Martial Arts Stances that Work in a Fight

Newsletter 882

Hard and Soft Stances in the Martial Arts

One of the things I’m always trying to do
is mix the hard and the soft.
I’ve made pretty good inroads,
you can see me tossing people around
with effortless (intention only) techniques
in Five Army Tai Chi Chuan.

One of the places to start,
with this thing of mixing hard and soft,
is in the stances.

In TCC and PKC one is frequently in motion.
The stances are transitional,
you don’t stop and look at them,
unless you are pile stancing.
(Holding a stance in a static position)

In karate,
and other such arts,
you frequently hit the stance and lock to the ground.
So you have two ways of doing the stances.
Oddly,
all my research has proven to me
that both ways are half the picture,
and there is a ‘more right’ way of doing stances.

The Japanese have a saying:
‘stand squarely in the room.’
This means that you are balanced,
able to move in any direction
and without ‘pre-leaning.’

Taking this as the starting point
I worked with the basic sanchin stance,
but with slightly different emphasis.

The problem with sanchin is that people adapt it to different purposes.
Sanchin is for breathing,
for energy development,
for dynamic tension (muscles)
and so on.

I subscribe to all of those theories in part,
but none by itself.
Rather,
but them all together and cultivate chi power.
(Check out Matrixing Chi book)

So you stand with the feet shoulder width apart,
and one foot in front.
Draw a line, the toes of one foot should touch the line,
and the heel of the other foot should touch the line.

On the surface this is just a sanchin stance,
but you don’t lock yourself down,
you crouch slightly and realize
that with the feet in this position
you can move in any direction
without the need for ‘pre-leaning.’

Thus,
the stance is not dedicated to locking the body down,
but preparing the body for motion in any direction.

It’s not just the power in the legs,
but the slight crouch,
that builds tension
that can be used to propel the body in any direction.

I know,
some fellow is out there saying,
‘you didn’t know that?
Why, in my system we…’

But I have never seen anybody doing this stance
in exactly this way.
It is always locked down
so the person can build power.

Interestingly,
the closest representation to this type of stance
that I have seen,
is in Hsing I.

Now,
once you have played with this stance for a while,
you should put the feet more in line,
forward and back,
and still try to crouch,
to retain the ability to spring,
and the balance in all directions.

Thus,
one could say that in Monkey Boxing
there are only two stances.

Except that there aren’t.
But there are two concepts,
and the stances are built on these concepts.

But it might be that all studies of stances are merely an attempt
to manifest what I’ve said here:

the ability to spring in any direction without ‘pre-leaning,’

The hard isn’t right,
nor the soft,
rather,
they combine in a stance/concept that is overlooked.

Here’s a link for you
http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/3a-blinding-steel-matrixing-weapons/

Have a great work out!

Al

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/3a-blinding-steel-matrixing-weapons/

http://www.martialartsinstructortraining.com

http://www.amazon.com/Binary-Matrixing-Martial-Arts-Case/dp/1515149501/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1437625109&sr=8-1&keywords=binary+matrixing

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The Truth of the Horse Stance!

Doing the Horse Stance the Right Way

I originally was told
that the horse stance is for learning how to fight
while you’re on the back of a horse.

Then I was told it was for fighting side to side
while standing in rice paddies.

Kima Chasie ~ Horse Meditation

My own idea was that it was
for fighting on the sides of space ships.
There’s no gravity,
and you hook your feet under handles
so you can fight without flying off into space.

All ideas were probably a part of the truth,
which brings us to the real truth,
or at least as much as I can surmise
in the infancy of my ancient years.

Here’s part of a letter I wrote to a fellow
who asked me about the horse Stance.

Well, we differ here. The full data is somewhere in the Master Instructor Course, but, if you have a fellow stand with the feet shoulder width apart, feet out 45 degrees, and push across his shoulders, he will fall over. If you have him turn his feet straight, or even better, slightly in (hourglass stance), then he won’t fall over.

This gets very interesting, as you can have him feet out, feet in, again and again, and watch the results, and he loses confidence in the feet out stance and gets worse, and the feet in stance gets better. But he goes through some head gyrations trying to figure this all out.

Now, in a horse stance, because you are pushing down on the fellow he may not fall over, even if he has his feet pointing 45 degrees out, but he definitely doesn’t have as much root.

And, if a fellow is experienced, he may be able to drive his ground through a foot out stance and get away with it. But he is having to work way too hard to do it. Proper grounding requires no effort, no energy, you just drop the weight, align the body, and sink your thoughts.

Interestingly, I once heard a high level Gojo practitioner explain the foot out stance. Goju has those 45 degree foot out horse stances, you know.

He said the purpose was to make the small of the back softer. I have no idea what he meant. And, for that matter, there are a lot of things that Goju, and other arts, do that defies physics.

It often sounds like they are making up reasons without having any clue at all.

Anyway, speaking of physics, how I came up with this idea of foot in and foot out body testing came from when I was a kid. I used to examine medical pictures of the foot, and I examined my own foot, and I tried to understand how the thing worked.

Why was there an arch (spring), how should you run (walk)…with the feet straight so that foot could react in an anatomically correct manner. So you could best use the spring.

And this morphed into the reverse of spring, into proper grounding.

So it was an examination of the the foot, with physics and medicine (anatomy) in mind.

As opposed to softening the back for whatever reason.

Now, that all said, choose for yourself. Maybe there is something I don’t understand. I just try to present my viewpoint, and realize that I don’t know everything, that people have to come to their own conclusions.

And that is my official reasoning…
for now
viewpoint of the horse stance.

But the real truth,
aside from what I say,
or what anybody thinks,
happens when you do the horse stance
for a few years.

Do the Tekki forms.
Funakoshi is supposed to have spent ten years doing them,
and he highly recommended such practice.

I know in the Kang Duk Won
we practiced something called
Kima Chasie,
which meant ‘Horse Meditation.’
We would sit in the horse stance,
one hand in a high block and the other hand extended to the sides
with the fingers hooked around in a beak to the rear.
We would stare at the beak
and try to forget the pain,
focus on our breathing,
and just stay there.

Really worked.

Here’s a clip of the horse form.

And if you’re interested in more
of that sort of training,
Check out Temple Karate
on MonsterMartialArts.com.

Guaranteed good stuff.

Have yourself a great work out!

Al

http://www.amazon.com/Matrixing-Tong-Bei-Internal-Gung/dp/1507869290/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1423678613&sr=8-1&keywords=tong+bei

Using the Karate Stance to Build True Power in the Martial Arts!

Sinking and Screwing to Power Up Your Karate Stance

One of the main differences between art and sport in the arena of the Martial Arts, is the ability to sink and screw, such as in good Karate stance.

This difference, what I refer to as sink and screw in Karate Stances, is drastic. Oddly, almost nobody ever talks about it, or, if they do, they pass it off.

The Secret Of Chi Power Through The Horse Stance

The Instructor stood in the Horse Stance for the whole lesson. The students listening, also in the straddle stance, were sweating and even dropping in pain. Sensei smiled with every student that dropped down to the mat.

Was he cruel? Nope. It was just good training, and a sensei that practiced what he preached.

Of course, I wanted to know the secret of how he was making it look so easy. How could he stand in that stance for such a long period of time, fresh as a breeze, not even thinking about the incredible pain that had to be shooting through his legs. I mean,the pain was running through my legs, why was he immune?

The Horse Stance is one of the basic stances of almost every martial art. It is known as Mabu in the Chinese oriented Martial Arts, and as Kiba Dachi in the Japanese fighting systems. There are many legends concerning where Horse Stance Training came from.

Some say it was developed for close combat while actually riding horses in battle. Others say it was developed for fighting sideways in rice paddies. The truth is nowhere near these romantic rumors.

The truth is that the Horse Stance was developed to enable students to better grip the ground. This idea of gripping the ground is called ‘rooting.’ In my martial arts system, which has a more scientific approach, we call it ‘grounding.’ Regardless of what you call it, gripping the ground is critical to fighting, and to the accomplishment of the real martial arts.

The body is nothing more than a machine, and a machine must be fastened to something to be effective. A motor must be attached to a surface, a car engine must have motor mounts, even a helicopter is ‘fastened’ to the air by the little ‘side propellor’ on the tail. In the martial arts the Horse Stance attaches the body to the earth.

Once the body is ‘bolted down’ to the earth it is able to move faster and quicker, for it will have a better launch. And, it will be able to hold to the earth more efficiently, which will enable a person to better defeat incoming attacks while not losing his position. Ultimately, however, the real secret in horse stance training is that the body/motor, once fastened to the earth through the Horse Stance, will create energy, and that energy is what we call Chi Power, and the growth and use of this chi power is the secret of the real martial arts. Real Chi Power can be yours if you fix your martial arts forms. Head on over to Monster Martial Arts to find out how.