Should i switch to southpaw

The lead uppercut can be a very effective punch in close distance or even in the clinch. But it can also be used for setting up combinations and to counter. Boxers like Myke Tyson and Anthony Joshua really mastered this punch. While Joshua uses it to counter his opponents when they come closer, Tyson used it in a variety of combinations. For example, one of his most impressive combinations was lead uppercut to the body followed by a lead uppercut to the head.

But If you are in a southpaw stance and you are right-handed , the power will be much different…. When I am fighting against a taller opponent, one of my favorites combos is lead uppercut followed by a right cross to the head.

Also, the first punch the uppercut comes upwards and the second one comes straight, which makes the combination very hard to be blocked. The second situation where you can use it is when you trapped someone against the ropes. In such situations what I like to do is to throw 2 hooks to the body left and right and then uppercut to the head.

The idea here is to make your opponent protect his body and then land a clean punch to the head. You can also use the lead uppercut to catch your someone when he tries to enter in a clinch or tries to walk you down. If you are a right-handed southpaw boxer, the statistic is on your side. That means that most of them are staying in an orthodox stance.

When you go to the gym, chances are that you will spar with other orthodox boxers. On the flip side, the southpaws train and spar with boxers like you all the time. But if you use the southpaw stance, you can benefit from the lack of experience of the orthodox fighters against boxers like you and easily outbox them. When two boxers in opposite stances are fighting, their lead feet are facing each other. And this is important because:.

The boxer who places his lead foot outside of the lead foot of his opponent has an advantage. Because when he does that, he is out of the center line.

Thus making very hard for the other boxer to catch him. Actually, the only way for his rivals to land something is by throwing a lead hook or a jab, but this is also hard to be done. On the other hand, the boxer whose lead foot is on the outside has the speed advantage. His rear hand is closer to his opponent, so he can throw a cross or a rear overhand and land them easily. Here is a short video where you can see how Manny Pacquiao uses the outside lead foot advantage look at the positioning of his right foot :.

Otherwise, you will just step in a wider stance which will make you lose your balance easily. That was a mistake which I made when I spar with a southpaw for the first time.

I thought that I just need to step with my lead foot outside of his lead foot to take the advantage. What you need to do is to position your whole body, at an angle where is hard for your opponent to land punches at you, but you can easily land punches on him. So if you are a right-handed southpaw, you can use it against orthodox fighters which are the majority of the boxers. Here is one more southpaw vs orthodox advantage you can take. But guess what, if you stay in a southpaw stance, your lead hand will also face his lead hand.

That is really cool especially if you are shorter than the other boxer because you can eliminate the advantage of his longer reach. This means your opponents have to deal with both stances at different times in a single bout. It could get very confusing having to defend against multiple attacks from varied angles.

If utilized properly, switch-hitting is a useful offensive tool. Most boxers take a couple of rounds to measure each other in the bout, and between each round adjustments are made in the corner. Switching stances often makes it difficult for your opponents to make stylistic and strategic adjustments. Some of the best boxers in the game known to have employed switch-hitting as part of their strategy are Nonito Donaire, Vasyl Lomachenko, and Terence Crawford.

These boxers knew when switching stances was beneficial to their chances of winning and shuffled between orthodox and southpaw with expert technique. Furthermore, they possessed equal offensive prowess in both the right and left hands. You may have a powerful straight with one hand, yet at the same time, you may need to use the same hand as a stinging jab. Switch-hitting allows you to do just that.

It allows you to play to your strengths in varying levels of comfortability. I do agree that MMA fighters can be much lighter on their feet.

Boxers always have to slip and stay within range. I tried to focus more when throwing the punches — one thing is for sure: Light quick hitting is nothing for me. I like to hit full force. Here in the philippines, you can see lots of orthodox who switched to southpaws.. But me ill stay with Orthodox stance! Great article. The only thing that seems to be lacking is my left uppercut. Any tips on how to throw it harder?

Righty Southpaw — just to confirm, are you throwing that left uppercut as a righty or a southpaw? Also, have you read my guide on how to throw uppercuts? I have been a fencer all my life so the southpaw stance feels natural competition wise. However, when i first went to the gym they forced me as orthodox, my defense is horrible because I cant see shots coming and I am wondering if my accuracy is affected because my stance is affecting my vision. The left handed shots from behind definitely have power but they feel weird and they have a ton more speed than if i was fighting orthodox.

Your advice? Your stance feels weird because you are use to standing with the right foot forward. I too am a right-hander with a stronger left leg and stronger left arm and also left-eye dominant. After consulting numerous coaches who have watched my form, they all came to the same conclusion —stay orthodox because my right hand is more coordinated.

This is boxing, so I would suggest following conventional boxing wisdom before you revert back to a stance trained through years of fencing. PS: De La Hoya was a fencer too and ended up using a converted stance right-handed orthodox with great success.

Blue — I choose orthodox stance for you. Accuracy trumps all. Accuracy does the most damage, so place it on the back hand. If you have a great left arm, excellent, use it to jab.

About the right leg, getting tired….. Hello i want to know something and i need help please i write with the right hand and i shoot with the left foot in soccer how can i box in southpaw?? I would suggest that you try the one that feels the most comfortable. Johnny J — You say that the lead leg is resting.

But my coach told me to lead with my lead leg — he told me that all I need to do is pivot. When he showed that pivot the first thing I thought was: I never saw pro boxers doing that type of pivot and moving their front leg like that.

When I watch pro fighters they seem to be very basic in their footwork. All I want is to improve my footwork and the feeling for the right distance to my opponent.

Weak jab Hi, advice. I have a White collar event comming up in a month and in training my jab dosnt seem to be hitting the target and is soo much weaker than my right.

My right hand is powerful, quick and accurate and i think I could do well leading with my right as opposed to what I have been doing and leading with my left??? What du think? Alex — I understand you now. Your boxing trainer told you to keep stepping left and right and pivoting to create angles. Usually, you just pivot with your front to get some angles but your trainer probably suggested that you step in first and THEN pivot in whatever direction you like.

The problem with the leading right is that it can be easily countered. Very very easy to counter if you see it coming. Thaks a lot. That makes sense. Orginally I bumped into this site because I had a problem with my stance — the southpaw stance. Alex — I would have to see footage of you moving around in both stances before I could tell you which one you look better in. Either way, training would make you better. Confused Okay I have been boxing for around a year now as an orthodox fighter but I have the tendency to switch to southpaw a lot.

I have a stronger right then left but I feel more in control when in southpaw stance because I blind my opponent with my fast hard jabs and come in for the kill with my left. My left is pretty strong I guess since I knocked someone down with it. I have left eye dominance and, am wondering what you think I should do. I am not a one armed fighter because I use my left a lot in southpaw stance.

I forgot to mention my hands hit around the same speed. Have a trainer analyze your form from both stances and he will be able to tell which one is better for you. Keep switching if you feel comfortable and get away with it. Many fighters do this. On which leg to put weight? At which leg do I have to put weight when I throw the straighr left? Right now I pivot my left pivot while I put weight on my right leg while thorwing it.

Vice versa for the right foot. Alright, thanks. Because I have anyway problems to put weight on my left foot when I twist it.

Should get better with time though. Steve — you have more weight on the left leg so that you can shift it over to your right, during the left hook.

Does this make me a southpaw? OR should I switch it around? James — the debate will go on forever about what strong hand goes in front. Just know that in fencing, you have only 1 weapon whereas in boxing you have 2. I would still recommend you have your right foot in back and give yourself some time to adjust to boxing. Someone please tell me whether im southpaw or orthodox loll okay so i just started boxing a couple of months ago and im desperate for advice hahaha.

My problem is that i know that the stronger arm is supposed to be in the back. But i feel more confident with my right arm in terms of punching im right handed by the way. Also my dominant eye is my right one. So basically should i have the arm that is physically stronger in the back or the one that has more control. SP or Orthodox Hi, I have been debating whether to change stances for a long time now.

When I first learned to box, I practiced my punches from both stances. However, when I first started sparring for some reason I just naturally wanted to stay in a southpaw stance.

As I got more comfortable sparring as a southpaw I switched completely, training everything as a southpaw. I am, however, right handed and I suffer from that unique quality of having a stronger left hand. For some reason in the southpaw stance my footwork tends to be smoother as well as head movement.

Although I have noticed that some punches can feel somewhat awkward when I spar with someone of equal or greater reach, probably due to the fact that southpaws usually have to commit more because of the foot placement of both fighters. I have a strong and accurate straight left and right hook.

I recently started trying to convert myself after criticism from sparring partners and other boxers. I tend to do fairly well as an orthodox while sparring, however, I have a tendency to want to switch stances. I have heard all the negativity about southpaws and I am wondering if I should completely convert myself or further develop my southpaw stance.

The important thing is to stand in a way where you have the best power with both hands and move well going forwards and backwards. For sure if your right hand is more accurate, then it belongs in the back. I did the dominent eye test and my right eye lines up perfectly. Do some jump rope work. Learn how to shadowbox and move around in a balanced stance.

When you punch, worry more about your balance than your power. The problem is not so much your stance but your attitude, try to keep both feet on the ground when you fight. Instead of shifting weight from one leg to the other, keep it more towards the middle. Let me know if this helps, Samuel. Ok, I do some jump rope work everytime I train to warm up but I will do extra work, and then shadow boxing and I look alright in the mirrors its when im in the ring that i just seem to forget, but i will try orthodox stance and so how that works and let you know how I get on.

Just want to say thanks for the tips man. Its been a big help! I have been looking through this website and its very helpful! Im right handed and i trained as a southpow for two years, freind of mine convinsed Me to switch to orthodox so i did that stalk to it for two and halv years but sticking to orthodox gave Me a lot of pain in my lower back resantly however i switched back to southpow and my back pain just disapired.

The problem is what Do i Do wrong? Im awared of advantages of orthodox but cant stick to it because of the pain that its causes Me after training. Most boxers I know with back pain comes from bending over a lot when they try to duck under punches. Anyway, I would try figuring out if the pain comes from standing orthodox or from punching orthodox.

Shifting the weight over makes actually scense but how can i avoid it, the main problem is also that i use to compeet in olympic lifting for a quite some time and on the side of that got intrested in boxing, so one side effekt that i got from there was when i was doing over head jerks after clean i put my right leg in front so my right side became sort of pistol to generate power.

So as i sad basicilly what happens to me is that my body adaps to stance but then all the habits that i ve got from southpow stance translate to my orthodox stance so i become one handed fighter whith a strong left jab and hook but weak right cross just as i was in southpow stance.

Im awared of that i should be an orthodox but i having it diffucullt to make my body mechanics work well for me. So any advise you have on how i can divelop that?? Thanks a lot i am really apritiating your help the trainers that i had couldnt help me whith that. Since they just blame it to olympic lifting but the thing is that i didnt had any type of back problems unless as i say before during this switch to ortodox stance. Thanks again man!! Start training…hours and hours and hours…shadowboxing in front of the mirror.

There is no easy way to break the habits you developed through training in another sport! Keep shadowboxing under relaxed conditions to build new muscle memory and coordination. Fara, stop leaning forward with your jab. Reach with your fist, not with your head. I do everything mostly with my right hand except write and cook lol. Im comfortable using a southpaw stance and orthodox so its hard for me to tell which one i am.

I feel im better defensively southpaw. Right jab is good my left is also good thanks to watch sonny liston my issue is throwing the left hook from southpaw and right hook from orthdox.

From orthodox its like i tend to end up in a southpaw stance and southpaw i kinda lose my footing. Johnny, I recently started boxing 2 weeks and I am having difficulty deciding which style to use. My issues: 1. Shoulder bursitis in left arm. I am currently seeing a chiropractor for it and have been cleared for boxing as long as I take the necessary precautions. However, after fighting orthodox and shooting my left jab for a whole workout, I find that I have to constantly ice my left shoulder and ingest anti-inflammatorys.

It feels natural fighting in southpaw. Perhaps this is due to my previous training in Wing Chun? I have read your explanation and understand the negative consequences for fighting strong-hand forward for southpaw stance rear hand weak. However, keeping my shoulder bursitis in mind, I think it would prolong my life as a boxer if I began training as a southpaw fighter. I must say that I was perfectly healthy when I started boxing and STILL had to ice my left shoulder after having jabbed for an entire day.

If it were me, I would still fight with the weak hand in front but I guess you have no choice but to stand in whatever stance your physical condition permits.

I really appreciate your work here.. My strong arm is definately my left, but my right foot is the strong one: e. Also my right jab feels weak and not really coordinated.. This is really interesting. I did a little kickboxing, but tended to do more Aikido only got to the middling belts , Judo and Ju Jitsu with a bit of Karate, so I have never done any classical boxing.

I have just started Tai Jitsu, hoping for it to be a nice all round MA with less scope for getting sacked for turning up to work with a black eye :. They generally fight from an orthodox stance, but the years of Aikido who fight in what is essentially a Southpaw stance has made the orthodox stance uncomfortable I tended to do my other MA southpaw so I could switch between techniques easier. After reading your article, I am now wondering if I find Southpaw better because I have a pretty bad squint in my right eye.

So basically, strong right arm, but very weak right eye. What should I do? Will training orthodox eventually make it feel more natural, or should I just fight southpaw? Orthodox feels horrible right now? Any stance, position, technique, etc will always be difficult if you spent years doing things differently.

With that being said, I have a simple test to see which hand is your true dominant hand. Go up to a speed bag and hit it 10 times with one hand and then 10 times with the other and keep switching back and forth non-stop. Stand with that one in back! You would have to be a pretty silly Boxer to switch stances, especially when Boxers half of the time are looking for openings regarding the back hand the hand that throws the cross.

Reality is that our brains favor one side other the other, the proof in our daily activity. Which side do you rely on the most to get the job done the most? The boxer, especially the new boxer, should always stick with the stance they are most comfortable with, as chances are, thats the side they will preform the most efficiently in. There are rare exceptions, but most of the time boxers naturally favor one stance or the other, including those that think they can be clever by switching stance in an attempt to throw their opponent off course.

Use the tactics you learned for whatever stance he uses. Its hard to fight orthodox so i fight southpaw and im right handed. I wanna learn how to fight orthodox any ideas? Other people agree that I should continue fighting with my right, stronger hand forward and my left, slightly weaker hand in the back, waiting for a cross. Right handed southpaws will confuse and usually beat the average opponent if you train your left hand enough right?

Maybe kicks add a difference to the best stance for me? Kicks definitely add a difference because some kicks have a wind-up where the stance is momentarily changed. Also kickers are commonly switching stances to create openings on one side or the other. The general belief in boxing is that the strong hand belongs in the back. I wrote several articles explaining the reasons why.

And right-handed southpaws are more known for beating very new beginners and not seasoned fighters. Of course I try to save everyone time by sharing the common advice but ultimately you have to see what works best for you. Hi Johnny which stance should i choose Southpaw or Orthodox. I have better balance with Orthodox Stance,but my Left hand is stronger. Which stance should i stick to. The dominant hand is the one that should be in back. Read my guide to figure out which one is your dominant hand.

Also i feel like i can move my right hand to defend myself more accurately. However, I independently worked on my left arm for power shots and hooks, and spent a lot of time shadow boxing and hitting a heavy bag and reflex bag with my left hand, now I am trapped in the southpaw stance, since my left cross is very strong, and my right jab is very fast.

My advice remains the same. Keep the dominant hand in the back. Marvin Hagler was equally dangerous from either side. I just started taking boxing classes. When we learned orthodox stance yesterday though nothing about it felt right. Even as she and the other coaches were helping us get the right feet and hip positions. I continued to work on orthodox stance after class but no matter what it felt like nothing was lining up like it should.

My boyfriend was helping me and said I just looked awkward and to try switching to southpaw stance. I tried it and everything lined up perfectly. I felt completely balanced and like I could easily move around.

Should I continue to work on orthodox stance? Some people do move better when standing in the switch position. I would still argue to keep the dominant hand in the back. In which case, putting the dominant foot in front will feel better. We worked on stance again yesterday and I had my teacher help me but it still feels like there is something off.

Maybe it is too front heavy like you said. Is there any way to change that? Keep your head in between your feet. If your head is leaning towards once place you will be off-balanced in that direction. Take some time and keep practicing. Most things will be difficult for beginners. How do. I have several guides on fighting southpaws. Please check them out. I do like the double right hand tactic. If the individual has a defense which proves impenetrable, I choose to focus on the arms to provoke an attack, and will back up kicking or striking based on what opportunities present themselves as they follow.

While they can move faster, their focus is on hitting you, and not the air behind you, and so they miss, and miss, and grow weary, and then stop.

Most do not employ a tactic of backing up. They may as a technique, or a trap giving space, to force them to then give up the space they just sacrificed believing they had seized yours but a person who truly is committed to backing up is not common.

Martial artists are known as confrontationalist, but we are also very much strategists. As such they seek to control it, but this will always backfire against the kicker who can retreat. The more you chase, the more control, and thus likelihood of victory you give him. He wants you to move forward,; never, ever do what your enemy wants. When he starts backing up, let him.

If anything, in a realistic situation, the threat is neutralized having been mugged twice, this is not how these situations go, and are limited to continuous sparring, or the s version of point.

As a kicker I have no problem giving ground because my kendo ground allows me to quickly retreat it. Combined with Bagua this produces powerful push which can easily bowl a person over. Being left-handed does not prevent someone from working.

Mike Tyson is naturally left handed. As the youngest heavyweight champion boxer in sports history, it is no surprise that Tyson had a unique way of training. Bruce Lee was a right hander, but also a southpaw. Can you switch to southpaw?

Is it bad to switch stances in boxing? Is Tyson ambidextrous? Why do fighters switch stances? Can you box in both stances? Should you train both orthodox and southpaw? Can you fight southpaw and orthodox? What is switch hitting boxing?