Explaining my Biggest Issues with “Standing Stake”
I won’t lie, I have a pretty big problem with standing stake meditation - as fight training. How people choose to stand when meditating really doesn’t concern me. However that’s not what people pushing Standing Stake claim to be doing.
Here are my reasons why I’ve got an issue. You’ll note that all of this discussion will be couched in rational discourse regarding mechanics of the body. If you can explain without resorting to pseudo-mystical nonsense an error in my reasoning I’ll be happy to hear you out.
Counting down:
- Sensitivity is best trained dynamically.
The proponents of Standing Stake training claim it helps build sensitivity. They point to example of “internal” masters who had their students spend up to a decade standing stake before learning a thing and claim that these students were better for it.
The problem is that in a fight you won’t be standing perfectly still. A body in motion has different properties than a body at rest - namely things like velocity and angular momentum. By training sensitivity without considering how body sensitivity is affected by being in motion, and in fact by being in motion when an oppositional force is contending against you, it is training a bad practice for a fighter.
Unless you have no body awareness to begin with (IE: you are too uncoordinated to walk) the ten years of training standing still are ten waisted years.
A novice pugilist with a few months of actual practice boxing, and especially wrestling, will have developed a sensitivity to body position that will include understanding of how dynamic forces work.
The same can not be said for somebody who just practised standing stock-still.
- Standing still has no combat application. I find the concept behind Standing Stake to be disingenuous. Even with forms, although I think there are more efficient ways to train, there is some attempt to practice a series of movements with specific applications. This is lacking in Standing Stake.
I understand that the founder of Yiquan took the concept of formlessness very seriously. But I have serious reservations about his pedagogical method. If you want to teach somebody not to use specific forms while fighting you show him how the various pieces work, in detail, and then you teach him to identify moments of change and transition so that he can understand to apply the appropriate technique at the appropriate moment. Training formlessness by having the student literally do nothing accomplishes nothing.
- ELBOW POSITIONING!!!
This is a HUGE beef I have with students of Standing Stake and it is one I can demonstrate easily.
Here’s a video of standing stake.
I want you to notice where the elbows are - high and wide.
Now, here’s a video of a yiquan player shadow-boxing.
And just for good measure, another video of a yiquan player shadow-boxing.
Again notice the elbows - they always return to high and wide.
Here is a video of a yiquan player demonstrating push-hand basics.
Where are the elbows? High and wide.
This is bad. This is REALLY bad. Why?
Here is why:
Pay attention at 1:39 -if your elbows are sticking out this is very easy to do.
That’s not even considering the fact that you are basically opening yourself for unlimited gut-shots with this guard. It’s not considering that the width and projection of the arms makes the guard next-to useless for protecting the face. If your elbows are sticking out you are giving them to any decent grappler in any style.
And if they have your elbow they have your back.
If a grappler has your back you are screwed.
From what I have seen of Yiquan (the martial art that makes the widest use of standing stake) the focus on the practice conditions the players to have a high, wide guard.
This is a direct result of spending up to a decade holding their arms high with elbows wide as a key component of training. It is, simply put, training a bad habit.
Oh, yeah, also if your elbows are wide you cut off your arms from your body for power generation on strikes. This explains why so many Yiquan videos seem not to involve the torso at all in power generation, the mechanics of the arms limits them.
