OK. When I was Japanese Goju I would probably have supported everything that you have posted. Since changing to the Okinawan form, and training with people from the Jundokan, my understanding has changed substantially. With regard to having a sound base for striking, you might like to chase up Russell Stutely's material on power hitting. He is from a Shotokan background. His approach is more to do with weight transfer than a fixed base.They all have their advantages depending on the current context (positioning, angle, goal...). It's the same reason why we have so many different strikes instead of just training one punch only.
Do you really believe that? We have different strikes because we are striking specific points. Some points like the side of the neck are best attacked by a Shuto or Haito uchi, the temple with Tetsui or Ureken uchi, ribs with ippon ken etc. etc. How I have my feet is of no consequence as long as I have a strong centre.
Hopefully from receiving good instruction and then having the extended opportunity to train with multiple partners and thus gain knowledge of what works individually for us.
Once again, I disagree. Multiple partners are not required. Depending on the take down I will step in with Sanchin or Zenkutsu dachi. Zenkutsu may transition into Shiko or Kokutsu dachi. But these are all close range stances. The crescent step takes the foot behind the opponent's leg. That doesn't apply to any of the deeper stances.
Some stances are more conducive to certain activities than others. Like shifting quickly to a cat stance to avoid a strike before lashing out with a kick. A boxer wouldn't need to train a cat stance since he doesn't have to worry about his opponent kicking him. In short, because boxing confines each participant to what they can or can't do, it likewise puts them on a path to specialization in a smaller subset of skills, rather than arguably a more generalist perspective that a karate-ka would have. There are surely other examples as well.
This sounds more like a sport based application than RBSD. Not saying you can't step off the line into Neko to launch a counter but I would call that an additional benefit.
At 2 meters or indeed at any range, it depends first on what we train and then on situational context with what the immediate goal at the time is. For example, I suspect someone in Isshinryu would stand in that high short stance they call seisan dachi since they can fire all their techniques from that range. A judo-ka might assume a shoulder length stance with his feet sprayed 45 degrees apart called natural stance or sometimes shizen-hontai as it would give him some degree of stability as he considers how to close if needed.
Seisan dachi is basically the same as our Sanchin dachi. Why would anyone stand like that at sparring distance? And the Judo-ka will certainly choose a stance like that because he is about to grapple. Once he is grappling he will change his stance when appropriate.
One answer is because in sanchin dachi we train our Naha-te derived method of creating bursting power in our strikes while also having fast/efficient movement in a supremely stable position.
I might suggest that if you are locked in Sanchin dachi you won't be moving anywhere in a hurry.
I'll also play the Jedi mind trick here and state that actually a bunch of non-Goju stylists crescent step in zenkutsu dachi as well. It might be fun examining why they do it and think about the correlation if any to sanchin dachi.
I think they do it because at some stage someone decided that it looked like a good thing to do. I think it is a flawed technique, but that is just my opinion.
To be sure, I wasn't trying to imply that we can substitute one stance for another willy-nilly. I was saying the transitional movements and what we are doing as part of creating the platform are more important IMO than the final posture itself.
I think we are eating the pie from opposite sides. You are looking at stances as a platform for delivering a technique where I am looking at them more as an integrel part of a grappling technique.
As to the stance for sparring at a distance of two metres, I have only ever seen a natural stance (Moto dachi). (My teacher in the early 80s was in the Australian team and his teacher was Australia's team coach.) Certainly in those days when I sparred I liked to drop back into Neko because it made it very easy to score with a snap kick. But in reality Neko has much more going for it in a close combat situation. :asian:
