There are a few reasons for this.
- Your hands are part of your guard. If your hands aren’t in contact with your opponent’s body, causing pain or manipulating their guard and expectations, they should be on your face. You can’t get hit if your gloves are in the way. Simple.
- You’re far more accurate if your punches issue from your chin. Some people prefer to guard higher, keeping the hands near the top of the head for better coverage and effective use of the forearms for blocking. When you punch, however, lower the hands to your chin. Wild punches coming from your chest are going to be all over the show, as futile as trying to hit a pigeon with a roman candle.
- Lastly, yet of equal importance to the first two points is that if your hands do nothing other than travel to the target and then back to guard, there is little for your opponent to see and little indication that it’s coming.
