An advantageous idea of placing your strong hand as your lead has been drastically evolved since 1973, post Sifu Lee's untimely passing from this earthly life.
In our curriculum, in the Arizona state, both leads are equally emphasized and a student gets to slowly feel comfortable and at home, regardless of whether they play a right or left lead-----both intentionally or unintentionally. But your lead hand/leg play important roles-----IF and WHEN wisdom would dictate best possible efficiency! However, we are not obliged, nor is it effective, to maintain the strong side as our lead at all the times. Sometimes simplicity and efficiency dictate otherwise------depending on the type of fighter we are dealing with at the moment.
It happens so often that your lead hand and foot, are not only the tools that may be the closest weapons in making effective contacts with the person you are having an altercation with, but they also act like instruments which can get you into critical pockets of kicking and boxing rapidly, and enable you to retract back quick enough not to be hit, if you need to-----especially during the set up phase.
Another point to emphasize is that front lead hand/foot are used to detract attention, confuse intent, conserve energy, and pressure the opponent into physical and mental/emotional traps------creating time delays and forcing him into an over-committing balance which would lead to lagging of the fighter's movements------- making it much easier to touch and not get touched.
This short article does not do any fair justice to the insights that this topic can offer, but we just figured, to at least touch the topic lightly for now until maybe another time.
Thank you.
SHAHRAM MOOSAVI
480-489-7202