Horse stance, why is it so important...

[Topic]

When youre in horse stance, why is it so important to have your knee right above your heel?

[cross]

The are a couple of reasons:

 

In application, the horse stance is simply the dropping of your weight towards the ground. Try doing that with your knees bent inwards or with you shins at any angle other that 90 degrees to the ground and you will see just how weak it is.

 

Your leg alignment needs to be strong in this stance, if your struck you dont want your knees to colapse.

 

Also, the wider you go with the stance the more it will resemble doing the splits if you dont keep your knees over your feet, which will mean your feet can slip out pretty easily.

 

So in short, its important for: Strength, Stability, Alignment and Balance.

[Ricochet]

I think, too, that you can ruin your knees by having them stick out over your toes. You'll notice that instructions for doing squats always say not to let your knees go past your toes.

[cross]

you can ruin your knees by having them stick out over your toes

 

Im not so much talking about have them stick out 'past' the toes, but rather not going out toward where the feet are enough.

 

Still the same reasoning applies either way.

[Sico]

That's crap, your knees are not designed to move like that - this is bad technique that has been passed down over decades. You shouldn't push your knees out or in when in side stance, you should just 'sit down' in the stance with your knees in a neutral position. If you try to force your knees out or in, you'll put unnecessary strain on them. It's misinformation like this that results in 'shotokan knee' later in life. Whether you put 'tension' towards the inside or outside of the stance is a different matter altogether, but your knees themselves shouldn't be forced outside their normal range of movement (straight hinge joint).

 

Decide yourself what value you place on your knees.

 

Good:

 

http://www.ozwebart.com.au/kua/kihon/Kiba-Dachi.GIF

 

Bad:

 

http://bushido.karateclub.free.fr/Postures/kiba.jpg

 

See the difference?

[P.A.L]

the original horse stance which we call it Naihanchi dachi is not that wide as we see in kiba dachi, it’s even more like sanchin dachi , it creates a tension in thigh and abdomen that is a key to traditional okinawan karate, Kiba dachi that we use in Teki is very unnatural and I always feel pain in my knees after doing it especially in outer side of my knees. Could someone come in and explain the origin of kiba dachi?

[cross]

Sico,

 

I agree partly with what you are saying, however im not talking about pushing your knees out past their natural range of motion. Im talking about when you sit deep into the stance with your hips and your knees are naturally directed outwards due to this hip positioning.

[Jussi Häkkinen]

Second one ("bad") isn't actually even kiba dachi. It's a shiko dachi - badly done one (too high). See the feet - they point outwards. Knees are over them, OK, so no knee damage is coming up, but it doesn't work the same way as kiba dachi does.

 

Two different stances. And well, the kiba dachi is too wide - much too wide. See Funakoshi's way to perform a kiba dachi (it's an Okinawan way, not a modern Shotokan's "side split" -way): http://home.drenik.net/joemilos/IMAGES/GICHIN12.JPG

 

It's narrow, relaxed and keeps the hips mobile. It's the idea behind a kiba dachi. It should feel like a boxing stance.

[Sauzin]

So about knees I would like to add a couple of things. If your stance is very wide, then pushing your knees out over your feet can hurt them. If your stance is about as wide as your lower leg and foot plus a fist then moving your knees out provides a much stronger and more stable structure. Not to mention protecting them from collapsing at angles that might do damage to them in combat. Even the guy in the first picture has his knees out a bit past what is natural, just not as much as the second guy. If the stance was not so wide it would not seem so stressed in either picture.

 

The major thing I notice about a lot of people’s horse stances is that the back is perfectly perpendicular (straight) to the ground as in the first picture. This is correct in many styles though I really don’t understand why. Having your back straight immediately causes the stance to be off balance if your knees are bent forward much at all. I could understand people who do this trying to get as wide and low as possible, they would constantly feel like they were falling backwards otherwise. The back and hips were not designed to be perpendicular to the ground. Man has a natural cant forward. Using this does several things. It increases balance, lowers the center of gravity, saves the lower back from undue stress, relaxes the upper back muscles creating a more responsive stance, and above all it keeps you from falling over. You see people doing techniques in a horse stance like punching and blocking to the front. If these guys were to hit anything with any real force they would fall backwards. Try it some day. Have someone push you backwards with the back perpendicular then have someone push you backwards with a slight cant forward and your butt out just a little bit like you were going to sit down on something. The difference is dramatic. Imagine if the front liners of a football team were to line in horse stances with their backs perpendicular to the ground. They’d get run over. I’m not suggesting anything as dramatic as a football posture but the principle is the same.

[Sho-ju]

Our Grandfather wushu uses a deeper stance then naihanchi, the reason being to build power in the lower body, etc.