Your Best Ways to Train and Improve Horse Stance

[Wing Woo Gar]

I'd be happy to hear more on the technique.

Perhaps I should have worded my statement more carefully. If you kick to the very limit of your flexibility then there will inherently be some level of pull on the standing leg, if not you are not kicking to your limit. You wouldn't want to do this in sparring etc. but in kicking drills such as zheng ti tui, where one of the aims is working on active flexibility this might happen. It's not a lack of control, it's a deliberate act.

From a physics perspective, the reason things do not move is because of friction. Think of a rock in space, it keeps moving because friction is less than any force exerted by gravity. Or a puck on an air hockey table, it keeps a lot of its momentum due to a lack of friction. On the ground an object doesn't move because gravity is pulling it into a surface to create friction. The more mass the object has, and the rougher its surface and the surface it rests on, the more friction created by the pull of gravity. Any movement must come from a force strong enough to overcome that friction.

So, if you kick to a point where you have reached the limit of your flexibility, with sufficient power, there will be pull on the standing leg, that is anatomically unavoidable. If the force of that pull is stronger than the friction holding your foot in place, your foot will move.

Now all of that is not to say that you can't use techniques to increase the level of friction between your foot and the floor. I'd be interested in what you have to say on rooting techniques to develop this.

ha ha ha.. my first school had slippery floors. There was never any grip no matter what type of shoes one would wear. I think it's safer and better for the body. Now that the gym that I go to has their mats down. My son and I can no longer slide our feet on the ground, so now we have to do a lot of stepping so that we don't twist on the knee, where normally we could use the floor to help absorb the technique so that our knees wouldn't

It’s what I know. You could fall down just walking across Sifu Woo’s floor. Now if you can punch and kick and root on that floor you are really doing something. Then when you take that same skill and put rubber soled shoes on asphalt, watch out! We train under the worst condition so that normal conditions are easy.

 

[Oily Dragon]

I have a couple of stance training exercises. This one trains power, mobility, and transition..

Selecting a weight:
1. Pick a weight that will be heavy to hold in a stationary position but won't break or degrade your stance structure. Do not use a really low stance. But also don't stand too tall in the stance. Too low or too high is no good for the knees.

In the video, I'm using 20lbs dumbbells. I want to keep the weight chambered above my hip, above the bones. Use the weights instead of a weighted vest so that you can work other muscles at the same time you are working your stance. Keep the weight close to your center on your waist, the weights should always be touching.

2. If you complete 1 cycle then keep going and do another until your legs or your arms begin to tire

3. Stop doing the exercise when your legs and arms tire and your structure feels like it's about to degrade. You want to stop before your structure actually degrades and gets sloppy.

4. Take a 1 minute break and keep going. Try to maintain what you did previously. It's fine if you don't make it. Just keep going right up to the point you think you might get sloppy and then rest.

You want to do at least 4 rounds of this. Use the first round is just a warm up. Everything after the first round is the actual workout.

Do not over do it if you have a bad hip or knee. I have a different version for those with a bad hip and knee.

Do you have cervical spine issues? I noticed your neck is not straight.

I've said this before, your Jow Ga movements are great but consider the stress on your knees from doing transitions on asphalt. You did point that out but...be careful yourself.

I'm nursing a knee strain from doing Shaolin Iron Wire transitions (baat fan ma, horse, YGKYM) barefoot on carpet. Torquing the joints is no joke. That's why the isometric Qigong is so important for building up tendon and ligament strength. Delicate supportive tissue.

Look at all that beautiful grass! Go try your footwork barefoot in it. Where we're going, we won't need shoes...

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

That's a poor host, but a good lesson from the teacher. Hopefully he at least remembered to serve him first.

It could a student tested his own teacher to see if that teacher could do as he had said.

IMO, if a teacher has not completed a certain training, he has no right to ask his students to go through that training.

 

[JowGaWolf]

Do you have cervical spine issues? I noticed your neck is not straight.

Nope it was a combination of thing facing the sun + tired + weights + bad posture. The twenty pounds was too heavy for me at that time. The muscle imbalance and the gut pulling on my spine did me no favors. I got some of that corrected with my current weight training. Still working on the gut though.

I've said this before, your Jow Ga movements are great but consider the stress on your knees from doing transitions on asphalt. You did point that out but...be careful yourself.

It's not bad so long as the shoes can slide. The mats that I train on now are 500 times worse. They don't allow the foot to pivot. I'm getting different shoes to address that issue. but for the most part the pavement has stuff like dirt and pollen to keep the type of shoes that I have from gripping too much. But there are some roads where I have to adjust my footwork. To prevent twisting on my knee.

barefoot on carpet. Torquing the joints is no joke.

I used to train on carpet with shoes. When it was time for 360 sweeps I could smell the rubber burning from the friction.

Look at all that beautiful grass! Go try your footwork barefoot in it. Where we're going, we won't need shoes

I better use the grass in the park. Which is where I'll train this year. Give me two weeks and that grass will be dead lol. I wouldn't recommend barefoot where I live. Fire ants sticks and stones. Some times my dog comes in from the outside limping. Lol

 

[JowGaWolf]

Look at all that beautiful grass!

Oh I forgot that residential grass often has a chemical coating from lawns companies.

 

[Damien]

Nope it was a combination of thing facing the sun + tired + weights + bad posture. The twenty pounds was too heavy for me at that time. The muscle imbalance and the gut pulling on my spine did me no favors. I got some of that corrected with my current weight training. Still working on the gut though.


It's not bad so long as the shoes can slide. The mats that I train on now are 500 times worse. They don't allow the foot to pivot. I'm getting different shoes to address that issue. but for the most part the pavement has stuff like dirt and pollen to keep the type of shoes that I have from gripping too much. But there are some roads where I have to adjust my footwork. To prevent twisting on my knee.


I used to train on carpet with shoes. When it was time for 360 sweeps I could smell the rubber burning from the friction.


I better use the grass in the park. Which is where I'll train this year. Give me two weeks and that grass will be dead lol. I wouldn't recommend barefoot where I live. Fire ants sticks and stones. Some times my dog comes in from the outside limping. Lol

Do you have cervical spine issues? I noticed your neck is not straight.

I've said this before, your Jow Ga movements are great but consider the stress on your knees from doing transitions on asphalt. You did point that out but...be careful yourself.

I'm nursing a knee strain from doing Shaolin Iron Wire transitions (baat fan ma, horse, YGKYM) barefoot on carpet. Torquing the joints is no joke. That's why the isometric Qigong is so important for building up tendon and ligament strength. Delicate supportive tissue.

Look at all that beautiful grass! Go try your footwork barefoot in it. Where we're going, we won't need shoes...

It’s what I know. You could fall down just walking across Sifu Woo’s floor. Now if you can punch and kick and root on that floor you are really doing something. Then when you take that same skill and put rubber soled shoes on asphalt, watch out! We train under the worst condition so that normal conditions are easy.

It's amazing the effect floor surface and footwear can have really. At the moment my main training spaces are thick domestic carpet or concrete slab. Neither are ideal!

I keep saying I don't need to get my own studio and I can't justify the expense, but one day it would sure be nice!

 

[Damien]

Well thanks again for all of the suggestions. The YouTube scheduling gods were calling so the video is now live.

I couldn't include every suggestion; people don't have the attention span for long videos these days. I've kept it to those easiest to do at home with nothing required that people wouldn't have laying around anyway (apart from weights, but you can throw books in a bag etc). So please don't feel slighted if your suggestion didn't make it in

If you're interested in checking out the result, here it is:

 

[Oily Dragon]

Oh I forgot that residential grass often has a chemical coating from lawns companies.

Good point.

I have a lawn, but can't always prance around in it barefoot because of lime, tick control, fertilizer.

Carpet is usually a safe bet...just not for me!

 

[Oily Dragon]

Well thanks again for all of the suggestions. The YouTube scheduling gods were calling so the video is now live.

I couldn't include every suggestion; people don't have the attention span for long videos these days. I've kept it to those easiest to do at home with nothing required that people wouldn't have laying around anyway (apart from weights, but you can throw books in a bag etc). So please don't feel slighted if your suggestion didn't make it in

If you're interested in checking out the result, here it is:

You had me at tucking the hips forward.

Joking, you had me about 10 seconds in. This video is outstanding work.

You should see how horse stance helped build my Kitchen God Stances.

 

[JowGaWolf]

I keep saying I don't need to get my own studio and I can't justify the expense, but one day it would sure be nice!

I was checking out a place a few months before covid hit. I'm glad I not the type of person to rush. I saw a lot of martial arts schools close down.

 

[JowGaWolf]

Good point.

I have a lawn, but can't always prance around in it barefoot because of lime, tick control, fertilizer.

Carpet is usually a safe bet...just not for me!

As a kid I would role around in the weeds (we just called it grass lol) but now. Nah. I'll pass.

 

[Damien]

You had me at tucking the hips forward.

Joking, you had me about 10 seconds in. This video is outstanding work.

You should see how horse stance helped build my Kitchen God Stances.

Thank you very much!

Horse stance helps everything, especially people complaining about horse stance.

I was checking out a place a few months before covid hit. I'm glad I not the type of person to rush. I saw a lot of martial arts schools close down.

There are a few here that don't seem to have re-opened since lockdown, or have moved out of the city and into the suburbs, mainly traditional ones. I presume the latter category found it cheaper out there and couldn't justify the expense any more.

Even normal gyms here are pretty dead, not many people have come back. Maybe in time people will find the confidence again.

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

There are a few here that don't seem to have re-opened since lockdown, or have moved out of the city and into the suburbs, mainly traditional ones. I presume the latter category found it cheaper out there and couldn't justify the expense any more.

Even normal gyms here are pretty dead, not many people have come back. Maybe in time people will find the confidence again.

I think it's more than just confidence in terms of virus. You've got a small portion of the population each year that can motivate themselves to turning gym-going into a habit, and normally those people stick with it if they've been going for a year. That's your core gym-goers.

Now you've had a large portion of those people not go for 2 years, breaking the habit. They've got to know pull it together to get themselves back to the gym and making it a habit again. Probably a larger percentage of them then the average population will, but that still doesn't mean an actually large percent.

 

[Damien]

I think it's more than just confidence in terms of virus. You've got a small portion of the population each year that can motivate themselves to turning gym-going into a habit, and normally those people stick with it if they've been going for a year. That's your core gym-goers.

Now you've had a large portion of those people not go for 2 years, breaking the habit. They've got to know pull it together to get themselves back to the gym and making it a habit again. Probably a larger percentage of them then the average population will, but that still doesn't mean an actually large percent.

That's true. It was only about 5 months here, but the habit is still broken.

A lot of people who stayed keen on working out probably got themselves their own kit too and have just stayed working out at home.