Stances

[hkfuie]

No, no, I meant no challenge at all. Bob can do whatever he wants, but since this board is read by people of all different levels of experience, I just didn't want his post to be out there without someone pointing out that most of the time, it's probably a bad idea to leave your hands at your sides. If you can do this regularly with impunity, it's probably time to seek out better sparring partners.

Aww! Guess there's no show here. Move along folks. Get back to your discussion of stances!

Just like everything else, the stance is a tool. If you don't do it long enough to get it, there's not much use for it for YOU!

Reminds me of a little story. Only peripherally related...I like to visit other instructors and sometimes they invite me to work out. I worked out in the very nice studio where first thing we do is go to a stance, of course. Immediately the instructor says, "Oh, I gave up on those traditional stances years ago." Oh, well. I took it as a compliment. Of course he felt he had to say something to let his students know he expects them to think my stances are wrong! I still enjoyed his class.

Don't you think it's little comments like this that make it difficult for martial artists to get along? Especially if the visitor takes it in the worst possible way. I have seen that happen.

Personally, I think my stances have been the key to my developing better rooting and balance, but that is because that is what I have done. I cannot know if higher stances would have given me the same knowledge because I have always done low stance arts.

 

[hkfuie]

Not all Japanese stances are deep, in Wado the stances are higher and shorter than Shotokan but not as 'high' as walking stance in TKD.
if you look at Iain Abernethys videos you'll see the Bunkai for the front stance which many think are pointless as you'd never fight in 'front stance', it gives good reason why the hand is on the hip too.

I plan to check out more on Abernethy. Have been meaning to for a long time. Also I get an inkling of this from Stuart Anslow's book, which I have but have not studied enough.

Even outside the cool bunkai, as I said, the stances for me have developed rooting and balance. The roots of the tree, etc. which are so fundamental to what happens with the rest of the body.

But front stance I have always seen as transitional, to use for more power or to increase reach of the back hand.

 

[Tez3]

I plan to check out more on Abernethy. Have been meaning to for a long time. Also I get an inkling of this from Stuart Anslow's book, which I have but have not studied enough.

Even outside the cool bunkai, as I said, the stances for me have developed rooting and balance. The roots of the tree, etc. which are so fundamental to what happens with the rest of the body.

But front stance I have always seen as transitional, to use for more power or to increase reach of the back hand.

Iain is literally inspirational! have a look at his forum too, you can get to it from his website. He also sends out newsletters and a free online magazine Jissen.

http://www.iainabernethy.com/

 

[dancingalone]

Personally, I think my stances have been the key to my developing better rooting and balance, but that is because that is what I have done. I cannot know if higher stances would have given me the same knowledge because I have always done low stance arts.

You can tell the people who have trained sufficiently in stance work right away. They can fire off a kick without making a micro-step or other telling inefficiency. They understand you can use the vertical axis in addition to the horizontal one for avoiding blows and they have more exposure to the concept of 'uncoiling' to generate power.

Guys who stand way up high all the time, whether it's in sparring or forms, just haven't had the same training in my experience.

 

[dancingalone]

I picked up the lower stances early on in TKD after working out with a few Goju-Ryu and Shotokan people. I noticed that they kicked like mules and the only real difference between the way we were working out was the deep stances.

Goju-ryu, at least the Okinawan variant, focuses much time on sanchin rooting. This ultimately teaches the karate-ka how to ground themselves while kicking, making his strikes more forceful.

 

[TKDHermit]

i duno about u guys but a number of national fighters in singapore, their sparring [WTF style] stance are like the forward stance [front stance bow stance wadever], except their body are slanted slightly forward and about 30-45 deg to the side [no front kicks please] and their hind legs are bent. for me im probably doing about the same thing, but with my hands guarding the lower half/middle part of my hogu instead of dropping down the side. Sometimes against faster opponents i would use a higher stanec than the forward stance, because bending lower n wider = having my hind leg further = more time taken for it to reach the target. so yeah. thats me. oh but im not a national fighter though ><

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

Just look at 'official' training type videos of Shotokan kata from the JKA and then compare them to the WTF poomse videos like Dartfish or whatever is the current standard. The Shotokan zenkutsu dachi is inevitably deeper and longer than the WTF 'walking' stance.

The lower stances in Shotokan are really only for strengthening the legs and to match the Japanese sense of aesthetics in kata. When Shotokan people spar, they're as upright as anyone else for mobility's sake.

Probably right regardign the low stances in kata. I am encouraged to maintain as low a stance as possible in poomsae (when appropriate) because of my height; GM Kim thinks my low stances look great because when I go low, my leg length tends to emphasize the stance visually. Also, in kumdo, particularly in the ildan and yidan hyung, we have very deep stances. Couple that with a little shotokan and tang soo do way, way back in the day, and I tend to wind up making my lower stances in taekwondo very deep.

Daniel

 

[BrandonLucas]

I think it's a great idea to practice low stances in any style. We don't do alot of deep stances in class alot, but every once in a while our instructor will have us make our stances much deeper than normal.

It does a great deal for conditioning of the leg muscles, and it really seems, at least for me, to make me pay more attention to my stance in general, including the positioning of my hands.

I think of it the same way as practicing my forms at half speed, or with concentration. It may not taught that way, but for practicing, it's a pretty cool idea to try on your own.

 

[dancingalone]

I think of it the same way as practicing my forms at half speed, or with concentration. It may not taught that way, but for practicing, it's a pretty cool idea to try on your own.

Yeah, but to reap any of the strengthening benefits you really have to do it consistently and not just as an occasional event. Reportedly, many of the old karate masters had their students work at conditioning for months, even years, before they were taught anything martial. Makes sense if you can get someone to stick it out that long, since a lot of this fighting stuff is greatly amplified if you have a strong core.

That patient approach won't fly today, but you get the idea. There's a Chinese training proverb that says you have to let the form soak into your bones, referring to the long hours spent in demanding positions all to build strength or flexibility.

 

[AMP-RYU]

No offense intended but this is my observation for anyone reading your post: having unsound positioning of your hands is a recipe for disaster against a good enough opponent. Against someone comparably skilled or better than yourself, having your hands ready for defending or countering is a must. Ideally you're trying to set up an exchange where you have 1 or 2 options available while your opponent always has at worst 1 option and at best, none.

You can get away with a risky lure like that only against inferior partners.

Yes but you don't know me at all so you can't judge the way I fight. While my hands are down, I'm also in a back stance with my front leg not bearing any weight. This hence allows me to block with my leg instead of my hands. I'd PUT MY LITTLE RISKY LURE, UP AGAINST SOME GOOD OPPONANTS ANY TIME, MY MAN. Don 't start speaking against my way if you dont know me and never seen me spar!!!!!!:shrug:

 

[AMP-RYU]

Yes but you don't know me at all so you can't judge the way I fight. While my hands are down, I'm also in a back stance with my front leg not bearing any weight. This hence allows me to block with my leg instead of my hands. I'd PUT MY LITTLE RISKY LURE, UP AGAINST SOME GOOD OPPONANTS ANY TIME, MY MAN. Don 't start speaking against my way if you dont know me and never seen me spar!!!!!!:shrug:

I also dance a little while I spar as well, but I guess that's not the way either! When you get to a level of expertise, you start doing things your own way, and this is mine. I have fun sparring and havent lost much my man! This thread was just asking our opinion, not asking to critisize others posts!

 

[AMP-RYU]

No, no, I meant no challenge at all. Bob can do whatever he wants, but since this board is read by people of all different levels of experience, I just didn't want his post to be out there without someone pointing out that most of the time, it's probably a bad idea to leave your hands at your sides. If you can do this regularly with impunity, it's probably time to seek out better sparring partners.

Well since you don't list any of your background in your profile, Im not sure if your better or not, I would hope so if your calling out a martial artists style!

 

[dancingalone]

Bob, Amp, Jimmy, YounWha, or whatever your current handle is:

Merry Christmas! I'm sorry you were offended by my post. I did state it was more for public consumption for newbies when I said it was likely a bad idea to keep your hands down by your sides. That's a true enough statement unless you (the figurative you) are far better than your competition.

You are of course free to do whatever you like.

 

[AMP-RYU]

Bob, Amp, Jimmy, YounWha, or whatever your current handle is:

Merry Christmas! I'm sorry you were offended by my post. I did state it was more for public consumption for newbies when I said it was likely a bad idea to keep your hands down by your sides. That's a true enough statement unless you (the figurative you) are far better than your competition.

You are of course free to do whatever you like.

Thank You, that is all I wanted to here! But the way you stated it, made it sound like I'm doing things "wrong" and I don't want newbies thinking I don't know what I'm doing. Thank You for this response.

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

Thank You, that is all I wanted to here! But the way you stated it, made it sound like I'm doing things "wrong" and I don't want newbies thinking I don't know what I'm doing. Thank You for this response.

Hands down sparring is pretty much par for the course at the higher levels of sport taekwondo in the WTF, which is the sparring style that your former(?) org seems to do. Watch any video of the top olympic competitors and nearly all of them have their hands down. I see it as more of a sport peculiarity than anything else. Definitely requires a strong distance sense and good timing, but if you have those, you can certainly make it work.

Daniel

 

[AMP-RYU]

Hands down sparring is pretty much par for the course at the higher levels of sport taekwondo in the WTF, which is the sparring style that your former(?) org seems to do. Watch any video of the top olympic competitors and nearly all of them have their hands down. I see it as more of a sport peculiarity than anything else. Definitely requires a strong distance sense and good timing, but if you have those, you can certainly make it work.

Daniel

Thanks my man!

 

[matt.m]

Too true, I mean for the love of god the Japanese didn't "Invent" long stances. Too think so is absurd.

We use TKD stances. The low ones! Ha, ha!

I guess you would call them the Japanese style stances. But since that was how it was taught to my instructor's instructor by his TKD instructor from Korea, I cannot help but think of them as TKD stances.

 

[matt.m]

My biggest problem with the discussions on this board are the fact that everything gets compared to the WTF. You guys know that schools learned the "Old school" dinosaur ITF Chang Hon hyungs first. The WTF is not the end all be all of TKD it is just one piece of TKD. These stances are very deep indeed. Also when you look at the later forms between the two then there are many similiarties in the techniques used. However, remember this......the ITF came before the WTF. Personally I much prefer the ITF hyung to the WTF poomsea. But Hapkido and Judo are delved into power and stable stances.

A little help Kacey?

Just look at 'official' training type videos of Shotokan kata from the JKA and then compare them to the WTF poomse videos like Dartfish or whatever is the current standard. The Shotokan zenkutsu dachi is inevitably deeper and longer than the WTF 'walking' stance.

The lower stances in Shotokan are really only for strengthening the legs and to match the Japanese sense of aesthetics in kata. When Shotokan people spar, they're as upright as anyone else for mobility's sake.

 

[dancingalone]

My biggest problem with the discussions on this board are the fact that everything gets compared to the WTF. You guys know that schools learned the "Old school" dinosaur ITF Chang Hon hyungs first. The WTF is not the end all be all of TKD it is just one piece of TKD. These stances are very deep indeed. Also when you look at the later forms between the two then there are many similiarties in the techniques used. However, remember this......the ITF came before the WTF. Personally I much prefer the ITF hyung to the WTF poomsea. But Hapkido and Judo are delved into power and stable stances.

That's a fair complaint. The WTF probably comes first to mind for me, because they're the most dominant association worldwide. For better or worse, they're the bell cow right now for the state of taekwondo. And yes, relatively high stances are an enduring characteristic in many martial artists' minds when they think of TKD.

However, even if you want to compare ITF vs. Shotokan, I'll still argue the karate guys hold a slightly deeper front stance. Look at these two videos where a TKD 5th dan is performing Chon-Ji and then look at the one of Kanazawa Sensei playing Heian Shodan.

http://files.filefront.com/Chon+ji/;10046892;/fileinfo.html

Granted Kanazawa is considered one of the greatest karate-ka the JKA produced, but his front stance is a bit deeper (look at the angle his front knee forms) and most consistent. He also straightens his supporting back leg more in the front stance, which combined with the lack of sine wave movement, makes performing this fundamental kata more difficult from a leg strength perspective. Moving up and down no matter how minimal takes a lot of strain off your quadriceps and calf muscles.

I don't see the problem in acknowledging that Shotokan karate generally teaches a deeper stance than taekwondo does. It seems like a basic fact, just like the observation that taekwondo has a deeper chamber with more hip action used in the sidekick than Shotokan does.

 

[dancingalone]

Too true, I mean for the love of god the Japanese didn't "Invent" long stances. Too think so is absurd.

No, they didn't. The Shotokan students of Gichin Funakoshi gradually adapted his teachings to favor a long stance. Later as General Choi and other students of karate began to make their contributions into what is now known as taekwondo, they brought a similar predilection for long stances.

Interestingly enough, all the 'native' examples of Korean kung fu I'm aware of like kwon bup employ a relatively high stance, looking at times a lot like the old styles that went into what is now called chang quan.

This below link is of Kim Soo, one of the early TKD pioneers who resisted General Choi's consolidation of Korean martial arts, performing a two man kwon bup set with his son.

High stances as you can see. Are you aware of any native Korean MA that employs a low stance? I understand there is some Korean mantis out there although I've never see any live or even on video. Perhaps that may be an example.