Positioning and what it means to you - Pt. 1:

Sinister

Doctor of Doom
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Many of you have heard myself an other posters speak about positioning, but I've gotten the distinct impression that the notion is still pretty vague for many people. Being in "good" positions can mean numerous things that all depend on what exactly is going on right at a specific moment during a fight, and/or during an exchange. That being said, positioning is the key to both defense AND offense. Positioning refers to how close or far you are, how close or far you seem, what elevation you're at, what elevation your opponent thinks you're at, the angle you are going to take, the angle your opponent thinks you're going to take, basically where your body is relative to the places your body should be (yes, hands included). Now, historically one of the MASTERS of positioning during his career and as a trainer, was Georgie Benton. Let's take a look at some of his own tactics and corner advice for purposes of this thread:



In the beginning you can see how much control Georgie had in the ring. The establishment of control gave him poise, and with that poise he out-boxed many people (even in fights that went down as losses via decision). But then at the 3:55 mark you see the words and right after you hear them from him to Whitaker: "Settle down, the guy is just swingin' at you. All you gotta do is duck the punches, catch the punches. But try to duck the punches, don't catch too many...he's just swingin' at you. You can stand there and let him swing."

What? WHY would a trainer say that? Moreover, why would a trainer who BUILT this fighter say that? Stand there and let the guy swing sounds like the opposite of what you hear in Gyms today. He also told Whitaker to slow down and take his time instead of screaming at him to WORK!! Whitaker was a special talent, for sure, but so are many boxers. And Georgie's instructions weren't much different than things he did himself as demonstrated in the video. But that's because Georgie understood positioning (and control of distance, demonstrated by his words on jab placement):

Being on the Benton/Futch lineage these are things I heard a lot of from McCallum during my time with him. "Jab at his chest"..."break your waist" (which was Mike's way of saying to use the hips for head-movement). But it took a really long time to fully understand and eventually teach. But these principals are what make boxing what it is and fully can be. An Art that isn't entirely dependent upon athleticism. Depending SOLELY on an athlete's physicality and not keeping the technique at least comparable can lead to disaster. So a blend of both should be done. Many of you are familiar with my use of partner drills. But they're not for offense or defense, they're for positioning. The fighters use the punches to learn how far their opponent IS, and how far they need to be, if they're doing them correctly:



The drills have specific formats. Like catching the jab, then catching the hook before firing back. But if you look close at the above video you'll catch a couple of the students attempting the same evasive maneuvers but without using their hands to touch any of the punches. This teaches them to stand their ground and still be difficult to hit. When I have them add punches to the circle drill, it's similar (the circle drill I actually work before ones like the above drill):



So now that you have an idea what positioning is and are seeing it being used on a very basic level. Check out this sparring session and keep a couple of things in mind. Bleu was VERY out-of-shape, due to life circumstances he's not been in the gym consistently as of late. Jonathan was preparing for his fight here, Bleu was helping him out. But Bleu is a smart fighter when he wants to be, and has experience now. He's also undersized against Loco by about 25lbs. But his skill with positioning allowed him to do this:



A lot is going on there, but from the get-go Bleu was able to use his experience and intelligence to take control against the bigger fighter. Minimizing how much he got hit and discouraging Loco, also intelligently placing his counters so it seemed there was a BIG difference in who was the boss. He also did something with distance, if you notice. As time went on he started going AT Loco more, when Loco is used to being the one coming forward. This put him on his heels a bit and gave Bleu the initiative, so he controlled the pace. When and where the engagements happened. THAT is ring generalship BTW. Towards the end he was very tired, and still looked good and wasn't taking punishment. He was smart enough to start closing the distance himself when Loco didn't expect him to, the old: "Well fuck it, if it's gonna happen anyway I might as well do it myself so he don't think he's doing it to me."

But we tend to think of this in-terms of defensive fighters, or at least counter-punchers. You aggressive guys are probably thinking: "Does this work going in as well?" The answer is of course. Giving your opponent a moving target, and knowing how to hit off of those movements is NEVER a bad idea. That's how Loco himself won the fight he was preparing for and walked through the much-hyped opponent, which you can review here.

But to see it in a Professional setting, this was a recent excellent fight where a veteran got his groove back. Check out how aggressive (and shorter) Monty Meza-Clay constantly goes at his opponent without taking A LOT of damage...at least until he started to fatigue:



If for some reason that video is blocked in your Country, it's the main event of this card.

*Cont'd
 
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But positioning also refers to something else. Even just the stance is an aspect of it. Many of you have heard me harp about posture, chin down chest up and all that. Well, that's about being in position to receive blows. If you don't know how to do this, getting hit will hurt much worse than it needs to, which tends to discourage people who don't go to gyms TO get beaten-up, but might have talent if they just learned how to deal with damage in a way that doesn't necessitate calling them a pussy or something. Here's an example as Taino was always the kind of guy who was offended if you didn't make contact with him. So I had to put in place where when contact was made, the effects were minimal. It was after this session that someone noted that my fighters always seemed particularly solid, unless they were off-balance in their feet, when they get hit they tend not to go anywhere:



Now sure, some of that is toughness. That needs to be developed, too. But when you get hit and your chin is down and your back is straight, the impact you feel is minimized. This gives you the impression of shaking off a shot where the force actually was absorbed more by your back than your neck. Every aspect of the stance is involved, the degree of bend of the knees, distance apart of the feet, straightness of the back, shoulder positioning (and Taino had SHITTY posture when I got him, it's still not perfect in that video and he tended to get sloppy when throwing). If any of that goes bad, legs go wide, back curls too much...too much is when it makes your chin pop up, shoulders close, which also pops the chin up, or the legs straighten, you're at risk. Risk means when you get hit, it'll hurt more. A lot of Russian fighters seem pretty impervious to pain, rest-assured they're not. But what they DO have going for them is they are taught how to receive punches fairly extensively.

So this is the first thread I'm going to do on positioning. Basically the "how it should be" introduction. The next thread I'm going to do will have some examples of why not abiding by this is not a good idea, aside from the opponents in the above videos who get the worst of things because they don't themselves. And one thing I realized over the past couple of months is this is PARTICULARLY effecting American Amateur Boxing. That will be next week most-likely.

BONUS: Some of you have already seen this, but Wilson Pitts referred to Bobby Chacon and his ability to "hide on the inside." That's a direct phrasing for having good positioning:

 
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Excellent read.

Positioning "is boxing" in a sense.

also not bad in the circle drill video. hot piece.
 
Watch it bub. That's the first girl I've trained from the ground up, she'll hot-piece a couple of your teeth out.
 
ya she does look good, and shes in good hands.

Women do love to hear things like that, so dont take it as an insult.
 
Jaja, she doesn't. At least, not phrased as "hot piece."
 
Jaja, she doesn't. At least, not phrased as "hot piece."

Yes u know whats up deep down. though ull never admit it.

also your guy blue looks good too. he has turned into a scary guy.
 
He'd be scary if he were consistent. We'll see what happens when he's back in the groove. The thing to keep in-mind about my guys is they're still pretty green despite how they appear. Well-schooled? Yes. Battle-tested? That's at a much lower-level. He's only been at it 2 years. Scary is what I have in mind for him. There's enough there, it just has to be harvested, and allowed to be harvested.
 
Duran had excellent positioning. Not a whole lot more needs to be said about that aside from perhaps that Freddie Brown was more responsible for that than Ray Arcel was, even though Arcel got the notoriety. In fact he had an excellent moment very similar to my guy Bleu. He was in with a bigger, aggressive, Southpaw when he fought Hagler. The size difference would have been identical had Duran been at his prime weight of 135. Duran used good positioning to give Hagler a hell of a fight even in losing.
 
Bleu was looking fucking sweet

You give away too much stuff for free!
 
Bleu was looking fucking sweet

You give away too much stuff for free!

This thread brings awareness to it, it doesn't teach how to do it. And you of all people know what it takes to BEGIN to learn it.
 
Awesome thread. I'm always bitching about how MMA fighters put positioning as the #1 priority on the ground, but not on the feet. When, in reality, it's just as important on the feet as on the ground.
 
"Position before percussion!"

Couldn't you have just said good positioning starts with a correct stance and works outward into awareness of the spatial relationship between yourself and your opponent? ; )

Would have saved your wrists from getting carpel tunnel from all that typing.
 
Simple and easy doesn't jive on Sherdog.
 
"Position before percussion!"

Couldn't you have just said good positioning starts with a correct stance and works outward into awareness of the spatial relationship between yourself and your opponent? ; )

Would have saved your wrists from getting carpel tunnel from all that typing.

Barry, you like to state obvious. Play safe, right?
 
once again another fantastic post sinister, thank you.

something i try hard to work on with my own limited game. I'm a fairly big guy and not the fastest bloke in the world, so positioning is everything for me as I prefer NOT to get punched and don't have the athletic skills to rely on for that :)
 
The next part will show how positioning should be the primary aspect of defense, along with control of distance. I'll also show what it looks like when good fighters don't have this.
 
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