Stance Training

[MightyB]

See my hung gar uses very low stances and developes it through forms and application drills more so that static stances

That could be the case, or maybe you're shortchanging your martial experience. You'd have to ask your Sifu what he thinks. Most of the static standing stuff is at the very beginning phase in most MAs that use that type of training. They often transition to some type of low stance moving drills.

But as B Trunks said, static stance training is good for weeding out the less dedicated and that's probably more of the true application than what the old masters let us believe.

[MightyB]

stance training, if you have good endurance with it, can be used in a devious way - probably much like how all the mystic around it got started in the first place.

Get yourself to the point where you can hang with the grapplers in the local MMA gyms. After you gain their respect, show some of the more practical kung fu techniques that they can grasp. Then, if they show interest in kung fu and ask you to train some more technique, say "ok - do this" and drop into a low horse. Don't offer any more explanation, just hold it with them. Make sure you've practiced this, but as they get all jello-legged and give up, say they're not ready for kung fu yet and walk off all mysteriously. It works better if you have a fu manchu that you can stroke.

[Kellen Bassette]

stance training, if you have good endurance with it, can be used in a devious way - probably much like how all the mystic around it got started in the first place.

Get yourself to the point where you can hang with the grapplers in the local MMA gyms. After you gain their respect, show some of the more practical kung fu techniques that they can grasp. Then, if they show interest in kung fu and ask you to train some more technique, say "ok - do this" and drop into a low horse. Don't offer any more explanation, just hold it with them. Make sure you've practiced this, but as they get all jello-legged and give up, say they're not ready for kung fu yet and walk off all mysteriously. It works better if you have a fu manchu that you can stroke.

Note to self...cancel demos, have new method for recruiting prospective students...
P.S. Grow Fu Manchu....

[18elders]

i think everyone is stressing on the leg strength or endurance of training stances.
the mental is just as important if not more important, you have to fight through the pain, you are training your mind as well as the body.
you also have to think of the martial aspect of your stance, what is it used for? why is this stance used?, how do i execute this? there is reasons for the stances, not just to pass time and provide pain in your legs.
my teacher always stresses we need to ask why are we doing this, what is it used for?

why do navy seals have to hold a boat above their head for long periods of time, or soldiers march for long periods of time. they are trying to develop their mind to overcome the pain and become strong.

[Pork Chop]

See my hung gar uses very low stances and developes it through forms and application drills more so that static stances

Yeah, that's kind of what I'm thinking about it...
The static stance is the way to clear up your form for the dynamic/moving stance...
It's corrective in nature and not the end goal...
Holding it for a long time is not just to build up endurance, but to help you find the best structural fit in order to stay down there without much effort - if your hips need to stretch more to get the mechanics right then they'll stretch...
I just think that too much static practice can be harmful over a long period of time, after you've already got perfect structure.

Going back to what I was saying before about practice how you fight:
Why would Hung Gar want to sit low when a muay thai guy wants to kick out his legs?
Well eventhough I said I don't agree with "fight high, train low"; there's a time and place for everything.

When you're still at the outside range - stay mobile (which would probably be higher).
Even if it's a situation where your legs are getting kicked out - weight on a straight leg that's getting kicked is BAD, weight on a bent leg getting kicked is not as bad - it can even help you absorb & catch the leg kick (see Cung Le's video).
When punching, sitting on your punches is a big thing in boxing, so knowing how to sink into your stance at the moment of contact is a good thing.
There's something to be said for being able to sink, even when striking at range.

Also when you've closed distance & engaged, then sinking can be a good idea.
This is especially true if you're worried about throws, it's not bad to get your hips low on the inside.
Chinese prioritized still being mobile while being engaged, hence all the dynamic stance drills - if you could apply that to wrestling, that would be akin to being able to drop level and shoot shot after shot tirelessly: shoot, get stuffed, step through and shoot, get stuffed, step through & shoot, get stuffed.... till you get it.
If you're about to get thrown sinking your weight's a real good thing - be it making yourself heavy in a sprawl (though not sitting in a horse), or sinking when you're about to be hip thrown.

Now you may be asking: "yeah but why do Thais keep their hips forward & raise on their toes in the clinch?"
Don't forget that their ruleset specifically outlaws wrestling shoots & forward body locks (talking about forward bear hugs where you drive your head into their chest while clinched around their lower back).
The muay thai clinch can be particularly vulnerable to both techniques (speaking from experience).

It's a time and place thing.
I think *some* kung fu schools *can* get a little detached from proper context and get a little obsessive over stance training; but don't throw the baby out with the bath water.

[Kellen Bassette]

Now you may be asking: "yeah but why do Thais keep their hips forward & raise on their toes in the clinch?"
Don't forget that their ruleset specifically outlaws wrestling shoots & forward body locks (talking about forward bear hugs where you drive your head into their chest while clinched around their lower back).
The muay thai clinch can be particularly vulnerable to both techniques (speaking from experience).

I was taught using the bear hug, as you described, in traditional Muay Thai, in Thailand. It was part of our clinch training, we just couldn't go for the hip toss.

Great post, by the way....

[Pork Chop]

I was taught using the bear hug, as you described, in traditional Muay Thai, in Thailand. It was part of our clinch training, we just couldn't go for the hip toss.

Great post, by the way....

It is a traditional Thai technique, it's not a ring technique (should I find & quote the rule?).
It also may help explain why traditional MT stance looks so different from ring MT.

[Frost]

Yeah, that's kind of what I'm thinking about it...
The static stance is the way to clear up your form for the dynamic/moving stance...
It's corrective in nature and not the end goal...
Holding it for a long time is not just to build up endurance, but to help you find the best structural fit in order to stay down there without much effort - if your hips need to stretch more to get the mechanics right then they'll stretch...
I just think that too much static practice can be harmful over a long period of time, after you've already got perfect structure.

Going back to what I was saying before about practice how you fight:
Why would Hung Gar want to sit low when a muay thai guy wants to kick out his legs?
Well eventhough I said I don't agree with "fight high, train low"; there's a time and place for everything.

When you're still at the outside range - stay mobile (which would probably be higher).
Even if it's a situation where your legs are getting kicked out - weight on a straight leg that's getting kicked is BAD, weight on a bent leg getting kicked is not as bad - it can even help you absorb & catch the leg kick (see Cung Le's video).
When punching, sitting on your punches is a big thing in boxing, so knowing how to sink into your stance at the moment of contact is a good thing.
There's something to be said for being able to sink, even when striking at range.

Also when you've closed distance & engaged, then sinking can be a good idea.
This is especially true if you're worried about throws, it's not bad to get your hips low on the inside.
Chinese prioritized still being mobile while being engaged, hence all the dynamic stance drills - if you could apply that to wrestling, that would be akin to being able to drop level and shoot shot after shot tirelessly: shoot, get stuffed, step through and shoot, get stuffed, step through & shoot, get stuffed.... till you get it.
If you're about to get thrown sinking your weight's a real good thing - be it making yourself heavy in a sprawl (though not sitting in a horse), or sinking when you're about to be hip thrown.

Now you may be asking: "yeah but why do Thais keep their hips forward & raise on their toes in the clinch?"
Don't forget that their ruleset specifically outlaws wrestling shoots & forward body locks (talking about forward bear hugs where you drive your head into their chest while clinched around their lower back).
The muay thai clinch can be particularly vulnerable to both techniques (speaking from experience).

It's a time and place thing.
I think *some* kung fu schools *can* get a little detached from proper context and get a little obsessive over stance training; but don't throw the baby out with the bath water.

I wouldn't ask a lot of those questions because as a because as a Thai trained, hung gar and hakka arts practitioner i sort of know the answers already but i understand and agree with most of your points.

All i would say is that my hung gar uses low stances because its a grappling art as practised by my sifu, but id simply point out that western wrestling gest the exact same ability to be able to fight low without the use of extended stance work so is it needed?

If wrestlers can get the same result and learn to sink weight heavily as well as anyone ( the two best people i have ever personally seen use sinking skills (not to mention inch range whole body power) were a former Iowa stand out wrestler and billy Robinson) without ever have done stance training as seen in chinese arts, is it really needed???

Personally it think it was originally used to weed out students and extned training time to make money, i think there are better more efficient ways to go about things but hey thats just me

[Pork Chop]

I wouldn't ask a lot of those questions because as a because as a Thai trained, hung gar and hakka arts practitioner i sort of know the answers already but i understand and agree with most of your points.

All i would say is that my hung gar uses low stances because its a grappling art as practised by my sifu, but id simply point out that western wrestling gest the exact same ability to be able to fight low without the use of extended stance work so is it needed?

If wrestlers can get the same result and learn to sink weight heavily as well as anyone ( the two best people i have ever personally seen use sinking skills (not to mention inch range whole body power) were a former Iowa stand out wrestler and billy Robinson) without ever have done stance training as seen in chinese arts, is it really needed???

Personally it think it was originally used to weed out students and extned training time to make money, i think there are better more efficient ways to go about things but hey thats just me

I definitely see your points, and they're good ones.
The first point about Hung Gar being a grappling art doesn't contradict what I've been taught about Hung Gar's principles regarding destroying the root.
The second point about wrestling being able to accomplish such sinking really touches on what I mean about missing the context & purpose for the training.
In other words, mistaking the drill for the goal.
The third point about it being a weed out drill, I don't disagree with, but will say that the drills do serve some practical purposes.

So from what I've seen of wrestling practice & in books, shooting drills (ie drilling low, deep penetration steps up and down the mat) are not that uncommon...
I don't see these as fundamentally different from walking back and forth across the mo gwoon in forward stance/gung bo/kung pu.
So I guess in answer to your questions: it's not like your wrestling examples completely do away with such training, they just keep it in context...

Now don't get me wrong, these 2 techniques ARE executed differently - the forward stance is a little higher & the knees don't touch the ground. But there are specific technical reasons for this.

In sanshou this makes sense because the rules don't allow for the knee touching the ground on a shot. Chinese wouldn't seem to appreciate such a shot from the knees historically either - the ground was somewhere that you sent your opponent but stayed away from yourself. Staying off your knees also allows for delivering & dealing with strikes a little better.

MMA wouldn't necessarily be a counter example to this theory either, as it's illegal to strike an opponent to the head with even one of their knees on the ground. But for a nice example of the possibilities should such strikes be allowed (again), see CroCop-Fujita 1 or even Kerr-Igor.

Unfortunately, *most* kung fu schools only see the striking applications for these forward stance drills. They *can* miss some of the context, thinking all striking (and striking alone) should be done in such low stances; when in fact, sinking should probably be done at the end of a strike and keeping your hips continuously low probably makes more sense for grappling.

[YouKnowWho]

keeping your hips continuously low probably makes more sense for grappling.

Actually it doesn't make sense in grappling. If your try to

- sink low, your opponent can help to sink even lower.
- raise high, your opponent can help to raise even higher.

When you

- sink, your legs will be bending. That will give your opponent a chance to "twist".
- raise, your legs will be straight. That will give your opponent a chance to "horse back kick".

You should

- sink when your opponent tries to throw you over his head.
- raise when your opponent tries to drag you down.

[Pork Chop]

Actually it doesn't make sense in grappling. If your try to

- sink low, your opponent can help to sink even lower.
- raise high, your opponent can help to raise even higher.

When you

- sink, your legs will be bending. That will give your opponent a chance to "twist".
- raise, your legs will be straight. That will give your opponent a chance to "horse back kick".

You should

- sink when your opponent tries to throw you over his head.
- raise when your opponent tries to drag you down.

You're exactly right, which is natural coz this stuff is your bread & butter, and you're d@mn good at it. I was mostly talking about dropping down for a shot (or string of shots), sinking down for a pick up, or sinking your hips in for a hip throw. I already know you'd toss me around like a child, so I wouldn't even want to engage with you.

[IronFist]

It is a traditional Thai technique, it's not a ring technique (should I find & quote the rule?).
It also may help explain why traditional MT stance looks so different from ring MT.

What does a traditional MT stance look like?

[SevenStar]

[IronFist]

Looks like more of a sideways stance than ring MT.

[Sima Rong]

That stance, 'submitting to the bald emperor', is not a traditional muay thai stance.