Stances? ...is there too much? ..some just for training only?
- Thread starter still learning
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See, CN, again the problem is the basic assumption in the OP that you `get into [such and such a stance] and then you fight from it.' As in the discussion I cited earlier from Abernethy, you don't `assume a cat stance'. Instead, you maintain your hold on the downed attacker's arm, slip your foot against their back, raise your knee and drop your weight back and down—instant short cat stance, in other words—and keeeerackkkk!!, that's it for their elbow, should you decide to push things that far. Take a photo of the fight at the moment when your heel comes up and your body weight comes down hard on the attacker's hyperextended arm, and it's the classic cat stance. Take a photo of the moment you move forward to drive your forearm into the attacker's pinned arm above the elbow to hyperextend it with your full weight behind it, and it's the classic left front stance.
I think you have to take into account the way people have been taught stances, as well as other techs, since the karate-based arts went mass-scale the better part of a century ago. Most of us drill stances, blocks, punches etc. isolation, relentlessly. It's so much the norm that most folk cannot conceive of the fact that doing it that way was actually a novelty, going along with large class sizes, deliberately diluted technical content, and all the rest of what we've learned about the history of karate in very recent decades, eh? For a lot of people, stances are things unto themselves because that's how they've learned them, and the way you first learn something fixes your way of thinking about it pretty solidly, unless you can distance yourself from your own assumptions and rethink a familiar phenomenon in a way that makes it very unfamiliar and novel. How many people can do that sort of thing easily?
The best thing to do is simply put the alternative perspective and the counterevidence and so on out there and hope that it helps someone `improve their ideas', as the Brits say. If it doesn't... well, you tried, eh? :wink1:
I think you have to take into account the way people have been taught stances, as well as other techs, since the karate-based arts went mass-scale the better part of a century ago. Most of us drill stances, blocks, punches etc. isolation, relentlessly. It's so much the norm that most folk cannot conceive of the fact that doing it that way was actually a novelty, going along with large class sizes, deliberately diluted technical content, and all the rest of what we've learned about the history of karate in very recent decades, eh? For a lot of people, stances are things unto themselves because that's how they've learned them, and the way you first learn something fixes your way of thinking about it pretty solidly, unless you can distance yourself from your own assumptions and rethink a familiar phenomenon in a way that makes it very unfamiliar and novel. How many people can do that sort of thing easily?
The best thing to do is simply put the alternative perspective and the counterevidence and so on out there and hope that it helps someone `improve their ideas', as the Brits say. If it doesn't... well, you tried, eh? :wink1:
I've often herd a similar criticism of the crane stance. I recall having a conversation with a "freestyle" fighter who was negatively commenting on more traditional fighting systems. He said that "TMAs are impractical" and that "you'll never see anything as useless and stupid as a crane stance in MMA". I remember pausing for a moment, in total disbelief of his...naivete and then responding "What are you talking about? You see it all the time. When ever one of you guys check a leg kick what do you think that is? It's a crane stance."
Good comeback!
That's still another case of someone thinking that the frozen `stance' position at the end of the motion is what's important, rather than the motion itself that gets you to that position, and the work that that motion did. It's too bad that all too many MA instructors teach from that perspective... probably because that's the way they themselves learned their approach to stances. It's very hard for people to go back to the beginning and rethink the point of view they were trained to when they were first learning...
tellner
Senior Master
The real problem is that almost nobody knows how to actually use these training methods. There's some form. There's some history. But for the most part it's done by rote by teachers - even ones with lots of black belts - who didn't get that bit transmitted to students who will never learn better unless they go searching elsewhere. If the student asks why the Emperor doesn't have any clothes he's told that it's his fault for not doing enough reps, being disrespectful or not figuring it out for himself.
Concerning the crane stance and its resemblance to a leg shield...
How many Karate (Japaneses, Okinawan, Korean, Hawaiian or American) had any concept of that before they encountered styles that emphasized leg kicks? Precious few. Afterwards there was the usual round of "We have that too!" that always happens with everyone's martial arts.
Now, in a sense they did. If your form has a reasonably complete range of motion you can reference anything you see to something in it. That doesn't mean anyone else from your lineage had any idea that it was an option. It certainly doesn't mean that your system contains everything and that it's just waiting to be discovered. It's that whole pulling things out of the form versus plugging things back in.
A punch and a low kick in a kata does not mean that a simultaneous strike to GB 20 and Spleen 6 to interrupt both Yin and Yang channels was really there all the time but only waiting to be discovered. If you have that idea you can use your form to reference and remember it. Likewise, if your style teaches some bad techniques - and all of them do at some point or another - and there's someone somewhere else who does something similar but better it doesn't mean that the improved version was waiting there all along passed down to you by the Great Men of Old. It might be true. It might not. To assume it is to risk a separated shoulder when you pat yourself too hard on the back.
Concerning the crane stance and its resemblance to a leg shield...
How many Karate (Japaneses, Okinawan, Korean, Hawaiian or American) had any concept of that before they encountered styles that emphasized leg kicks? Precious few. Afterwards there was the usual round of "We have that too!" that always happens with everyone's martial arts.
Now, in a sense they did. If your form has a reasonably complete range of motion you can reference anything you see to something in it. That doesn't mean anyone else from your lineage had any idea that it was an option. It certainly doesn't mean that your system contains everything and that it's just waiting to be discovered. It's that whole pulling things out of the form versus plugging things back in.
A punch and a low kick in a kata does not mean that a simultaneous strike to GB 20 and Spleen 6 to interrupt both Yin and Yang channels was really there all the time but only waiting to be discovered. If you have that idea you can use your form to reference and remember it. Likewise, if your style teaches some bad techniques - and all of them do at some point or another - and there's someone somewhere else who does something similar but better it doesn't mean that the improved version was waiting there all along passed down to you by the Great Men of Old. It might be true. It might not. To assume it is to risk a separated shoulder when you pat yourself too hard on the back.
punisher73
Senior Master
Hmm, I think alot of styles had that in there before the advent of MMA. If, for example, you look at Isshinryu's Wansu kata there is a movement of bringing the knee up to counter a leg kick.
If you look at boxers squaring off you see alot of "traditional" stances that are just slightly different. When they step in to do a right cross they are in a front stance, except that they lift the heel off the ground to get more rotation. When they end up with their side facing an opponent there feet are in a horse stance.
There are only so many ways to generate power through body mechanics. So there are going to be alot more similarities than differences.
I don't believe that Tellner was saying that various martial artists copied and added knee or leg blocks when they saw them used in MMA or Muay Thai. I think he was saying that they suddenly RECOGNIZED them when they saw what had been there all along. Or, in some cases, decided to show and emphasize them more in response to what they saw or their students asked about.
Yep
Em MacIntosh
3rd Black Belt
Stances are transitional. If you aren't a moving target, you get hit. A stance needs to be instinctually able to adapt to a situation. There is no perfect stance to stay in, not one particularly better than another. Though I find the flixibility of JKD's Bi-Jong stance very effective for most (standing) situations and some are just plain useless to me (zenkutsu-dachi). Some stances have no place outside the training hall and are only good for isometric exercise, IMO. Shigo-dachi (similar to kiba-dachi with feet at 45 instead of straight ahead and toes under the knees) wouldn't seem effective for most I imagine. They actually discouraged it's use in sparring. I practiced it a lot and made it effective for me. You have to read a lot into a stance before you can judge it, let alone dismiss it. Stepping into somebody with a well practiced, "dominant" step can push the opponent off balance, be a strike in it's own right or even be a subtle limb destruction (wing chun, crippling step). The real test is whether it works for you for what you're training it for. If my stance is ineffective for self defense, it is detrimental and must be discarded lest a bad habit gets me killed. Stance and footwork lead the way for your techniques and your stance and footwork should correspond to the opponent's actions.
