The fighting stance that we use is a great crossover stance that will serve you well in MMA. We use the basic foot position used in wrestling, boxing and Muay Thai which are the essential parts of the standup game in MMA.
The trick with adapting it to Mixed Martial Arts is to be quick and versatile with the level changes and to train counter techniques for the transition between toe-to-toe and inside grappling as well as take downs and the defense of take downs. For example; a traditional Muay Thai stance is very upright and the advantage it lends is the speed at which a person can throw a kick from there or check and counter. The problem is that, with so much weight on the back foot, it is hard to keep good balance when the opponent is driving forward as a wrestler would. In this case, a fighter who is very confident with his ground game might be ok with this because he knows he can take a toll on his opponent with kicks and if he gets taken down he will survive. An example of this type of fighter would be Donald Cerrone. Most of the time he can get the better of his opponents with his fantastic stand-up and if someone does shoot in and take him to the floor Cerrone would make his life suck badly! Where this is not good for him is when dealing with a boxer like Nate Diaz.
The lower stance, the crisp boxing head movement and the angles tore down Donald's very upright stance and defense.
Another aspect that is coming in to play in the last few years is the fact that Dana and many other promoters are paying bonuses for fight of the night and the careers of the fighters depends so much on making exciting fights and the brawling stand-up battles are becoming more common. No matter what you can do on the ground, the stand-up game is in play!
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