Fighting Stance

This is the position that you will usually adopt for sparring or a general stance for practicing punches and blocks as well as rotating on the spot (180 and 360 degree spins). It is really a fundamental position for all fighting and self defense. It is not a specific Tae Kwon Do stance but is used by most martial arts, such as Kickboxing and Boxing. In Tae Kwon Do, it is often used as a platform for kicks as Tae Kwon Do focuses more on kicks than punches (after doing Kickboxing, both myself and my daughter found it rather hard not to finish off techniques with a partner with a tasty punch to the head as we found several Tae Kwon Do students tended to keep their hands low to block kicks rather than punches).

The stance is wider than walking stance but not as wide as forward stance. Mine tends to be fairly close to walking stance, but the emphasis is on comfort, what feels right for you, since being relaxed will tend to make it quick. Imagine a box shoulder width square.

Place your left foot forward to the top left corner of your box.

Place your right foot behind to the rear right corner of your box.

Bend your knees a noticeable amount, your hips and shoulders should be at around 45 degrees and your weight should be evenly distributed between your feet. With your left foot pointing forward, your right foot (trailing foot) should be pointing forwards at around 45 degrees; 90 degrees for perpendicular to shoulders and hips. Note that this stance is for an orthodox striker (right handed). For a southpaw (left handed) it is reverse.

Now move your left foot forward around 100mm (4 inches) forward and your right foot around 100mm (4 inches) back. The trick is to find what feels quite comfortable, similarly with how much the right foot is rotated with respect to the left foot. The lower your stance, the more stable you are, but on the other hand, the more difficult it is to move. Being tall and heavy, I tend to be quite upright and stiff (old), but then I have quite a reach (long legs). Complaining about what you don't have wastes what you do have; well that's what the poster on the gym wall says.