# Short Flat Walk



## KCO (Sep 17, 2009)

How many of you use the short flat walk for advancing?  Do you find it more useful than other ways of getting to your opponent?  How long did you have to practice before it became second nature?


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## Nabakatsu (Sep 17, 2009)

Could you please be a little more specific?
I am a EBMAS student, we use Leung Tings footwork to the best of my knowledge. Our advancing step is as follows:
front foot, with no weight on it steps down a short distance in front of us, and we slide the near foot up while maintaining no weight on the front leg. there are multiple steps and different footwork depending on where our opponent(s) are located.. What exactly is a "short flat walk" ?


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## KCO (Sep 17, 2009)

feet are positioned facing either 2 or 10'oclock depending on which foot is forward...weight is on pole (rear) leg which is below your butt....hips face forward....push off- and pull your pole leg back under your butt........from this position you can either kick or block with your front foot.


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## Nabakatsu (Sep 17, 2009)

That sound's pretty similar to my footwork, except the pushing part, we drag our rear leg. We would push with the back foot to do for example a step where we were chasing an opponent who got away out of the range of a normal advancing step.


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## blindsage (Sep 17, 2009)

Nabakatsu said:


> Could you please be a little more specific?
> I am a EBMAS student, we use Leung Tings footwork to the best of my knowledge. Our advancing step is as follows:
> front foot, with no weight on it steps down a short distance in front of us, and we slide the near foot up while maintaining no weight on the front leg. there are multiple steps and different footwork depending on where our opponent(s) are located.. What exactly is a "short flat walk" ?


How do you slide up the rear foot with no weight on the front leg?


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## Nabakatsu (Sep 17, 2009)

We Stomp down with with our front foot and in that moment we use our adduction built up in our knee region to cover the ground, while the foot is on the ground, and it has connection to the earth, it's firmly placed on the ground, and if you tried to sweep it, it wouldn't be the easiest thing in the world to do, however if a greater force came our way, it takes no effort at all to let the leg be moved, or just move it out of the way ourselves, I haven't really gotten into much chi gerk, aside from chasing down a retreating opponent from lat sao, but I really can't wait, I feel like once you've got a decent enough ability to cope with some of that stuff, and a decent enough kick, even fewer untrained people will be able to cope with ya than if you were to just use hands and footwork.

Sorry to rant.


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## geezer (Sep 17, 2009)

blindsage said:


> How do you slide up the rear foot with no weight on the front leg?


 
This is the point where words fail to adequately describe something that is easy to understand if you see it demonstrated. 

Still, I'll give it a go...

The rear leg supports 100% of the body's "dead" weight like a barstool under your butt.

You extend your front leg and press down, "gripping" the ground... like sitting on that barstool but reaching out with your foot to step down and catch a dollar bill blowing past. I don't know why the bill would be _blowing_ along. Maybe it's an outside bar by the pool? But I digress...

Then you use the extended, ground-gripping front foot like a tractor to drag your body, barstool and all, forward. This is where the adduction comes into play. Also, you can kind of press or "pulse" forward with your hips to get the continuously weighted rear leg to scoot forward.

Now I just went over and tried this while actually sitting on a stool, grabbing it firmly with both hands and I was actually able to drag my body forward quite easily with my foot! ...at least on the linoleum floor. 

As to why you would want to learn how to do this step, well as Nabakatsu said, it allows you to move forward without ever committing your weight onto your lead foot. This means that the lead foot can be lifted at any instant to kick or defend _without you having to shift your weight_... since your leg is never bearing your body's weight to begin with. This makes transitioning from step to kick fast and non-telegraphic. It also makes it nearly impossible to be knocked down with a lead leg sweep. 

In fact, the only drawback I can see to this unique kind of stepping is that you can only step a limited distance before you tend to weight the lead foot. Still some individuals can advance surprisingly fast this way.

Now if you could just _duct tape_ that hypothetical barstool to your butt, preferably a barstool with _casters_ you could move really fast and kick with both feet at once! Just remember to stay on _level ground... _or you might just roll off into the sunset.


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## Decker (Sep 18, 2009)

Based on the above descriptions, I suppose really rough ground or ground with random debris would be quite disruptive to this movement technique?
It sounds like the rear foot is always being dragged... High friction between sole of rear foot/shoe and ground would be quite detrimental, no?


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## bully (Sep 18, 2009)

Decker said:


> Based on the above descriptions, I suppose really rough ground or ground with random debris would be quite disruptive to this movement technique?
> It sounds like the rear foot is always being dragged... High friction between sole of rear foot/shoe and ground would be quite detrimental, no?



Indeed, would wear your shoes out too.

I usually wear a platform rear shoe if I think I am going to get into a fight, just in case the sole on a normal shoe would wear out whilst I was moving in.:ultracool


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## geezer (Sep 18, 2009)

bully said:


> Indeed, would wear your shoes out too.
> 
> I usually wear a platform rear shoe if I think I am going to get into a fight, just in case the sole on a normal shoe would wear out whilst I was moving in.:ultracool


 
Good thinking. Personally, I'm just gonna put some bigger, _all-terrain type wheels_ on the bottom of that barstool I taped to my butt.


Ok seriously now, I suppose Decker's question deserves a response. I find that when moving on rough terrain you naturally default back to a more normal method of shuffle-stepping without any problem. Actually, on level terrain thats littered with junk, the WT back weighted step works quite well. The unweighted lead foot can feel and sweep any litter aside without stepping on it and causing you to lose your balance. 

Sometimes we used to train on parking lot behind the kwoon and throw down junk, like plastic bottles, spare escrima sticks, wadded up towels, and a length of old garden hose, just to make things interesting. Other times we'd take practice to a local park with hills, rocky soil, clumpy grass and tree roots. That's when the default stepping would kick in. Personally, I think training on different types of terrain is very important.


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## blindsage (Sep 18, 2009)

Nabakatsu and geezer, thanks for the explanations, but they don't seem to make sense to me.  If you are using you front leg to pull yourself at all you have to have enough weight on the leg to create enough friction to keep that foot in place while you pull the rest of your body forward.  I could understand if you said it was 70/30 or 80/20, maybe even 90/10, but 100% of your weight on your back leg seems to me a violation of really simple law of physics.


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## geezer (Sep 18, 2009)

blindsage said:


> Nabakatsu and geezer, thanks for the explanations, but they don't seem to make sense to me.  If you are using you front leg to pull yourself at all you have to have enough weight on the leg to create enough friction to keep that foot in place while you pull the rest of your body forward. * I could understand if you said it was 70/30 or 80/20, maybe even 90/10, but 100% of your weight on your back leg seems to me a violation of really simple law of physics.*



Yes, that's what makes WT so wonderful. It transcends the known laws of physics. But if you pay enough money to the High Poohbah and Pre-eminant Potentate of this system, you too will believe. 

Either that, or what we _really_ are doing is something more like an 80/20 or a 90/10 ratio of weight distribution. At any rate, our objective is to keep as much of our weight as possible on our back leg for the reasons described above. And by using a sort of hip thrust as you step, you really can move forward with almost all of your weight on the rear leg. Honestly!

Oh by the way, I do train the same system, but like many others I am no longer in any way connected with LT's WT organization, so this is strictly my take on things (ie _heresy!_).


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## BlueVino (Sep 19, 2009)

KCO said:


> How many of you use the short flat walk for advancing?  Do you find it more useful than other ways of getting to your opponent?  How long did you have to practice before it became second nature?



I'm coming to this thread a little late, so I'll just stick to the question at hand.

We use a step that we call "short flat walk" to advance, yes.
"More useful" is hard to say. In some situations, it is exclusively useful, in others, entirely worthless. It's a good way of moving straight while maintaining ground, and other bits of footwork leave you in a place where you can transition to that movement easily.

It's been a while, but best guess: it stopped feeling awkward after maybe 6 months, I started using it in conjunction with other things after a year, maybe a year and a half.

We work our beginners pretty hard on the fundamentals, which this is one. Your mileage may vary, based on how heavily the movement is emphasized in your school.


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## Domino (Sep 21, 2009)

Never heard of this walking, the rush and push comes from the back leg, burst of movement, gliding towards your target.
Never 100% on back leg, you would be a pushover.


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## geezer (Sep 21, 2009)

Domino said:


> Never heard of this walking, the rush and push comes from the back leg, burst of movement, gliding towards your target.
> Never 100% on back leg, you would be a pushover.


 
You might think so. Until you come up against someone who has a really good stance. They can root, they can yield and turn, or they can use that unweighted front leg to attack _your_ stance. That's the trouble with discussing technique online. You can't get together and try things out.

The ability to stand strong without shifting your weight forward is not unique to the WT lineage. Ask _Mook_ if he can describe how Tsui Sheung Tin can stand firmly on _just one leg._


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## Domino (Sep 24, 2009)

Thank you Geezer, will try some of this out.


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## The Mark (Oct 8, 2009)

We do the step as described by Geezer. Maybe to try and clarify the weighting a little bit, you are "settled" in the rear leg and the front leg has just the weight of the leg itself. In reality the wieght percentage is more like 90/10.

How do you move without shifting weight to the front leg? Practice, practice, practice. And then do some more. It takes time. As for different surfaces you adapt. If you are stable in one leg the terrain becomes less of an issue.

For us, the step described is for covering short distances and when in contact with the opponent. Other footwork is used for chasing and covering large distances. IMHO


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## geezer (Oct 8, 2009)

"Mark" in my experience, most 'chunners who use this heavily back-weighted stance and stepping have studied Leung Ting's "WT" or one of its off-shoots. What's your lineage?


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## Poor Uke (Oct 8, 2009)

Are we talking about 'biu ma' - arrow stepping?


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## The Mark (Oct 8, 2009)

My lineage? Are you trying to start something? Just kidding!!!

No Leung Tingat all. Leung Sheung through Kenneth Chung.


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