it is said that the horse is the foundation of training… some people refer to it as being a free chair, someone i know juggles iron balls in horse stance to help tighten and condition the structure… i was wondering how people incorporate their horse stance into their daily lives… the other day we were all meditating on the job site after we got to a part of the wall that need to be stuccoed and all the available scaffold building materials were being used…
aside from taking a poop, does anyone else have any creative horse stance stories to share??
[SIZE=“1”]p.s. i do realize i am on a slightly crooked high horse here. :p[/SIZE]
“Hey guys, we have to get these wheelbarrows full of bricks across this 6’ wide ravine, but we don’t have anything long or wide enough to lay across the gap; anybody got any ideas what we could use?”
pushing wheelbarrows is an awesome workout… bridging the body might work with one full of bricks if a wood road were thrown down first… they definitely love me at work - i told the boss he needs to get in the pictures so we can send them to his insurance company. seriously though, i do have some job security - guy’s there 18 years are getting sent home for the day while i and my dragon friend get all the hours… it’s all about that work ethnic.
[QUOTE=Dragonzbane76;1020197]doing it wrong straighten you back…[/QUOTE]then my friend would have spilled over and off into the newly pardged wall… adaptability creates tenacity.
[QUOTE=uki;1019870]pushing wheelbarrows is an awesome workout… bridging the body might work with one full of bricks if a wood road were thrown down first… they definitely love me at work - i told the boss he needs to get in the pictures so we can send them to his insurance company. seriously though, i do have some job security - guy’s there 18 years are getting sent home for the day while i and my dragon friend get all the hours… it’s all about that work ethnic. :D[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=IronFist;1020486]Why you gotta make it about race?[/QUOTE]LOL… well i do work just as hard if not harder than the mexican immigrants… american redneck construction workers that bitch about the mexicans taking all the jobs have to stop and wonder if it’s because they are all overweight, high-heeled boot wearing, cigarette smoking, toothless slugs that would rather bark orders and look important talking on their cellphones, rather than actually doing any work for themselves.
… it is not near as glamorous, but I sit/practice horse stance when I do the dishes. I think it’s good practice and makes brownie points with the wife.
I’m a rookie though, the best I’ve ever done is 17 minutes. We have to be able to sit in horse stance for X amount of minutes for each rank, so I figure I might as well get good at it.
[QUOTE=Chief_Suicide;1020530]… it is not near as glamorous, but I sit/practice horse stance when I do the dishes. I think it’s good practice and makes brownie points with the wife.
I’m a rookie though, the best I’ve ever done is 17 minutes. We have to be able to sit in horse stance for X amount of minutes for each rank, so I figure I might as well get good at it.[/QUOTE]
in a previous life we would do horse stance for X time during testing. It wasnt for seeing how long you could do your stance, or being able to do the stance for a certain time frame.
the reasoning behind the long standing during testing (for us), for better or worse, is to push yourself to the limit, then pass it on will power alone. each person would only stop standing when sifu noticed they achieved what he was looking for, so for every person the time frame was different, he would silently rest a hand on your shoulder, and that was heaven, lol. my longest standing was 45 minutes. no way i can do that now…
you can do this many different ways, i think our teacher used ma bu simply because during his coming up, he was subjected to severe long term standing on a daily basis. temple training…we had it easy.
At our school there are a whole bunch of things they test on. The higher the rank the more they test on.
There are warm ups, then ma bu stance testing, then doing all the moves you’ve learned. There are some torture things, like doing every kick and routine/combination 25 times per side (right/left). After it is all done they have us spar to see if we can take care of ourselves in a fight, and use some of the techniques we’ve learned.
Starting with the second sash/belt we start doing the ma bu stance. 5 minutes, then 10 for the next sash, then 15, then 30 minutes, 45, and then the last is 1 hour I think. Considering I can barely get past 15 minutes, I can’t imagine sitting in the horse stance for an hour.
I don’t suppose sitting in horse stance will make be a better fighter, but like the challenge of will. It takes a certain amount of fortitude to do it, and it hurts. Like it was mentioned earlier, it is partly a mental game. I like the test.
Did I mention I’ll be 40 in a couple of years? I guess a lot of this is just to prove I can still do it. Juvenile maybe, but It makes me feel better the longer I can pull this stuff off.
[QUOTE=Oso;1020882]your ass is too low in the pole sitting/juggling…and your’re leaning forward…just saying.[/QUOTE]ya i know… i like this sunken horse when juggling on poles because it works the muscles differently when you are hanging your arms and juggling at or below ones foot level… leaning back and forward, likewise changes the muscles a bit.
[QUOTE=sanjuro_ronin;1020686]does it in heels ! [/QUOTE]
A little critique here: She is not doing ma bu. Her hips are lower than her knees and her heels are raised. She is merely squatting. Try a five minute horse stance wearing cowboy boots, (or Mongolian wrestling boots, for that matter). Then try it in flat soled Chinese shoes.
I used to be impressed by how my sifu could stand in ma bu with a perfectly vertical spine and make it seem effortless. Then I realized that he was wearing his standard “Beatle boots” when he did it. We students were wearing the kung fu boots made from Japanese car tires and velvet flocked canvas. I went home and tried it wearing dress shoes and I was instantly a great master of the skill.
