Stance Training

Wai Jia: The Kung Fu Forum Kung Fu Training and Health
1

Who uses minimum time requirements for stance training?

If so, what sort of times are you looking for at what level of
student?

Assuming most sytems have 6-8 major stances, do you require
a minimum time in each stance?

On a side note: I practice a chi kung that requires a low posture
similar to that of sitting upright in a chair. Lower leg at right
angle to upper leg and upper leg parallel to floor and 90 degrees
to spine. After 7 years of admittedly only semi-regular training of
this, I naturally don’t get down there yet. BUT, I just discovered
a weight lifter’s tool for doing body-weight squats that locks the
lower leg in front of the ankle and behind the calf. This takes the
balance issue out of it. Now, I realize that developing the
balance, strength and endurance at the same time is the point
but I think that this tool could be used to help develop the
strength and endurance of the muscles and then the balance will
come a little easier with the stronger muscles. I plan on doing a
fullset of the chi kung in the brace on alternating days and then
without it on the other day.

thoughts???criticisms???

TIA

Matt

2

a good minimum time to start with is 1 minute in each stance (on each side if it applies).

as for the qigong stance; your shins don’t have to be absolutely vertical. just keep your knees over your toes.

3

i thought you wanted to be able to see your toes.

4

<<i thought you wanted to be able to see your toes>>

me too.

I seem to remember a pic of either KYC or someone else from that
era in a pretty low ‘chinese chair’ posture. He was a little off
from the ideal but a heck of a lot closer than I am.

Does anyone know a specific name for that device I described.
None of the juice heads at the gym knew it’s proper name.

thanks,

Matt

5

Depth of stance ???

how deep do you go in your stance training?

For the horse I have my feet about 1 1/2 ~ 2 times shoulder
width, feet parallel and my thighs are parallel to the ground.
I use a mirror to make sure I don’t drop lower than that and
thereby relieve tension on the muscles.

In the hill climbing I extend my rear foot backwards out of a
practical combat stance (Weight dist is probably 80% on the
front leg) and again drop till the thigh of my front leg is absolutely
parallel to the ground,

for the cross/twisted/coiled stance the rear leg’s knee is 1" off
the ground and the front leg’s thigh is, again, parallel to the floor.

Unless I’m being particularly masochistic I go for 3 minutes
in the horse and then a minute in each of the others, both sides.
I also do a single leg (crane) stance with the standing leg as low
as possible and then a ‘cat’ stance with the rear leg as low as
possible.

I do them in sequence

horse> lt mtn climb> rt mtn clmb> lt cross> rt cross>
lt crane> rt crane> lt cat> rt cat>

with no rest break in between, I’m 215#

now, my students have to do them 5 minutes each, holding
concrete blocks in each hand while I beat them with a cane :smiley:

just kidding.

I’m trying to set realistic goals for my students and have figured
out what I was going to do but wanted to see what everyone else did.

thanks,

Matt

6

guohuen

don’t you think that spreading the feet that wide actually
reduces the amount of weight applied to the muscles?

my thought is that with the feet that wide the bones come
more into play vs the muscles.

besides, I got short legs :slight_smile:

Matt

7

Yea I’d have to agree with Oso, having your feet too wide does put less tension on you thigh muscles and just increases tension on your hip joints.

Having a closer stance like just past shoulder width/or 1.5xshouulderwidth does put alot of strain on your thighs and butt…its a little harder to balance like this too.

I sit till my thighs are ALMOST parralel (with the floor).
And arms out front (golden bridge)

I try and do it horse for about 5 mins every couple of days (sometimes to music as it helps me concentrate) then every once in a while i’ll push myself a little more and do it for about 8 mins or so. my limit is about 9, I know its not much, i’m trying to push it higher…

The other stances, one legged (the names are probably different from you guys’ but the form will probably be the same)
I do for about 1 1/2 mins each

8

I will sometimes do the horse training while concentrating
squeezing in with my inner thigh. This feels like it pulls the
femur into the hip socket tighter. I have an issue with the
bursa in my right hip and this helps it out.

Also, any of the 2 legged stances can be done with the inward
squeeze on the thigh. I think it helps with the physical side
of rooting.

Matt

9

Good suggestion. I know that exercise and have the same problem same hip, but hadn’t thought of applying it.

10

Originally posted by Oso
[B]Also, any of the 2 legged stances can be done with the inward
squeeze on the thigh. I think it helps with the physical side
of rooting.

Matt [/B]

it’s called adduction, and it’s all the craze in the wing chun world. :smiley:

11

yep, sucks to get old.

I can attribute my hip to a specific run I did where I got a wild
hair and ran 7.5 miles in very hilly terrain ( western NC )
there was a downhill section of about 1.5 miles and that night
the bursa was visibly swollen and it hasn’t been the same since.

that exercise helps and I only do my cardio on a stair climber
now…no impact and I get to run uphill all the time :slight_smile:

ok, so I presented this to my students last night at class…

we use a sash system (please no debate on this), 10 steps to
black and you have to test for the white sash after 4-6 months
of the basics.

White> yellow> orange> purple> blue> green> brown1
brown2> brown3> black

Here’s what I decided for the stance training.

White sash Test

Horse — 30 seconds, near horizontal thigh

Hill climbing — 15 seconds, each side near horizontal thigh

Cross — 15 seconds , each side, low knee 1’’ off ground

Crane — 15 seconds each leg, standing leg as low as possible

Cat — 15 seconds, each leg, both legs as low as possible

No breaks, transitoin from one stance to the other

At each new level, through Brown1, there is an increse of
10 seconds for Horse and 5 seconds for each other stance.
Between Brown1 and Black the step increases to 30 seconds
for the horse and 15 seconds for the others.

So, for the black sash test they must be in the horse for 4 minutes
and 1 1/2 minutes for each other for a total of 16 minutes in all.

So…Not Enough? Too Much? ( I don’t think so myself )

It would be nice for every student who walked through the door
to be a hardcore student. They aren’t. For most it starts as a
curiosity and at most will be a hobby they might continue for a
little while. I don’t see the point in scaring away someone who
is genuinely curious but may not have the immediate skills.

For the student who wants more…there is more.

now, of to continue the quest of teaching commercially without
sacrificing quality…

:smiley:

matt

12

honest question about WT

RTB,

seeing as how you are a wt practitioner I have a question about
mobility in the WT style.

I’ve only touched hands once with a WT guy and watched about
an hour’s practice of some guys in Richmond VA when I was up
helping a friend check out schools for his son.

The guy I touched with in the GL Tourny a couple of years back
could not seem to deal with flanking. I tried to play with him
on the centerline just to see what was up and he popped the
crap out of me :smiley:

so, I said the heck with that and flanked him and hit him rather
easily. And since this worked once I did it again, several
times, but I’m not trying to hype that. Just the observation
that after the same entering technique was used on him a
couple of times in a row he stll didn’t adjust to it. He
attempted to bridge the gap between us with the same
exact movement.

The class I saw in Richmond seemed to illustrate this aspect as
well. I did not see the instructor move at all just the students.

So, I guess my question is whether there are principles to deal
with flanking in WT.

hmm, I guess this is the wrong forum for this but since we’re here.

oh, the school in Richmond was a VT school and the instructor
made a big point about that.

thanks,

Matt

13

Oso:

My Sifu also incorporates stance training into our tests. He demands a little more, however.

We do use a belt system, but there are only 3. Yellow, Green, Black. There are two levels in between yellow and green, and two between green and black. We represent those with stars on the sash.

Anyway, after learning the basics, you must test for your yellow sash. You are required to hold 3 stances (ding - AKA cat stance, horse stance, and bow and arrow stance) for 3 minutes each, for a total of nine minutes of stance work.

The next test requires all three stances for five minutes each, for a total of 15 minutes. The next one goes to seven minutes, for a total of 21 minutes of stances. If you do well enough on your next test, he may allow you to simply hold a ten minute horse stance, increasing the time as you proceed further to black. The test for black is a 5 hour ordeal, with 30 minutes of that reserved for horse stance alone.

Right now I’m nearing the time when I’ll be going for the ten minute horse. That should actually be a little easier than 21 minutes including the other two stances. I’m looking forward to this next test a little more than my last :slight_smile:

14

HT

Thanks, that’s a good comparison. Kinda what I was looking for
when I posed the question.

I may change the ratio at the upper end later on. I think the
depth of stance is part of the question as well as the rest time
between each set. I see the juice heads at my gym stack a
bunch of weight on the bars but rest 5 minutes between. I’m
not sure if that is the way it should be done.

How deep are you guys? How long do you rest between the
different stances?

I saw a test once where a big deal was made about
the 10 minutes spent in all eight stances but they were not held
at any sort of demanding level. I stopped watching the test.

thanks for your input,

Matt

15

All wingchun systems emphasize flanking, both for attack and defense. Your sparring partner probably just wasn’t with the program.

16

( seriously not getting any work done today)

fa_jing

didn’t seem like it.

and it certainly doesn’t seem like a martial art could be
viable without paying attention to flanking…I just was curious
and figured I just hadn’t seen it in the people I’ve watched.

thanks,

Matt

17

oso,

fa_jing’s right. wing chun – all families – work with flanking. anyone who doesn’t isn’t listening to their sifu.

honestly, unless i have a need to follow the nose (say, if someone’s throwing a big right hook, i’ll step to my forward right and stay nose-to-nose with them, because stepping to the left will get me hit and i may be too late to just step forward), and someone’s attacking me, i love to flank. i do it more if someone is of larger size and comes at me strongly, i’ll just turn, let them go by me a little and attack them from the side. them bull, me matador.

a problem with flanking can arise when wc folks (of any fam) don’t keep their torso square to their opponent. a great deal of the advantages of wc are lost when not square and it’s pretty easy to pick apart someone who doesn’t stay square unless they know a lot more than me :smiley:

i haven’t learned all the wt forms or seen anywhere near all the applications, but from what i have seen, attacked or defending someone while not being square requires a reason – that is, anytime i’m not attacking or defending and i’m not square, i do it intentionally to gain something.

18

RTB,

cool, thanks. As I said, just curious having minimal contact with
the art.

Matt

19

stances

i understand the importance of stance training but here is a true story for some thought.

Mantis practitioners should know who Lee Kwan Shan was(not the wah lum guy). His disciple Li hung jie is my grandmasters teacher.
He told him a story of a tai chi guy he would always see in the park holding his stances all day long. Master Li is a plum flower mantis practitioner, curious about his ability he challenged the man to a contest to see who could uproot the other from their stance.
After a long period of time neither man could uproot the other, master li said he understood why the man spent so much time on his stances but said he also needed to develop his hand techniques. With that master li hit the man 5 times and knocked him down.

20

Good Point

Last night we did three star conditioning drill while in each stance.

Matt