Are your stances rooted or just deep?

[SaiFightsMS]

I have seen discussion elsewhere on rooted stances. Now I ask everyone are your stances rooted or just deep? Can you feel a difference? How long in your journey in the martial arts was it before you really "felt" the difference? Or have you encountered the difference yet?

 

Yes, yes lots of questions. I am looking for responses from those who think about what they are doing and have done.

 

 

[G95champ]

By rooted you mean gripping the ground with your feet?

 

If that is the case we usually start by teaching deep and as they becoem more advanced we brign in the idea of rooting the stance.

 

However for a Shotokan school we don't stress the deep stance as much as most because its not really useful in real life defenses. However in kata we really work our low stances.

 

 

[SaiFightsMS]

Gripping the ground with the toes isn't exactly what I was looking for.

 

 

[Withers M.A.A.]

I used to train for deep stances but now I use a more upright stance. It gives more mobility. You sacrafice a little power but gain the ability to move faster.

 

Pete

 

 

[Chris from CT]

My old instructor used to say "sink your chi" (Qi/Ki). After a while I "kind of" understood.

 

Try this...

 

Just stand normally and have someone lift you up off of the ground. Ask them to remember how much effort they used.

 

Next, stand the same way, but this time concentrate and think of yourself getting heavier and heavier and sinking into the ground. Once you have that focused in your mind, have them lift you again while concentrating on getting heavier, etc. See if the amount of effort needed to lift you changes.

 

It's not magic.

 

Once I got good at that, I tried using that type of thought with my stances. It makes a difference. That helped me.

 

Take care

 

 

[Pacificshore]

Sai,

 

There are times when I fully concentrate on what I'm doing, say like a kata, and in my stance I get the feeling as if I'm sending my energy through the floor. Is this what you mean by rooted? It's like I'm connected to the floor at that given time.

[tessone]

On the question of low stances, I don't understand why schools don't train with low stances. The reason I hear from people is that it isn't practical for self-defense--who ever said it was supposed to be? I always thought it was just for building leg strength... I'd chuckle if anyone dropped into a low stance in a street fight.

 

 

[ckdstudent]

You say that tessone but I saw an experienced Shotokan Karate student actually drop into a horse stance in a fight. The fight was very, very short.

 

 

[SaiFightsMS]

Yes Pacificshore that is more of what I was looking for. I am noticing more and more that if I relax my feet more like I am standing in sand and just sort of sink my stances are much stonger (not to mention lower). It is a totally different feeling. And the blocks, punches and kicks seem to explode much more.

 

 

[Pacificshore]

Sai,

 

Sounds to me like your developing your internal strength, or Ki energy. Now let me preface this by saying that I am by no stretch of the imagination an expert.......

 

But sounds like you have the 4 basic Ki principles at work here. The first by being totally relaxed, second by naturally setting lower, or known as weight underside, third by keeping your one point, and forth by extension of ki with your exploding blocks and punches!!!