The first technique all our new Krav Maga students learn is the Passive Stance. This is your starting position for many of your self-defense techniques to simulate a surprise attack. However, there’s a Passive “Neutral” Stance and a Passive “Natural” Stance. A common questions is “What’s the difference between the two?” This video explains the differences between the Neutral and Natural Stances. It also demonstrates many variations of the Natural Stance and why it’s important to integrate it when practicing self-defense techniques.
Transcript:
“Hi, this is Randall with KravMagaTraining.com and in this video I’m going to explain the difference between your passive neutral stance and your passive natural stance.
This question comes up all the time because our students look at the curriculum and they see those are the first two things on the list and they want to know what the differences are. Well I’m going to explain that to you real quickly. It’s pretty simple.
Okay, first of all your passive neutral stance is this. Feet shoulder width apart and your hands are down. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Krav Maga that well: The reason why we use this stance is to simulate you being caught by surprise. So we’ll stand in this stance and then have our partner attack us from this position. Because not every fight is going to be you’re ready to go in your fighting stance. A lot of people are dirty bastards and they’re going to sneak up behind you and ‘oh shit!’ you realize you’re being attacked and they are going to be sneaky about it. So that’s why we train from this position a lot.
Now what’s the difference between this and the passive natural stance? Well the passive natural stance is ‘Well how do you really stand in life?’ I’m sorry but most people don’t stand with their feet perfectly shoulderwidth apart, toes straight ahead, hands down like this, nice and tall. Most people are going to stand something like this. Or whatever. So the reason why we need to mix it up a little bit is because once you get competent with a self defense technique you need to practice in different starting positions to simulate how you really would be standing. So let me give you some examples. We’re going to start from head to toe.
First of all your head position can be changed. So here’s my normal neutral stance. Well your natural stance you can be looking in different directions to simulate you’re distracted. I could be looking up at something. Looking off to the side. The bad guy says ‘Hey, there’s something on the floor. Can you help me pick it up?’ and then you look down and then they try to sucker punch you from this position. So start looking at different spots like this. And then have your partner attack you from that position to simulate even more of a surprise attack.
The next thing is you can change what you do with your arms. Your arms won’t always be down. They might be crossed like this. You might be standing like this. You might be scratching your head. Your hands might be behind you like this. A lot of times people stand like this. Maybe it’s cold out. When I lived in Oregon it was always fucking cold. So half the time you’re sitting here with your hands in your pocket, like all the time when you’re outside. So you need to practice with your hands in different spots like this. Maybe they’re occupied. Maybe you’re holding onto something. For those of you who have a backpack, maybe you’re holding onto that. Ladies might be carrying a purse. You should simulate those type of things. Have your partner attack you from those positions while your hands are occupied.
The next thing you need to change is your legs and your weight distribution. Once again, we don’t always have our feet perfectly shoulderwidth apart and our legs perfectly distributed. A lot of people stand like this. I know I catch myself standing like this a lot. You slouch over to one side or the other. Your feet are like this. And also, maybe you’re not always standing. Maybe sometimes your down on one knee, picking something up, you’re tying your shoe. You’re leaning against the wall hanging out. You could be, I’ll be right back, you’re sitting down. You’re in your car. You’re at a table. You’re at a picnic. At a park bench. All right, so you should practice all your self-defense techniques like this too. When you’re in different positions and then from this position and then you have to learn to protect yourself.
So that is what the natural stance is. It’s just simulating different scenarios of how we really would be in everyday life. So those are the differences between the neutral stance and the natural stance. I hope that explains that. Be sure to integrate it when you do your self-defense training.”
“Stop standing around and learn how to protect yourself while getting fit!”
