I don't particularly have a favorite stance, the best stance is the one that upsets your current opponent/aggressor. What is a 'Taekwondo stance' anyway? Taekwondo like Karate has over thirty of the damn things - to put that into context four of those stances define the act of walking and three different stances that have no purpose aside from putting strain on your leg muscles to build them.
The stance a lot of people recognize and refer to as the 'taekwondo stance' is that fully side-on stance that they use in the Olympics, same stance as Olympic Fencers and for the same reasons.
#The pros of such a stance are in turning your body to create a narrow target and pulling all your vital areas off to the side so they're harder to hit and it's an easy stance to move quickly forwards and backwards from.
#The cons of the stance come from the fact that both Olympic Taekwondo and Fencing are only linear where more continuous fights like Boxing, MMA and real fights are both circular and linear. When you add in things like low kicks the side-stance is also exposing several muscles that are wonderful targets for putting someone down so they won't move in a hurry - the calves, the back of the knees and the back of the thighs. All three of those targets are difficult to condition and easy to send into spasms with the most glancing shots.
Boxers stay square and tall because like the Olympic TKD and Fencing it's what works for their situation.
#Pros It's a freaking wonderful stance to throw punches from and it gives great mobility in all directions.
#Cons It's not a well grounded stance making it easy pickings to tackle a Boxer or throw him from the clinch and it's only designed to absorb the power of punches making it more likely that the Boxer can get kicked off his feet, it's also why your coach doesn't like cross steps, crossing puts your feet closer together making it possible to tangle them when you try to move to avoid punches or kicks, it also makes things easier for an opponent going for a take-down both your legs can be tied up with one arm, leaving the other arm free to push you over.
I'm going to use a Karate term here because I don't know what the TKD guys call it but the absolute best stance in my opinion is Shinzentai. Shinzentai means natural fighting stance, in short, it's the stance you feel is right at any given moment. Like I said, learn all of the stances and use them as you see fit.
well this is MMA not taekwondo.. don't get molded into the taekwondo stance, this is MMA, you need to learn how to FUZE your taekwondo into the game of mma. I mean you see fighters with wrestling back grounds in like a kickboxing or boxing stand and the add there own wrestling in it. what im trying to say is ya I agree with coach get into your mma stance or boxing stance you can still use plenty of techniqeus from your taewondo in there and should still be able to kick hard and effectively. I understand that you wont be able to do everything from your taekwondo but again mma is about FUZEING things together.. also kicking to much against a wrestler may get u taken down.
this is my thoughlts ive scene plenty of taekwondoers in mma who use a more former mma type stance then add in there strength this seems to be the way I see it done. but if u wanna ignore coach and try just taekwondo instead of mma then whos to tell u anything? thanks and goodluck
So whats your question?
Edit:
You're stance should be whatever your using, if it works for you and your winning fights then you should use it. But if your coach clearly see's yours struggling in sparring and your taking hits and he thinks it's because your stance you should do what he suggest.
So what about Taekwondo and Boxing. Not much of a difference anyways. In a fight stances won't even matter, it's that pocket knife that's gonna mattarrrrrrr.
you should have at least three stances.
stances determine the tactics you will be doing. staying fixated on one stance will make you predictable.
each stance has its own purpose. non of them are better then others when you know how to use them correctly
well at my mma gym the teacher always tells me my stance is wrong. but i like it sideways i do understand that i need to switch sometimes if im cornered to circle out. but i do good in the stance i land non stop low kicks . low kicks are almost like my jab. also he always says no cross stepping , but i need to cross step for certain kicks and in sparring i find cross stepping and my sideways stance effective
