Let's talk about the horse stance
Hey there,
I would like to hear from other people about the horse stance. I have a friend who wants to join my kung fu school, but he is worried about his knees. I used to get quite a bit of knee pain, and I still do from time to time. It seems to me that the key is keeping your thighs nice and spread out, and conditioning your leg muscles with weights etc. A good warm up seems to help. I went to a phyisiotherapist, and she simply said "don't do the stance, there is too much torque on your knees." I notice in some kung fu books that the horse stance is shown with the feet pointing 45 degrees outwards, while my school asks me to point my toes directly forward. The physiotherapist said if you must do it, them point your toes outwards, to lessen the torque.
Overall, I feel ok about my horse stance, and the knee problems seem to be going away, but I would like to hear others experiences with it.