stances in karate

[RockSOLLIDD]

It has come to my attention recently that my stance is flawed, at least I think...

 

I practice shotokan and I need some clearance on zen kutsu dachi.

 

Does the front foot remain turned straight ahead, or slightly turned to the inside? one of my senseis says the foot should be turned, but I was looking at a book with mas oyama, and his front foot pointed straight ahead! a little help would be appreciated.

[P.A.L]

a little bit inside is correct although classical is straight forward. then main thing in zenkutsu dachi is hip ,it should turn completely so you stand correct.

 

now about that slight turn in, try this. stand in zenkutsu with slightly turned inside now step in for a chamber or another step, you can see right at the moment that legs come together and passing each other the front leg turns outward , if you have the primary inside angle ,then at this moment you are in a right position to kick or step in.

 

anyway a little inward angle in front foot is definitely ok , but not opposite way.

 

I hope this helped.

[RockSOLLIDD]

in that case, i find it easier to keep the front leg straight, because when i have to worry about turning the foot, i lose my concentration, usually when my class is doing walk-forward exercises. Could i just forget about turning the foot, or is there a special use(s) for that technique

[P.A.L]

The reason is protecting the knee by not putting it in a vulnerable angle. from zenkutsu dachi if you are going to do a mai geri , at the moment that you chamber your leg and going to kick ,your standing leg should be straight toward the target ,if you have it turned toward out side ,you have opened an angle on your knee that if you get kicked is dangerous. So advanced inward angle helps you there. Naturally when you move forward the movement of back leg creates a torque on front leg and turns it slightly outward (you turn on the ball of your foot). This is technical/tactical reason but as far as kata and correct movement, straight front leg is ok.

[Musse]

Too much writing

 

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=zenkutsu+dachi&spell=1

 

- Musse

[Sandhoppa]

Yeah I practice Goju ryu and it took me a lil while to get my stance correct. It is an unnatural way at first, but hopefully it will become second nature soon

[username9]

I do Shukokai and find that a strong Zenkutsu Dachi involves keeping the front foot straight ahead, back foot at about 45 degrees and three fistwidth's between the kness (if you kneel whilst in ur stance - then u can try this). But the main thing about Shukokai Stances are that they are much more upright that Shotokan or Shito-Ryu (as Shukokai is n evolved form of Shito Ryu).

 

Upright stances allow for more dynamic movements. Shotokan stances are VERY deep n comparison. maybe try "standng up" just a little more.

[NidaninNJ]

It has come to my attention recently that my stance is flawed, at least I think...

I practice shotokan and I need some clearance on zen kutsu dachi.

Does the front foot remain turned straight ahead, or slightly turned to the inside? one of my senseis says the foot should be turned, but I was looking at a book with mas oyama, and his front foot pointed straight ahead! a little help would be appreciated.

If you're doing Shotokan your front foot should be slightly turned in. I was taught that the outside of the foot should be straight so the toes are a little in.

Check out pictures in Dynamic Karate, Best Karate or some of the Shotokan Karate Magazine issues.

[Hobbes]

there are a couple of thoughts for the foot position. One of the most interesting is that by slightly rotating the foot so the outer aspect or the blade edge of the foot is straight (as the previous poster explained) causes a slight rotation of the femur on the tibia. It is though that this gives the adductor muscles (Gracilis *which is also a flexor of the knee) and the semitendinosus a better angle of pull. Its been suggested that the satorious muscle is placed under a bit of a stretch( this is a mucle that rotates the leg outwards). Its well known that the popliteus muscle is invloved in unlocking the knee, but whether it comes into play significantly is unknown for this purpose, but it is thought to be the primary mover for the tibial/femur rotation.

What I can tell you is that by moving the foot slightly inward (very slight) one's knee is much more resistant to lateral forces. We've seen this with soccer players when they slow or stop rapidly with video footage.

All I can say for sure is that there is a lot going on there and I feel firmly about a slight turning in. who knows maybe we're wrong. Perhaps the postion of the foot also has a role in transmitting forces into the ground in a particular way. Until we had high speed cameras and force plates, most of this was speculative and based on old wisdom and most of it still is. We are finding that what we though was happening wasn't really happening at all when we slowed down the motion using 200 fps video.

My 2 cents.

I would be really interested if anyone's done biomechanical studies on like movements.

[Zorba]

we have always been told that for the beginners its ok to have the inside of the foot straight forward. but the senior students should have the outside of the foot straight.

the back foot should also be as straight as you can get it comfortably too.

tho after seeing the tape of my last grading (6th kyu) my stances sucked. tho i look at myself as a black belt even tho in shotokan im only 6th kyu.