trouble with backstance, need suggestions

[Killer Miller]

Actually the outside tension on back stance is very critical to the stance for recovery. It acts like a rubber band when stretched out in back stance, then at time of recovery, it helps you quickly snap back during the recover stage - kind of way of providing a natural starting action back. If the knees don't have the outside tension, in order to naturally recover from back stance, you still have to apply the outside tension before recovering from the stance and it becomes two actions to recover versus one action if you already have the outside tension on the stance.

As far as suggestions of it just comes in time and not to worry about it, I guess that's ok from a standpoint of just relaxing and letting it naturally come to you in time - but this concept can lead to bad habits if not corrected early on by doing it correctly now. My preference of teaching is 5 times as slow and as correct of a technique as possible, then 5 times as fast as you can trying to focus on doing it with correct technique (repeat this for 5 or 10 sets of 10). Now you learn to be fluid in application, and yet learning proper technique in the process.

- Killer -

[SlowHands]

thank you all for your suggestions!

i brought the subject up to my sensei and we talked about it. so what i had originally learned when i started was exactly how Bushido described it- heel to heel/ in an L position running on a single imaginary line. so that was how i was continuing to practice it, however my instructor told me that is used for teaching the technique. as we get higher up in rank the stance is slightly different where if i was to imagine that line again one foot would be on one side and the other slightly off on the other.

so to keep you guys updated, i did as my teacher instructed and noticed some improvement in both stability and fluidity of movement. i took killer miller's suggestion and started doing my backstances going in one direction then switching to the next and making the appropriate adjustments. i've also been practicing my heian katas at 50% spd.

the shins are still a little tight, but i'm beginning to understand how they provide tension when used in conjunction with properly placed knees (which should also create tension) and how its used to propel me in one direction or another.

[bushido_man96]

I'm glad that we were able to provide you a little guidance in this matter, slowhands. As always, referring to your instructor will tend to help you the most.