Combative hand postures

[Benjamin Peters]

There are more than enough examples of "hand positioning" to guard/position oneself in the best way before and during a fight. What are some of your examples and theories?

[meat]

My teacher taught me the best hand position to have is your hands up and relaxed at about chest height. The idea being that you're leaving your head wide open for the opponent to attack, thus there is probably a 90% chance that they will go for your head, therefore narrowing down the possibilities of where they will strike.

[Benjamin Peters]

meat,

Good post. Got a question for all of us reading this:-
If you have established your personal space, and have your hands in a good defensive (ready to attack) type posture, and the guy is about to come right up to your face do you (a) unleash a pre-emptive strike and follow ups or (b) allow him to come close and suffle back to re-establish the space? To what extent to you allow the 're-adjustment' to occur and what does this do to your command presence in the fight?

[meat]

Interesting question Ben. For me, it would be the preemptive strike. The law here says you can do it if there is a percieved threat, and I figure its best to a: get the first strike and element of surprise, and b: close the distance, as most systems don't teach ppl to fight in the close up grappling type range(which is where I'm most comfortable). And besides, keeping them at a distance means you will probably have to square off with them, which really doesn't appeal to me, I'd rather get it over with.

[Carl Elder]

My sensei taught me to keep one hand up about equal hieght of the nose and and about 1/3 extended. And the other hand down about equal height of the groin 1/3 extended. The idea is that if your hands just switch posistions they can block 90% of attacks without doing anything extra.