Techniques from a kneeling stance

[tallgeese]

Then when fighting shorter opponant, swicth tactics. It's not that what you're doing is bad overall, it's just that it apparently is not working in these situations.

I'd suggest staying up and crashing the distance gap. Cover and go. Not recklessly, but pull the trigger quiker at an opening. Heck, even force one a bit. Cover your head well and get tight. Push them to the wall if you have to. Make sure you don't rush blindly ahead so they can simply piviot out of the way, keep the head up and eyes on them and keep throwing as you get tight. This will put him on his heels and keep him from throwing at you.

I know, it's a bit backwards, we are always telling shorter people to crash. But if you're not having luck at a distacne, crash and bring you're weight to bear on them. If you can grapple, tie up and really push them around until you can effect a takedown.

A bit unorthodox, but it shoudl work.

[JusticeZero]

Could you perhaps also compensate for the height difference by favoring deeper stancework?

[bushido_man96]

I would not want to get too deep into a stance, because I want to be able to get out of it efficiently.

[JusticeZero]

Why wouldn't you be able to step out of a deep stance efficiently??? Seriously, it's never been a problem for me. Maybe i'm just too used to transitioning from one stance to another.

[JusticeZero]

Okay, I had to think about it awhile. I suspect that the hesitance has two parts - first, 'Doesn't a deep stance root me in place?' and "because I want to be able to get out of it efficiently."

First: One can move quite well in deep stances. People think they're slow and ponderous. Do some transitions from one stance to another, sliding a foot in to center then out from center to another deep stance without changing levels of the head, which for you probably will pass briefly through a cat stance or some such thing. This is actually not terribly time consuming.. and you're covering a lot of ground! I find deep stances to be more mobile than the boxing 'float', personally. For practice, find a nice MUP ("bike") path or trail or something, and wander for maybe a half kilometer or so just in transitions between random stances, keeping your head from bobbing up and down.

After this, comes the next question of 'what are you needing to get out of them quickly to do?' You can probably tie a lot into those transitions and such, and generally focus more on the deeper position techniques.

[The BB of C]

People tend to not like deep stances because they require leg strength and a lot of practice to get in.

[tallgeese]

Deep stances move the feet further away from each other simply by their performance. Any time this occurs, it slows down multi-directinal movement. It makes it harder to cut angles. Against premeditated attacks this might me ok. But in a live fight, it can be highly hazadous.

I'm sure there are people out there with the physical ability to move well out of them. That dosn't mean that the majority of the population works that way.

Closer, more mobile stances allow for cutting, closing, retrating, all off-line if need be with minmal effort. Forget getting out of it, I want something I can move in without worrrying about getting out of do something. They also cut down on the chance of catching a good groind kick, which is never a bad idea .

[The BB of C]

Anyone can do them if they're trained in them. Low stances keep the center of gravity low and makes the user less venerable to being tripped or losing balance. At lower levels it can be hard to do kicks from them. But a low center of gravity is imperative for most throws.

[JusticeZero]

Closer, more mobile stances allow for cutting, closing, retrating, all off-line if need be with minmal effort. Forget getting out of it, I want something I can move in without worrrying about getting out of do something. They also cut down on the chance of catching a good groind kick, which is never a bad idea .

I can do all those with minimal effort on the spur of the moment in deep stances, and a number of those stances are quite resistant to groin kicks from the most likely angles.

I can't imagine being able to effectively cut or retreat in a high floaty stance; they just simply aren't mobile enough. And when they close, they seem to do it by stretching into a deeper stance for a moment.

[tallgeese]

We're not talking "high and floaty", we're talking about an alternative of a natural stacne. Knees flexed, feet shoulder width apart, weight over the balls of the feet. In a word, athletic.

It's a similar posture used by several combat athletes. Boxers don't use a deep stance, but rahter a more nautral posture. Same with kb-ers and mma guys. They rise or fall based on their ability to control distance and move. Those sports can serve as petri dishes for us due to the live nature of their competition.

I'm not saying they have no place and will never be used. I fall into what is suspiciously like a cheated horse stance when I apply Spear style DT movements (note here that this is a unidirectional movement and requires none of the diffiuclties I pointed out in my first post). However, it's not a primary stance due to the constraints I mentioned ealier, and I still feel like I'm going to take one in the groin. After it's application in this manner, it's time to move back to a better stance.