Many point fighters focus on counter-fighting, and their offense suffers as a result. Combine that with the fact that point fighting rules require you to pull your off-hand to a chambered position in order to score, and you have people leaving their heads wide open pretty often. They are also trained to expect the match to stop whenever there is a touch, so if they feel like they landed something, they often completely drop their guard, and get hit as a result. That's my experience and observations, anyway.

I mentioned this in my blog about point-fighting and self-defense, too.

The two biggest reasons involve the emphasis on kicking.

Kicking forces competitors to stand back, where the threat of getting punched in the face is relatively small and the threat of getting kicked in the body is much greater. This encourages point fighters to carry their hands low so they can block kicks, especially against opponents who cannot effectively kick to the head. It becomes a big problem against flexible opponents or when opponents close the gap.

The other problem is a stationary head. You see this in all combat sports that allow kicking. Fighters tend to stand straight up because it positions their faces above where most opponents can easily reach them with their feet—dipping down to avoid punches can get you knocked cold against someone with decent kicking skills.

Watch how well Tracy Thomas avoids Bad Brad Hefton’s punches, but how it sets him up for a huge knockout:

https://vimeo.com/253336016

Fighters mainly need to mind which hand positions best protect them within different distance relationships and adjust accordingly. Sometimes they can safely drop their hands, but when circumstances change, so must their guard positions.

I know Iain’s not a fan of holding your hands in a guard position, but if it takes away easy targets from an opponent or assailant, it can discourage attacks while giving you a relatively defensible position from which to launch your own.