then learn the weaker side, my weak side has all the same skills but none of the balance or power, i believe my weaker side will not improve much now, where as your stronger side will keep improving, that does not mean you cant practise fighting south paws too, 1 of my biggest fights was against 1 as a kid and i trained for him, to this day i dont mind fighting them. But you do need to practise this.

brianthebard

Andy lee is a right handed boxer that fights southpaw.It works for him because he presents a smaller profile to his opponent and gets to stay a few extra inches away from them.Can't see those benefits carrying over to martial arts much though?
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cletus

i am left handed, but fight orthadox, didn't do this deliberatly, just feels normal to me. having said that, i'm right footed, so i was probably fecked from the start

Judomad

Nothingcompares wrote: »

well isn't the orthodox stance for wrestlers AND JUDOKA lead hand forward. perhaps a lot of southpaws are grapplers turned MMA.

i realised that something i thought was a disadvantage actually turned out as a huge advantage when i started competing properly in Judo, im right handed but left footed so there were throws i could do easily on both sides BUT couldnt do all on both sides at first, but ill be honest i didnt even try to learn on the uncomfortable side because i could do say a morote-seoi-nage with right hand on the lapel and left hand on sleeve, but then again i could do kata-guruma with my right hand on the sleeve like i did in this link

http://www.bebo.com/FlashBox.jsp?FlashBoxId=6265790952&FlashViewType=Personal&MemberId=15593296

Charlie3dan

Judomad wrote: »

http://www.bebo.com/FlashBox.jsp?FlashBoxId=6265790952&FlashViewType=Personal&MemberId=15593296

Good show old boy!

Judomad

Charlie3dan wrote: »

Good show old boy!

that was the open, im 66kg

Charlie3dan

Understanding the nickname "Dumptruck" a little better

Judomad

Charlie3dan wrote: »

Understanding the nickname "Dumptruck" a little better

hmmmm your getting it now. he was an 81kg fighter but as you can see in the title, it was a small competition so i wont say too much about it haha. and its "The Dumptruck" not just any old dumptruck :D;)