How bad does not sparring effect you in a real street fight situation ?

[MJS]

I will clarify a bit. Standing side on presents your opponent with a smaller front-on target, blocking (deflecting) a straight punch to the head may only mean moving your arm 2 or 3 inches. If they want to hit you in the head or body then they have to go around your arms and your elbow protects your ribs from front kicks (ever copped an elbow to the top of the foot or the shin?, Very painful, not much good for the elbow either). To hit the front of your body with a kick or hand strike they have to come from the side, which takes longer. When standing side on one hand is in front of the other, which gives you two lines of defense, if the front hand is trapped or knocked away you have the rear hand as backup. If you are standing completely front on, usually both hands will be roughly the same distance in front (I see it all the time in MMA fights, not taking a dig, just an observation), this means that both hands can be trapped or knocked away at the same time and also leaves a convenient gap between the arms for those one-two punch combinations to get through which just isn't there when you are standing side on. So not "nothing to worry about", just less.

I used to spar in this type of stance. I also used more of a boxing type stance as well. I had success with both. When I started to spar in Kyokushin, I found myself in that side stance at one point, mainly due to force of habit. I ate more than my share of kicks to the leg because of that stance. I was told by my teacher, as well as my class mates, that I needed to change that stance, as it wouldn't allow me to have much success with blocking the low line roundhouse kick.

Now, I'm not saying this is a bad stance, that's not the case at all. I'm simply saying that in that situation, it didn't work for me. I assume that you use this side stance yourself? If so, is it the only one you use or do you have others? Are you able to deal with leg kicks from that side stance?

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

Now, I'm not saying this is a bad stance, that's not the case at all. I'm simply saying that in that situation, it didn't work for me. I assume that you use this side stance yourself? If so, is it the only one you use or do you have others? Are you able to deal with leg kicks from that side stance?

Like anything, you have to adapt to your circumstances. Profiling doesn't work as well in kendo, but is an absolute necessity in epee.

 

[RTKDCMB]

I used to spar in this type of stance. I also used more of a boxing type stance as well. I had success with both. When I started to spar in Kyokushin, I found myself in that side stance at one point, mainly due to force of habit. I ate more than my share of kicks to the leg because of that stance. I was told by my teacher, as well as my class mates, that I needed to change that stance, as it wouldn't allow me to have much success with blocking the low line roundhouse kick.

Now, I'm not saying this is a bad stance, that's not the case at all. I'm simply saying that in that situation, it didn't work for me. I assume that you use this side stance yourself? If so, is it the only one you use or do you have others? Are you able to deal with leg kicks from that side stance?

The main defensive stance I use during sparring is the basic back stance with a weight distribution of 60/40 in favor of the back leg, the exact same stance as used in the basics and patterns. The stance gives me agility and enables me to lift my front leg easily for a leg check, leg block, kick or to simply move it out of the way. I can also bring the front leg back into a cat stance if I don't want to step back completely. I tend to not stay in one place for too long and change stance between left and right regularly. Kicks to the thigh are withing the range of the arms for blocking/deflecting but usually I just either use a leg check, step back or away or, on rare occasions, move in and jam. For attacking movements I usually use a slightly modified forward stance which is temporary. For a self defense situation it would probably be over quickly so if there was a leg kick to contend with it would probably be only one and I would either deal with it or get kicked.