Open stance: why southpaw changes kickboxing more than boxing

Orthodox against southpaw puts both fighters’ lead feet on the same side and opens the centreline. In boxing that mostly concerns the rear hand and the battle for outside foot position. In kickboxing it additionally exposes the inside of both lead legs, and the inside low kick is much harder to check than the outside one — you cannot lift the leg toward a kick coming from underneath it.

Jabs collide rather than pass, so the lead hand becomes a tool for control and framing more than for scoring. The rear cross has a clear path down the middle if you win outside foot position, and no path at all if you lose it. Everything in the open-stance exchange follows from who owns that outside position, and it changes several times a round.

The rear round kick in open stance travels to the opponent’s open side rather than into their guarded side, which is why southpaw round kicks to the body land more often against orthodox fighters. The inside low kick, as above, is the highest-value low attack. And the lead hook kick or question-mark kick works because the opponent’s guard is oriented toward the wrong side.

Roughly one fighter in eight is southpaw, so most orthodox fighters get eight times less practice against the stance than the reverse. The fix is deliberate: designate southpaw rounds in every sparring session regardless of who you are preparing for, and drill switching your own stance so that open stance is a position you can create rather than only one imposed on you.