# Stances and their real world uses



## GojuTommy (Dec 13, 2022)

Watching this, we basically have Mike doing zenkustu dachi,
And I definitely see a lot of people in karate struggling to understand how to actually work their stances into real world usage, and head movement has been my theory about the actual usage of stances for a while now.


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## J. Pickard (Dec 14, 2022)

Stances are practiced in kihon and kata in a static way to learn very specific concepts but stances are not static in practice. If you take a fight between two trained fighters and watch it frame by frame you would be surprised how frequently they look like they are using "traditional" stances.


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## GojuTommy (Dec 14, 2022)

J. Pickard said:


> Stances are practiced in kihon and kata in a static way to learn very specific concepts but stances are not static in practice. If you take a fight between two trained fighters and watch it frame by frame you would be surprised how frequently they look like they are using "traditional" stances.


I am well aware of that, and in my experience even in a dojo that did continuous contact sparring the way we trained, and the way we fought had a massive disconnect.

Unfortunately learning to fight isn’t like in karate kid 1, where you do something a lot with no clue how it pertains to fighting and then suddenly you’re able to do it. 
Karate schools need to close that gap.

My favorite thing is the people who would say “oh that’s not even remotely close to any karate stances!” Lol


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## wab25 (Dec 15, 2022)

What's wrong with the real world use for stances being a training tool? That is their best real world use. Used as a training tool, they have a lot to teach.

At the beginning, many people have to learn how to walk... literally. Ever watch people rock side to side with their entire body, in order to take a step? Or people that lean forward, and use their legs and feet to keep them up as they fall forward? Many people come up with ways to walk, that do not articulate the hips, knees, and ankles in an efficient manor. Stance work forces you to walk in a different way, if you have one of these less efficient types of walks. This alone can make you better at fighting....

Stances teach rooting, balance, structure, power generation, movement, turning.... at the basic level. Then they teach how to move while keeping that balance. How to lunge, without over extending. Once we have learned how to generate the power, it teaches us how to put that power into our hands and feet, in different directions. It teaches us how to move your body... In order for this punch to produce power in that direction, I have to adjust my body.... 

I don't believe that most stances are meant to actually fight from. I think that they are exaggerations, that were designed to allow us to focus on small details found with in a normal fighting stance. By getting low, and wide and big... you have to get the details right in order to make the move you want to make. Take the walking example from before. At a normal stance, it is easy to rock to the side, so that your other foot comes off the ground, so you can fling it forward. You can just move your head to the side to shift the balance when you step, instead of moving your hips. Now, when you get into a low, wide karate stance... you can not lean to the side enough to pick your foot up or even to counter balance with your head... you must use your hips. It takes your ability to cheat away (mostly).

The details you focus on with the stances, then show up in your fighting stance. They are hard to see, as they are small. But, they do make a difference that you can feel. 

Why do we never see threads about how boxers use their jump roping in the ring? We never break down a boxers stance and footwork while in the ring to show "look, this is the same stance he had when jumping rope... his hands are down by his waist, one on each side, his feet close together, he has just jumped up from both feet.... then he ate the punch that put him through the ropes...." We just accept that jumping rope develops a number of things for the boxer, that he will use in the ring, even though we know he will never assume the jump rope stance in a fight. Same should go for stances. They are tools to teach things. Specifically, they magnify problem areas, allowing you to practice fixing those problems and improving those areas, so that those improvements will show up in your natural fighting stance.


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## GojuTommy (Dec 15, 2022)

wab25 said:


> What's wrong with the real world use for stances being a training tool? That is their best real world use. Used as a training tool, they have a lot to teach.
> 
> At the beginning, many people have to learn how to walk... literally. Ever watch people rock side to side with their entire body, in order to take a step? Or people that lean forward, and use their legs and feet to keep them up as they fall forward? Many people come up with ways to walk, that do not articulate the hips, knees, and ankles in an efficient manor. Stance work forces you to walk in a different way, if you have one of these less efficient types of walks. This alone can make you better at fighting....
> 
> ...


Didn’t read this whole essay, but the idea that common methods of training stances is comparable to jumping rope shows that you are either being intentionally dense or really don’t understand training methods as a whole.

No boxing coach claims that jumping rope itself is directly related to fighting and everyone understands that jumping rope is a cardio exercise, and boxers don’t spend an overwhelming amount of their training time jumping rope. Karateka spend most of their time training engaged in stances in some manner. Speed bag would have been a slightly better comparison, but again boxing coaches tell people speed bag is for hand/eye coordination and reflexes, and no boxing coach is implying that you’ll punch a person like you hit a speed bag.

Meanwhile karate instructors run around talking about the importance of kata and everything within it for fighting, which includes stances. If an instructor is using stances for the sole purpose of strengthening leg muscles that’s fine, but then they shouldn’t be saying things that lead students to believe they should be trying to do those stances in a fight.

Most karate instructors talk about the importance of stances and their students spend a lot of time doing stances, but those instructors never bridge the gap between stances in drills including kata, and how to apply them to fighting.

As for power generation that’s just a flat out lie. Karate stances are flat footed, and if you want to generate power you use your rear foot to push off the ball of the foot to generate power. There’s so much BS about power generation in karate and other TMAs it’s absolutely ridiculous.

I agree most stances are exaggerations, but the word stance is a poor translation and dachi means something closer to step if Jesse enkamp is to be believed.
Stances are very short term transitional steps. It’s easy to see how they can be used to open up or close a gap with most of them, but using them to take angles and for head movement is something most karateka never seem to figure out. Mostly it seems because most karateka seem to think their technique while actually fighting should look the same as when doing kata.


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## Holmejr (Dec 15, 2022)

Just like techniques, stances happen in a blink of an eye. We learn a technique almost in slow motion, but it can’t stay that way to be effective. The seamless transition from stance to stance eventually becomes footwork. It’s what make most techniques work.


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## GojuTommy (Dec 15, 2022)

Holmejr said:


> Just like techniques, stances happen in a blink of an eye. We learn a technique almost in slow motion, but it can’t stay that way to be effective. The seamless transition from stance to stance eventually becomes footwork. It’s what make most techniques work.


It’s just unfortunate that doesn’t seem to be the way they’re taught to a lot of people.


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## isshinryuronin (Dec 15, 2022)

GojuTommy said:


> even in a dojo that did continuous contact sparring the way we trained, and the way we fought had a massive disconnect.


This is often the case.  The disconnect comes from the evolution of karate from pure combat to competitive sport, both in sparring and forms.  Most training, especially in forms and stances, are from the original style of karate and often do not translate well to the modern sport style of fighting.  



wab25 said:


> I don't believe that most stances are meant to actually fight from. I think that they are exaggerations, that were designed to allow us to focus on small details found with in a normal fighting stance. By getting low, and wide and big... you have to get the details right in order to make the move you want to make.


To continue from the above explanation:   Original karate was done close-in with a lot of stand-up grappling, torquing joints and takedowns, something not seen in modern sparring, so the stances were designed for that use. So, trying to apply these stances to modern sparring seems like they are not effective.  But when used as originally intended, they are often effective.    


GojuTommy said:


> Most karate instructors talk about the importance of stances and their students spend a lot of time doing stances, but those instructors never bridge the gap between stances in drills including kata, and how to apply them to fighting.


You have to apply them the way they were designed to be used.  


GojuTommy said:


> Stances are very short term transitional steps. It’s easy to see how they can be used to open up or close a gap with most of them, but using them to take angles and for head movement is something most karateka never seem to figure out.


Often true.


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## Kung Fu Wang (Dec 15, 2022)

isshinryuronin said:


> Original karate was done close-in with a lot of stand-up grappling, torquing joints and takedowns, something not seen in modern sparring, so the stances were designed for that use. So, trying to apply these stances to modern sparring seems like they are not effective.  But when used as originally intended, they are often effective.


Agree with you 100% on this. Here is a good example. This stance may not make sense to a striker. It looks like a bow-arrow stance, but the foot turn outward. When your opponent uses foot sweep on you, you turn your shin bone to meet his foot sweep. If foot sweep is not allowed (and shin bite is not allowed) in sparring, you will never use this stance.


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## JowGaWolf (Dec 15, 2022)

Hmm.. I'm usually all over this stance conversation.  Not like me to have nothing to say about stances. At least this time around.


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## wab25 (Dec 16, 2022)

GojuTommy said:


> Didn’t read this whole essay


Its okay... I did read your response though. I like to read all of what a poster says before responding to them... but that is just me.



GojuTommy said:


> everyone understands that jumping rope is a cardio exercise


If that is all you are getting out of jumping rope, you are missing a few things. Why not skip the jump rope and run a few minutes longer? Hint, the answer is that there are other things, besides cardio in jumping rope, that you don't get from other cardio exercises, that pertain to boxing.



GojuTommy said:


> As for power generation that’s just a flat out lie. Karate stances are flat footed, and if you want to generate power you use your rear foot to push off the ball of the foot to generate power.


Last time I did the front stance... my back leg was locked out straight. The only push you get from the back leg, is from the ankle straightening. When you make that step forward lunge punch, the power comes from the front foot. The front foot pulls you forward, until your body gets ahead of it, and it becomes the back leg and then it begins to push. Sure, when fighting, I do not get into such a deep stance and I use the back leg to push (which you can do from a more natural stance...) but I also use the front leg to pull. I have two legs, so I use both, together, to generate more power than just using the one. It also means that I can close distance faster...

When you generate power, the first thing you need is a structure and foundation. Which is what the stances are. As you move from stance to stance, or take steps in the same stance... you are moving your body weight. When you have 200 pounds of weight moving, thats a significant amount of power. Sure, you should add your muscle to that power... but its not and either or thing... unless you never learn to use your body weight / mass to generate power. Just shifting from back stance to front stance, when done correctly, can generate a lot of power, without a lot of muscle. Add muscle in to that movement, at the right place, and you generate a lot of power.

I guess Karate instructors are not the only ones guilty of not closing the gap...


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## Kung Fu Wang (Dec 16, 2022)

isshinryuronin said:


> Original karate was done close-in with a lot of stand-up grappling, ...


This stance also doesn't make sense for the striking art. It only makes sense for the throwing art.


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## Kung Fu Wang (Dec 16, 2022)

wab25 said:


> Last time I did the front stance... my back leg was locked out straight.


The front stance (bow-arrow stance) should be the end of a punch. Before that punch, your back leg should be bending.

You have to compress before you can release. The front stance is the end of the releasing. IMO, the compressing stage is more important for discussion. Usually the compressing stage is either a horse stance, 4-6 stance (40%-60% weight distribution), or a 3-7 stance.

In this clip, the compressing stage is a horse stance.


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## drop bear (Dec 16, 2022)

The issue is that you are using stances differently to the way you are applying them. Stances like skipping rope or ladder work are exercises that resemble the skills you need to employ to make stances work in a fight.











 Stances like static holds and walking have too many steps away from application for it to be efficient use of training time.


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## JowGaWolf (Dec 16, 2022)

isshinryuronin said:


> Original karate was done close-in with a lot of stand-up grappling, torquing joints and takedowns, something not seen in modern sparring,


I started noticing this with my sparring.  When I'm defending against arm control I often think of things like. "I wonder if I can pluck his eyeball from this clinch."   At close range I can touch my opponent's face at will.  There's  little resistance and a lot of the unique strikes begin to make sense. At the minimum it appears that there is more opportunity to pull off some real kung fu.


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## GojuTommy (Dec 16, 2022)

isshinryuronin said:


> This is often the case.  The disconnect comes from the evolution of karate from pure combat to competitive sport, both in sparring and forms.  Most training, especially in forms and stances, are from the original style of karate and often do not translate well to the modern sport style of fighting.
> 
> 
> To continue from the above explanation:   Original karate was done close-in with a lot of stand-up grappling, torquing joints and takedowns, something not seen in modern sparring, so the stances were designed for that use. So, trying to apply these stances to modern sparring seems like they are not effective.  But when used as originally intended, they are often effective.
> ...


Karate training doesn’t translate well to self defense or combat sport.

As for the old way of training which old way? Old school PE method, or the pre-integration to the school systems? Because the former was never really intended to teach people to fight and that’s what influenced modern karate training the most. The latter it’s nearly impossible to know how they trained before school integration.

We know they did kata, and had some S&C exercises but beyond that there’s very few records of how things were trained 170 years ago.


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## GojuTommy (Dec 16, 2022)

wab25 said:


> Its okay... I did read your response though. I like to read all of what a poster says before responding to them... but that is just me.
> 
> 
> If that is all you are getting out of jumping rope, you are missing a few things. Why not skip the jump rope and run a few minutes longer? Hint, the answer is that there are other things, besides cardio in jumping rope, that you don't get from other cardio exercises, that pertain to boxing.
> ...


Holy **** the method you describe of generating power with zenkustu dachi is absolutely ridiculous.


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## Kung Fu Wang (Dec 16, 2022)

The best fighting stance is a stance that you can spring from it. That's more weight on the back bending leg, and you can raise your leading foot whenever you want to.


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## wab25 (Dec 16, 2022)

Kung Fu Wang said:


> The front stance (bow-arrow stance) should be the end of a punch. Before that punch, your back leg should be bending.
> 
> You have to compress before you can release. The front stance is the end of the releasing. IMO, the compressing stage is more important for discussion. Usually the compressing stage is either a horse stance, 4-6 stance (40%-60% weight distribution), or a 3-7 stance.


That may be true for Chinese arts. In Karate arts it is as I said... back leg is straight:








						Zenkutsu Dachi - Bujutsu Martial Arts Centre
					

Zenkutsu Dachi is a stance used by the Japan Karate Association and is a very common stance in the Shotokan world. Zenkutsu Dachi is also known as forward stance and front stance. In Zenkutsu Dachi the front knee is bent so that the front of the knee is in line with the big toe. The […]



					bujutsumartialarts.com.au
				





> In Zenkutsu Dachi the front knee is bent so that the front of the knee is in line with the big toe.
> 
> The outside edge of the front foot should be in a straight line, this means that the big toe must be turned in a bit to achieve this straight line.
> 
> *The back leg is straight.*



Below, you can see the lunge punch thrown from front stance. What he does not go into, is that the first part of the movement (he calls it step 1) you are pulling your self forward, before pushing. Front leg pulls, before becoming back leg and pushing.


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## Kung Fu Wang (Dec 16, 2022)

wab25 said:


> That may be true for Chinese arts. In Karate arts it is as I said... back leg is straight:


I didn't know that. Thanks for pointing that out. Do Karate guys use front stance as a fighting stance?

I believe after the punch (power generation), the back leg should slide forward (bend). This way if your opponent steps back, you can step forward quickly.

I have always believed that a striker should have fast footwork. In the following clip, you don't see stances. You only see steps.


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## wab25 (Dec 16, 2022)

GojuTommy said:


> Holy **** the method you describe of generating power with zenkustu dachi is absolutely ridiculous.


I guess this guy is full of it too....




 Go to 35 seconds in where he talks about transfer of weight to put power into the punches. When you throw the straight right, you transfer your weight to your front foot, when you throw the hook, you transfer your weight to the back foot. This transfer puts your weight and movement of the weight into the power of the punch. Not that the guy in the video knows anything about punching....

Same thing when doing the lunge punch in karate. Your weight is moving behind the punch, driving it forward. Sure, you can only start to drive the punch, when the back leg becomes the front... and you can push with the other... or you can break the stance, and bring your back leg closer in, so you can bend the knee. But, the lunge punch from the front stance is to teach pulling with that front foot to initiate the power, and to put your weight behind the punch. 

Later, you start in back stance and throw the reverse punch. It does not work, as you run into your self. However, if you transition from back stance to front stance by moving you front leg out and forward... it creates a rotation of the body, forward momentum of the body and a body drop.... all while getting out of the way of the punch. This way you learn to drive the punch with the body weight behind it, supporting it and adding power.

Sure, boxing is a more efficient way to learn to punch. It teaches the same weight transfer, only much quicker. But remember, Karate is not just a striking art. It is also a grappling art. Those long over exaggerated moves (step forward lunge punch) are many times throws. When punching you shorten up the transfer and do it faster. When doing a throw, you need the power all the way through the technique.

Transferring your body weight is a great way to generate power. Using your legs to pull as well as push develops more power as well.


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## GojuTommy (Dec 16, 2022)

wab25 said:


> I guess this guy is full of it too....
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Nothing he said or demonstrated supported anything you said.
Zenkustu dachi is a flat footed stance, he demonstrated lifting the heel and using the ball of the foot for both the rear foot on the cross, and the front foot on the hook.
There are no stances in karate that replicate that in any way.


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## JowGaWolf (Dec 16, 2022)

drop bear said:


> Stances like static holds and walking have too many steps away from application for it to be efficient use of training time.


It's not as far as you think.


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## wab25 (Dec 16, 2022)

Kung Fu Wang said:


> I didn't know that. Thanks for pointing that out. Do Karate guys use front stance as a fighting stance?



Similar stances are used when fighting... but they are much more natural. The back leg is not straight and they are not flat footed. However, the hip motions learned from the stance work, still apply. The basics of the stance are still there. In stance work you over exaggerate the motions, to learn the details and engrain the details into your body. The idea is for the details to show up in your fighting, not the exaggerations.



Kung Fu Wang said:


> I believe after the punch (power generation), the back leg should slide forward (bend). This way if your opponent steps back, you can step forward quickly.


This is the first kata:





The moves start in front stance. This is to learn to pull with the leg in the direction you want to go. You pull with the front leg to lunge forward and with the back leg to go into the turn.

The coiled spring you were talking about in the Chinese arts occurs in the middle of the lunge step. (the turn step as well) When you start the lunge, you pull your weight onto the front leg, bring your back foot to the front foot, before sending it forward. If you keep your head from rising as you do this, it coils the spring, so that when you move forward from the feet together position, you are then uncoiling and driving off the foot.

When doing this kata slowly, you have to pay attention to details about where your weight is, and how you support it... otherwise you lose your balance. Going slowly, you learn to pull your body into the coil, then uncoil your spring, driving into the punch. Then you speed it up to add the power. Ideally, the power begins as soon as your front foot pulls, and your body accelerates all the way through to the punch. Then the trick is stopping without over reaching.

It looks to be the same thing your version was teaching... just more emphasis on the pulling and the weight transfer / balance. I am sure those things are found in your art as well... just maybe in a different way.


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## GojuTommy (Dec 16, 2022)

Kung Fu Wang said:


> I didn't know that. Thanks for pointing that out. Do Karate guys use front stance as a fighting stance?
> 
> I believe after the punch (power generation), the back leg should slide forward (bend). This way if your opponent steps back, you can step forward quickly.
> 
> I have always believed that a striker should have fast footwork. In the following clip, you don't see stances. You only see steps.


As a fighting stance not really, but most karateka do ever fight so there’s that.

Long story short when karate was converted into physical education for kids it lost pretty much all of its combative usage. Which leaves modern karateka to reverse engineer stances and movements from kata. 
This means that people who don’t put in the time or effort to regularly fight and spar continuously are just blindly teaching school children’s PE and (often) calling it self defense.


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## wab25 (Dec 16, 2022)

GojuTommy said:


> Nothing he said or demonstrated supported anything you said.
> Zenkustu dachi is a flat footed stance, he demonstrated lifting the heel and using the ball of the foot for both the rear foot on the cross, and the front foot on the hook.
> There are no stances in karate that replicate that in any way.


What happens when you throw the right cross, and lift the right heel while pivoting on the ball of the foot? It transfers your weight to the other foot... the front foot. That transfer of weight generates power for the punch. When you throw the left hook, you pivot with the left foot, lifting the left heel which transfers the weight to the right. Again, that transfer of weight generates power in the technique.

When doing karate stance work, you are transferring your weight, generating power as your transfer your weight. Different drills, different applications... same idea.


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## JowGaWolf (Dec 16, 2022)

Kung Fu Wang said:


> believe after the punch (power generation), the back leg should slide forward (bend). This way if your opponent steps back, you can step forward quickly.


This would be the application of it if you are following up with another strike that moves forward.


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## GojuTommy (Dec 16, 2022)

wab25 said:


> What happens when you throw the right cross, and lift the right heel while pivoting on the ball of the foot? It transfers your weight to the other foot... the front foot. That transfer of weight generates power for the punch. When you throw the left hook, you pivot with the left foot, lifting the left heel which transfers the weight to the right. Again, that transfer of weight generates power in the technique.
> 
> When doing karate stance work, you are transferring your weight, generating power as your transfer your weight. Different drills, different applications... same idea.


You’re pushing the punch with your whole body.
Your explanation of how to generate power  is not the same as what he explained or demonstrated.

You can try to back track and reword what you said now, but we know what you said.


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## wab25 (Dec 16, 2022)

GojuTommy said:


> Your explanation of how to generate power is not the same as what he explained or demonstrated.


Explain the difference... I said transferring your weight is a method of power generation. You called me a liar and too stupid to understand. Freddy said transferring your weight can generate power and you now say that I said something different... What is the difference?



GojuTommy said:


> You can try to back track and reword what you said now, but we know what you said.


What have I back tracked?


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## isshinryuronin (Dec 16, 2022)

GojuTommy said:


> it’s nearly impossible to know how they trained before school integration.


Not true.  There are texts such as "Bubishi" and by Motobu and others which clearly show close in fighting, grabbing and takedowns.


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## GojuTommy (Dec 16, 2022)

wab25 said:


> Explain the difference... I said transferring your weight is a method of power generation. You called me a liar and too stupid to understand. Freddy said transferring your weight can generate power and you now say that I said something different... What is the difference?
> 
> 
> What have I back tracked?


Lol you said that power comes from the front foot pulling you forward. That’s categorically in correct. Power comes from pushing.


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## GojuTommy (Dec 16, 2022)

isshinryuronin said:


> Not true.  There are texts such as "Bubishi" and by Motobu and others which clearly show close in fighting, grabbing and takedowns.


The bubbishi is Chinese and is not a manual that describes Okinawan training methods for Te.
Mutobu provides a small very limited window into some training practices. How was Miyagi trained? How was funakoshi trained? The documentation about how people trained before the 20th century is very incomplete and full of holes, and there’s not enough for someone to build an entire program around.

I also never said anything about striking or grappling. There are so many ways to train grappling that mentions or pictures of it doesn’t tell you much about how people trained at the time.


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## Gerry Seymour (Dec 16, 2022)

wab25 said:


> I don't believe that most stances are meant to actually fight from. I think that they are exaggerations, that were designed to allow us to focus on small details found with in a normal fighting stance.


This is my view of a lot of traditional exercises. Used this way, many of them are more effective and make more sense.


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## Gerry Seymour (Dec 16, 2022)

drop bear said:


> The issue is that you are using stances differently to the way you are applying them. Stances like skipping rope or ladder work are exercises that resemble the skills you need to employ to make stances work in a fight.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Agreed, if too much time is spent in their static use. If they are trained as transitions, and the focus is on how they affect structure and movement, they are reasonable.


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## Gerry Seymour (Dec 16, 2022)

Kung Fu Wang said:


> The best fighting stance is a stance that you can spring from it. That's more weight on the back bending leg, and you can raise your leading foot whenever you want to.


There is no single best stance. Context matters.


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## Gerry Seymour (Dec 16, 2022)

GojuTommy said:


> Lol you said that power comes from the front foot pulling you forward. That’s categorically in correct. Power comes from pushing.


That’s what you read, because you didn’t finish reading the post (per your own post).


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## Kung Fu Wang (Dec 16, 2022)

JowGaWolf said:


> This would be the application of it if you are following up with another strike that moves forward.


It depends on whether you always

1. lock your front stance, or
2. unlock your front stance.

IMO, 1 < 2.

Unlock means that your back leg is only straight for may be 1/10 second.


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## JowGaWolf (Dec 16, 2022)

So here's my understanding of stances.  Two examples of a horse stance.  The one on the left is a horse stance from my form.  The one the right is the application of a horse stance.  If take stance from the form and turn my waist to the left or right then I will appear like the my photo on the right.  The horse stance on the left is my lowest horse stance that is practical for striking.  Anything below that stance moves into the category of grappling on stance.  






Both versions of this horse stance are functional and quick.  I can quickly move inches or feet. The distance between each foot represents the maximum distance that I can travel from one quick push.

The stance on the left is about 2 or 3 inches higher than my grappling stance.  My grappling stance is strong but it's no where as mobile as the two stances are as above.  I train my forms in 2 different ways.  For grappling and for striking.  If I want to focus on the grappling aspects then I'll lower my stance to that level and move slowly.  This is how I improved the endurance for my stances for wrestling with my sparring partner.  Now my legs don't get tired.  The other way that I train is for striking.  When I do my form for striking, then the most important part for my stance is to be quick but not high.  If my stance is too high then I give my opponent a comfortable height at which to shoot in on me.  For grappling, I want to make that position as small as possible without it causing problems for me.  It also takes longer for me to drop my stance height when my stance is too high..   The movement for both of these stances is a shuffling movement which is faster.

The downside is that the stance on the left will burn the legs.  I uses energy up so your legs have to be stronger than normally.  The other good thing is that I can still throw all of my strikes from this stance.


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## Kung Fu Wang (Dec 16, 2022)

wab25 said:


> In stance work you over exaggerate the motions, to learn the details and engrain the details into your body. The idea is for the details to show up in your fighting, not the exaggerations.


Agree! the exaggerstion is for training. If you fight like in the following clip, your punch combo will be too slow.


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## Kung Fu Wang (Dec 16, 2022)

Gerry Seymour said:


> There is no single best stance. Context matters.


I'm only talking about fighting stance that you are ready to move in with lighting speed.


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## Kung Fu Wang (Dec 16, 2022)

wab25 said:


> What happens when you throw the right cross, and lift the right heel while pivoting on the ball of the foot?


This remind me a comment that someone made to a person's form performance. The comment was, "You did so well in your form that you have 6 front stances and they all look identical."

Is that a good comment, or a bad comment?

Your stance should be able to adjusted according to your application.


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## JowGaWolf (Dec 16, 2022)

Gerry Seymour said:


> Agreed, if too much time is spent in their static use. If they are trained as transitions, and the focus is on how they affect structure and movement, they are reasonable.


I think 1 minute is enough for static stance at maximum. Even if it's for conditioning,  I don't think the 5 minute horse stances are going to generate any additional returns.  It may actually reduce the benefit because the legs become strong at one position.


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## Kung Fu Wang (Dec 16, 2022)

JowGaWolf said:


> I don't think the 5 minute horse stances are going to generate any additional returns.


The following is real.

- My teacher's teacher could stay in horse stance and finished his dinner.
- My teacher could stay in horse stance while watching Beijing opera.
- I can stay in horse stance and finish my beer.

The following is just a joke.

- My teacher's teacher could spit out a sword from his mouth and kill his enemy 100 miles away.
- My teacher could spit out a sword from his mouth and kill his enemy 100 feet away.
- I can spit out a nuts from my mouth and hit a tree 3 feet away.


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## Kung Fu Wang (Dec 16, 2022)

JowGaWolf said:


> View attachment 29390


In your horse stance, if you turn your right foot to your right and shift 10% more weight to your left leg, your horse stance will be changed into a 4-6 stance (40-60 weight distributation) which will have better mobility.


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## isshinryuronin (Dec 16, 2022)

GojuTommy said:


> The bubbishi is Chinese and is not a manual that describes Okinawan training methods for Te.


Mabuni, Funakoshi, Itosu, Miyagi and several other early karate masters all had their _Bubishi _copies, personally transcribed by hand.  These copies were much treasured by them and were shared with their top students.  It is beyond reason to think they did not delve into the illustrated techniques, many likely already taught to them by their own teachers. 

Your assertion has no basis, and indeed, the facts suggest the opposite.  The book focuses on White Crane style kung fu which heavily influenced Ryuru Ko's art, which in turn influenced Naha Te karate, including Goju ryu.  It is said that Miyagi got the name for his style from this book.  Likewise, Shimabuku based his "Code of Karate" on one of _Bubishi's_ articles.  All this shows that the _Bubishi_ had a strong influence on Okinawan karate tradition.


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## Gerry Seymour (Dec 17, 2022)

Kung Fu Wang said:


> I'm only talking about fighting stance that you are ready to move in with lighting speed.
> 
> View attachment 29391


That would be the context. Sometimes we sacrifice some mobility for stability, for instance.


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## Gerry Seymour (Dec 17, 2022)

JowGaWolf said:


> I think 1 minute is enough for static stance at maximum. Even if it's for conditioning,  I don't think the 5 minute horse stances are going to generate any additional returns.  It may actually reduce the benefit because the legs become strong at one position.


Agreed, where we are talking about direct application to combat. Of course, if we're talking about other concepts, there may be reasons to use longer stance practice (not my preference, but I've heard reasonable arguments).


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## GojuTommy (Dec 17, 2022)

isshinryuronin said:


> Mabuni, Funakoshi, Itosu, Miyagi and several other early karate masters all had their _Bubishi _copies, personally transcribed by hand.  These copies were much treasured by them and were shared with their top students.  It is beyond reason to think they did not delve into the illustrated techniques, many likely already taught to them by their own teachers.
> 
> Your assertion has no basis, and indeed, the facts suggest the opposite.  The book focuses on White Crane style kung fu which heavily influenced Ryuru Ko's art, which in turn influenced Naha Te karate, including Goju ryu.  It is said that Miyagi got the name for his style from this book.  Likewise, Shimabuku based his "Code of Karate" on one of _Bubishi's_ articles.  All this shows that the _Bubishi_ had a strong influence on Okinawan karate tradition.


Techniques used and taught is very different from training methods.

You can come up with nearly infinite methods of training the techniques in the bubishi. I don’t understand why this concept is so difficult to understand.


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