Southpaw Playbook: Open-Side Geometry, the Foot War, and Rounds on the Schedule

Mat Manual companion guide to "The Southpaw Problem Is a Geometry Problem." Print it. The article draws the map. This book drills it: the geometry charted for both chairs, the lead-foot war as a leveled game, the lead-hand battle, the defensive rebuild on the open side, the mirrored clinch, and the partner-manufacturing system that gives any gym southpaw rounds every week.

Name: ______________________________ Gym: ______________________________ Your stance: ______________ Chair you're training: Orthodox vs SP / Southpaw vs Ortho

SAFETY, BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE ☐ The rear kick to the body is the matchup's money strike, and it lands on the liver's address on both sides. Pad and sparring intensities for body-kick drilling are agreed per drill, and a fighter who has taken a hard body shot sits the next exchange — always, without negotiation. ☐ Switch-stance volunteers (Part 9) are training partners doing the gym a service: their intensity is capped and their own game gets its rounds too. A manufacturing system that burns out its southpaw has manufactured nothing. ☐ Clinch work follows the gym's standing neck-safety rules (Range Playbook, this library). Mirrored grips change nothing about that. ☐ Sparring formats fencing weapons "off" (foot-war games, hand-battle rounds) are respected absolutely — the fenced weapon stays home even when the round is being lost without it.

Part 1: The Geometry Chart

Orthodox vs southpaw (open side)

Closed side (for completeness — the southpaw's rare mirror)

Southpaw vs southpaw reverts to closed geometry: rear weapons are checked by the lead side's furniture, and the standard game of your gym applies with stances mirrored. Southpaws: drill it occasionally or meet your own article someday.