horse stance

[taiji fajin]

Here's my venture into trying to make my posts more open to all korean martial arts, not just mine.

 

A common stance is "horse stance." Roughly, it is sinking the body to where the leg bones create an approximate 90 degrees at the knee. It is done in many different forms, and held in other exercises. My question is, what is the benefit of this? Why do horse stance at all?

 

Answer: Horse stance works out the leg muscles so you can kick powerfully. It also is a stance that keeps your weight centered.

 

Counter argument: My weight is still centered if I have my legs equally far apart but am in a higher stance. This also allows me (if legs are only slightly bent) to absorb a perturbation or release energy in both the upward AND downward directions, where in horse stance you are too low to move downward without sacrificing a powerful structure. The extreme lowness also hinders waist rotation, taking away from the power of your punches. As for working the leg muscles, yes, it does. However, you will have your toes rotated too far outward, causing lateral stress on the knee and possibly patella femoral pain syndrome. You might also have your knees in front of your toes. This causes extreme vertical stress on the knee. You *might* be able to avoid these by being as close to 90 degrees as possible at the ankles, waist, and hips. However, if all of these are at 90 degrees, your center of mass will be too far back and you will fall. Draw a little stick figure and do some physics if you don't believe you break the 90 degrees in your horse stance, it doesn't matter how strong your ankles or calves or any of your other muscles are, your center of mass is far outside your base of support. Since we've lost an opposable toe (sorry to any Creationists on the board), we simply do not have the grasping power with our toes to hold ourselves up like that. In a nutshell, ask anyone working in kinesiology or any field that deals with injury to the knee, they will tell you that lots of time spent in a low stance like that causes damage to the knee over time. I can think of better ways to work out my leg muscles without hurting my knees.

 

So, what do people think?

[searcher]

I have studied styles that use low horse stances and others that use higher stances.

 

There are advantages to both and you have pointed out most of them in your post.

 

One you might want to think about is your center of gravity. I always tell my fighters the same thing I learned when I was starting boxing. My coach told me that anytime you start to lose your balance you should squat/drop your weight and it will bring you back into balance. You should try this it works.

 

My 2 cents.

[Knifehand007]

Well there are certain moves that require the horse ride stance... such as the slide-up side kick. It also builds the muscles.. however, at my weight (230LBs) it is incredibly painful to be in for a while without moving. But it helps. The Slide up side kick is the only move i know tha requires the horse ride stance, but many iL Soo Siks require the horseride stance... mainly 1&2 (that i know so far)

[taiji fajin]

searcher, that's a good point, but I see that as a reason to practice dropping the stance and coming back up, not holding it.

 

Knife - I'm afraid I've never heard of a slide up side kick. Can you describe it? I don't know those techniques either. Would the kick (and techniques) be better trained by going up and down, or trained by holding a horse stance for long periods?

[tufrthanu]

The only thing I have ever known a Low Horse Stance for is for building muscle in the Quadriceps. I have never been able to go very low with my horse stances...supposedly the optimal position in TKD for horse stance is legs at 90° and toes pointing forward...unfortunately due to my weight and bone structure this is almost impossible...usually I end up with my legs bent 45° at the knees and my toes angled outwards. As far as I can see the horse stance serves no practical purpose in actual fighting. From the front it leaves the body open to numerous attacks. From the side it does not give your hands and feet good access to a target. And in addition to which the depth of the stance makes you highly immobile.

[JaseP]

The Horse/Side stance is also a very powerful transition stance when shifting power to and from other stances. Higher forms in Tang Soo Do, Sei Shan for example, require a shift to and from front to side stance and back again. When applying those principles in self defense, the seemingly useless stance actually becomes very useful, same for front stance,... although not for more than a half second or so.

[1kickKO]

The horse stance is a great stance for offense/defense. The weight is 50/50, allowing you to transition into any other stance easily, and also is a great way to generate power if you do a step punch while using hips.

[SBN Doug]

A very valid point, taiji fajin.

 

I think you should bring that up to Master Sims before a test you take with him presiding. (He loves starting us off with 5 min. of that stance in "the valley of pain".)

 

Just make sure I'm behind the desk, and not testing.

 

Honestly, I never did a 90 degree horse stance until after first degree. Before that, they only taught us to make our stance strong enough to hold a person standing on each leg.

[KSWDanMan]

we also do stance training all the time at our dojang, and horse stance is a primary one. The idea we are taught, is that if your horse stance is strong, and you train in low stances all the time, then when you ascend to your fighting stance, your legs will be even stronger. I doubt on the street, you will drop down into a horse stance to take on an attacker.

 

So from our standpoint it is a training method.

[Knifehand007]

(We have two side kicks so far)

 

The first one we learn is the Side kick in a horse ride stance. We kick with our front leg. in order to do that, you need to bring your back leg up while you are chambering your front leg for the kick and then land back in a horse ride stance.

 

The other one is a side kick with the back leg.