I've been thinking a lot about stances recently. I like
to see good stances: correct feet positioning, strong bend of the correct knee
(or knees), correct weight distribution, good back posture, head held up
looking forward etc. Good stances look strong and stable.
Beginners find stances difficult to master; they
generally lean too much with their upper torso, don’t bend their knees enough,
have their feet in a line, have incorrect weight distribution or look down at
the floor. I've been there; it’s hard to get it right or for it to feel
natural. It takes a long time and a lot of practice to get stances right and
even longer to get the transitions from stance to stance smooth and quick.
A lot of people would argue that stances are for
beginners or that they slow you down or are just too unnatural to be useful in
real self-defence situations. I would beg to differ.
Stances are an essential part of achieving economy of
movement when doing self-defence. Economy of movement is essential if you are
to move swiftly around your opponent, getting yourself into advantageous positions
to apply a technique, unbalance them or evade a strike. Good footwork is
essential to achieving this; if you teeter around your opponent with lots of
small steps, getting your legs crossed and generally wrong footing yourself you
are likely to come a cropper.
Good use of stances helps you to:
…Shift your weight smoothly and quickly from one leg to
the other as required.
…Maintain your own balance and stability by keeping
your centre of gravity low but your posture upright.
…Unbalance your opponent either by directly using the
stance to destabilise a balance point e.g. placing your knee directly behind
theirs using a zenkutsu dachi (forward stance) or shiko dachi (sumo or horse
stance) or more indirectly by using weight transference e.g. grabbing them and
stepping back into a kokutsu dachi (back stance) or neko ashi dachi (cat
stance).
…Quickly put yourself in the most advantageous and
stable position to execute a restraint, takedown or throw.
…Move out of the way quickly and effortlessly if
required.
Karate pays a lot of attention to stances. Most
karateka will have spent many hours of their training going up and down the
dojo in shiko dachi or neko ashi dashi with sensei picking up on the smallest
postural transgression –“bend your knee more”, “stick your bottom in”, “turn
your back foot in more”, “turn your back foot out more”, “put your weight back
more”, “put your weight forward more”…….
It can all seem so picky sometimes and people will question
the wisdom of needing to be so precise with your footwork and postures. After
all, if you are attacked would it matter if you weren't in the perfect cat
stance?
Well, yes it would matter if cat stance was integral to
the technique you were trying to execute on your assailant. If your technique
depended on you suddenly shifting your weight backwards, pulling your opponent
off balance whilst allowing your front foot to follow through quickly with a
swift snap kick and then be able to spring forward off the back leg to land a
punch; then being able to instantly get into a perfect cat stance may be
crucial. Failure to achieve it may leave you unable to pull your opponent off
balance and with too much weight on your front leg you won’t be able to kick
effectively either and if your back leg is too straight you may not be able to
spring forward for that punch – that could all lead to disaster!
Stances are more than just good footwork, they involve
the whole body. Good upright posture is crucial to a good stance. Without good
posture you cannot engage the core muscles properly and without the core
muscles engaged you cannot get any power in your strikes. Also, with poor, bent
over posture you are liable to lose your own balance and be easily pulled over
by your opponent.
Stances aren’t always an integral part of a technique;
sometimes the situation may require you to be lighter and quicker on your feet.
Evasion may be more important than getting a technique on your opponent. The
art of tai sabaki (body movement) is an exercise in good stance work, except
this time the stances are higher and lighter allowing quicker movements. Tai
sabaki still involves attention to posture, feet positioning, weight
transference and good transitioning so it is still stance work even if you
don’t choose to call it that.
I really feel that we neglect stance training at our
peril. Without good stances our techniques will be weak and our movements
clumsy. When you watch a senior black belt in action the thing that really
stands out more than anything else is the way they move – it is precise and
effortless. This is because of their use of stances; they always put their feet
in exactly the right place with their weight distributed correctly and their
posture upright and it all flows so smoothly and naturally.
So if your own or your student’s stances are poor and
their movements clumsy get back to some formal stance training – up and down
the dojo until their thighs ache; you’re actually doing them a big favour….
Sue is the Blog-Editor-In-Chief for Martial News. You can contact her at sue.wharton@martialnews.co.uk
Sue also writes a personal blog called Journey to Black Belt
