Horse stance?

[Gerry Seymour]

Not sure, but I use the chair stance. No idea if that is real or not, but I do it as if sitting in dinner table chair. The traditional wooden ones. Anyway I commend on the balence there, but are you're knees not screaming?

That's the same as "chair pose" in yoga. I hate that thing as much as I hate deep horse stance - and for the same reason: my knees.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Huh, you ain't no whipper slapper for long, I can tell you Anyway, mine is more down to my scoliosis and balance issues. I tell you what though, try the chair combined with dynamic stretches back and forth. Well actually I should that is what I like doing. It may or not be a bit dodgy as an idea.

Many of my ideas are a bit dodgy, so I might give that one a try just on principle.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

lol.. only if you have your weight centered correctly so that you feel it in your thighs and not in your knees. Weight over your knees has the opposite effect and works a different set of tendons and ligaments which aren't as strong to begin with.

Second thought. The correction on that may be it works the same tendons but at their weakest and not their strongest point and forces more pressure and tension on the ligaments. This is probably a more accurate statement without me breaking out body charts.

Hmm... I might hold off on this until I can catch up with you in person. I'm probably better off waiting until someone who's well-acquainted with this for training makes sure I'm doing it properly. The last thing I need is to make my damned knees worse.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

Interesting. Our jigotai ("horse riding stance" is the translation, I think) is about this wide, but not nearly as deep in most circumstances.

When a horse stance is that wide, if you use your leg to "spring" (or "scoop") one of your opponent's legs from inside out (to make his base even larger), it will take you almost no effort to take him down. That stance will have very little resistance against "inside out spring/scoop".

 

[Gerry Seymour]

I'd consider that an extreme example, yes.
Anything we teach as a "stance" would be something you can move in and out of quickly, during sparring or fighting. That's not true of something that deep. It IS could exercise to stay in that position, though. We do an exercise where students drop about that low, then come up and throw a kick.

We teach the Horse Stance like this. Ignore the arms; this is taken from my 2nd book and shows one of the techniques in Keumgang.
View attachment 20315

That's pretty close to our jigotai, as well.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

When a horse stance is that wide, if you use your leg to "spring" one of his legs from inside out (to make his base even larger), it will take you almost no effort. That stance will have very little resistance against "inside out spring".

Our shoulder throw is part hip throw, so the hip is what moves their structure (fairly common in NGA, at least in my interpretation).

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Isshyin Ryu's 'horse stance' is called 'Shiko Dachi' as seen above. It's higher and not as wide as the horse stance shown by the OP.

The reason we are not as deep in the stance is because we believe it is important to be able to quickly transition in and out of it and kick from within it as well. Hard to do if the tops of your legs are parallel with the floor.

However, each style has their own horse stance and their own reasoning for it; I don't claim what we do it best; it's just what we do.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Isshyin Ryu's 'horse stance' is called 'Shiko Dachi' as seen above. It's higher and not as wide as the horse stance shown by the OP.

The reason we are not as deep in the stance is because we believe it is important to be able to quickly transition in and out of it and kick from within it as well. Hard to do if the tops of your legs are parallel with the floor.

However, each style has their own horse stance and their own reasoning for it; I don't claim what we do it best; it's just what we do.

I'm going to hang onto this image as a reference. I see most of our stances in that list.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

Our shoulder throw is part hip throw, so the hip is what moves their structure (fairly common in NGA, at least in my interpretation).

Our hip throw can be done in 2 different ways. The

1. Ancient way - use hip to bounce your opponent's feet off the ground.
2. Modern way - start from a low horse stance, straight your legs into a high horse stance, and lift your opponent off the ground. A new name is called "waist lift".

 

[Saheim]

Muay Thai horse stance training?

Horse stance, cross stance, cat stance training going on? Especially with the Tiger Steps boxing walk at 3:52. I guess it just depends on the type of Muay Thai school a person goes to as to how much significance the school puts on stance training place. My brother trains Muay Thai at his school and they don't do horse stance.

That's pretty interesting. Yea, I don't remember EVER being shown a Horse Stance in MT. I wasn't there for very long, maybe it was something that would've come up later. I don't know. I know that with every TMA I've been in, the Horse Stance is learned right away.

 

[RTKDCMB]

Try doing the invisible chair against the wall if you think Horse stance is bad.

 

[KangTsai]

Here's me doing a horse stance for two minutes before bed. It just burns your quads alot but nothing really exhausting. Heavy squats (I haven't tried over 80kg yet) make me hyperventilate in seconds. I'm about 71kg as of now - looking to cut more fat.

 

[KangTsai]

Try doing the invisible chair against the wall if you think Horse stance is bad.

That's harder because it isn't actually a static hold, but rather a constant push toward the wall. First-degree murders my quads in two minutes.

 

[Transk53]

That's the same as "chair pose" in yoga. I hate that thing as much as I hate deep horse stance - and for the same reason: my knees.

Yeah. I was doing some Yoga like Cobra for years without even realising it. One of my goals for 2017 is to try and link in to the spiritual element. Not donning a black robe and nicking a horse to spread some message, just simply out of curiosity. Yes but of course though, got to watch my right knee especially. It is starting to feel a little old lol.

 

[Transk53]

Here's me doing a horse stance for two minutes before bed. It just burns your quads alot but nothing really exhausting. Heavy squats (I haven't tried over 80kg yet) make me hyperventilate in seconds. I'm about 71kg as of now - looking to cut more fat.

Yeah. You can do that when you are 14. Brushing your teeth, just rubbing it in lol

 

[KabutoKouji]

in ITF I did do horse stances quite frequently for exercise - and I think there is a horse stance in the pattern Hwa Rang at the start, also the 'low/long L stance' in one of the patterns before it is almost low horse stance in angle for the 'back' leg.

 

[Transk53]

in ITF I did do horse stances quite frequently for exercise - and I think there is a horse stance in the pattern Hwa Rang at the start, also the 'low/long L stance' in one of the patterns before it is almost low horse stance in angle for the 'back' leg.

Have you an image or a link for that. Sounds interesting.

 

[KabutoKouji]

Have you an image or a link for that. Sounds interesting.

I'll find some when I get home for you - in Hwa Rang as far as I remember the pattern starts, step out from 'ready' stance into horse stance then two punches in horse stance, then the other side.

The low L stance part I was talking about is I think different depending on school, some people seem to do it lower than others - I can't remember the pattern name right now, but it's the one that starts with L Stance twin forearm knifehand block, cat stance back arm knifehand strike (possibly to neck), followed by the 'low L stance' part with a side on leading punch.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Our hip throw can be done in 2 different ways. The

1. Ancient way - use hip to bounce your opponent's feet off the ground.
2. Modern way - start from a low horse stance, straight your legs into a high horse stance, and lift your opponent off the ground. A new name is called "waist lift".

I'd need to see what you mean by the difference between the two. It sounds like we're doing a bit of both, so probably less of each, though our focus is closer to what you're calling the "modern way". We just don't go as low, and we use a hip rotation to augment it.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Yeah. I was doing some Yoga like Cobra for years without even realising it. One of my goals for 2017 is to try and link in to the spiritual element. Not donning a black robe and nicking a horse to spread some message, just simply out of curiosity. Yes but of course though, got to watch my right knee especially. It is starting to feel a little old lol.

I practice mostly the physical side. I've considered looking into the spiritual side, but it has just never drawn me. For the physical (and mental), I practice Vinyasa flow. It has helped my knees significantly, and you work with your breath throughout, which works well with my martial arts.