An ode to the deep stance: Contrarian thoughts on physics

[JusticeZero]

This came from a discussion with a woman who was writing a fictional character. The character had somewhat supernatural strength - but had the approximate size and build of say, Michele Krasnoo (5'0", 100 pounds). The question was exactly how would such an individual fight? Obviously, she couldn't get very far by leveraging her body mass against opponents more than twice her mass.

Lately, it is in vogue to use high, narrow stances, and it is the rare voice who advocates for the maligned deep stances. Deep stances, it is said, are immobile, and designed to be structurally strong against sweeps and throws; since people in high stances don't seem to have that much trouble with those, it is reasoned that the low stance is an impractical relic.

When applying force against a target, you have your base, your mass, and the vector of force to think about. A high stance has a narrow base, a high mass, and a flat vector of force far from the base. As a result, a substantial amount of the force in the strike must come from gravity being applied to the mass of the body in order to prevent the fact that the reaction from the strike is on a vector which falls completely outside of the base of the stance. In order to prevent the attacker from knocking themself off their feet, two aspects of force must be applied as a corrective. First, Gravity must be used as a second vector downward, and second, mass and a forward impulse must provide a buffer of inertia to be consumed; together, these allow a large person to deliver a powerful strike while in a high boxers stance without falling down.

However, the woman described in the initial problem has very little mass to utilize. This is a double penalty for her; not only does she have much less inertial mass to resist her own force, but she also has much less mass to reduce the leverage being applied to take her off of her own feet. If she attempts to strike someone from a boxers' stance, she is limited by the amount of force it will take to knock herself down, and this force may not be sufficient.

We will draw a triangle here. At the base of the triangle is the position of her feet. The apex of the triangle is the point of contact with the target. So long as she keeps her body mass and the origin point of the vector which she attacks outward from within this triangle, the entire load of returning force is being directed into the ground, and is limited only by the amount of force her structure can withstand and generate.

The concern was raised that it might be overly predictable to do uppercuts all the time. However, in the act of creating a wide base of this type, one is also lowering their body relative to the target. This means that target points are elevated more, making it easier to keep the force in this triangle.

Thus, the techniques we are looking at are ones that come from a greatly elongated forward stance, originating near the hip, and travel upward. I'm sure that people can think back to the critique from such people as Lee, dismissing punching from the hip as a poorly defended and bizarre practice, and yet here we see a good reasoning for just such a point of origin for purely physics reasons.

This leaves the question of mobility. Certainly people are used to horse stances as being immobile.

This seems more a problem of training methodology. Quite a few Karatekas are seemingly used to standing static in horse stance and launching attacks, where boxers drill shuffling and mobility.

If one watches a Capoeira practitioner, the idea of them being immobile is almost laughable. capoeiristas face, dodge, circle and slip through combat zones rapidly. What people seemingly miss in this is the fact that they do all this by using transitions consisting entirely of stances deep enough to make a Hung Gar practitioner proud; my lineage is often noted as having an unusually high stance, and our base is the full length of the leg long. The issue, then, seems to be simply one of experience in mobility.

If we look at the southern deep-stance using CMA forms, we see a large number of transitions into and between low deep stances. using these transitions, one should be quite mobile, as the form ranges all around the room... Yet somehow, these transitions are not applied so much outside of the forms. Curious.. perhaps this is a methodology issue? Maybe just an issue of the form not meshing with perceptions of the art?

We have been defining practicality by what works in sportive events. Sport fighters tend to have a lot of mass, so they can use it effectively as a huge part of their engine. But martial arts isn't supposed to just be about how hard the 235 pound weightlifter can hit...

I would be interested in seeing what other people take from this. The replacement of body mass with structural integrity should be useful for quite a few people who otherwise would limited by their body mass.

[yamesu]

Solid post. Thank you.

I believe that deep stances definitely have their place. Particularly in grappling and when executing judo-like throws and takedowns.

[JusticeZero]

I believe that deep stances definitely have their place. Particularly in grappling, throws and takedowns.

Oh, they definitely are useful there as well, which only adds to the reason why I think it is time to take a second look at these arts and these structures for general use as the core engine of a fighter. I keep hearing general received wisdom about the faults of deep stances, punching from the hip, and the like - but a lot of those objections rang false with my own experience.

When I started trying to work out how to help a student of mine who just doesn't have nearly as much mass as I have - though nowhere near as substantial of a difference as the hypothetical I was offered - it became obvious how much of my own personal style I have structured around using my mass. But when I looked specifically at the movements I do not do that are in the library, and examining the principles inside of them, I could also see how much could be done without having to rely on any mass at all by building upward from inside the wide foundation, and how similar it was to the wider library of techniques that I have seen dismissed as outdated.

So it starts looking more and more like the big equalizer for a smaller fighter may just be highly mobile deep stances, punching from the hip, and the takedowns and throws that come naturally from such a position - and that is exactly the type of fighting that has been dismissed as ineffective by people who gauge effectiveness by watching muscular 240 pound men fight.

[MasterPain]

Who says low stances don't work?

[Harkon72]

Deep stances work when you need to bee rooted to the ground. With high stance you may be able to move quicker, but you can be moved quicker too.

Thanks for the Vid MP, I enjoyed it.

[JusticeZero]

I have never experienced a deep stance to be "rooted", and I use them exclusively. If your deep stances are "rooted", the blame lies in the practitioner and possibly their teacher, not in the stance itself.

This gongfu clip might not be the best example out there (it just came up early in a search) but at around halfway and onward the form they are practicing starts wandering all over the place. And you can't tell me that

are rooted to the ground. But these are both examples of deep stances that you claim are "rooted".

They aren't "rooted", people just don't practice mobility for some reason. It shouldn't be revolutionary to be asked to move around the room with your stancework. Boxers do it, we do it, the forms do it, why can't anyone else practice it?

As for this:

With high stance you may be able to move quicker, but you can be moved quicker too.

As noted, I live in deep, low stances all the time. When I watch boxers shuffle around the ring, the first thing that comes to mind is how immobile they are. To be as mobile as a boxer really isn't setting the bar all that high. They move around, yes. They move skillfully, cutting angles and actually having a spatial game. But they don't move especially fast. They certainly aren't moving any faster than I do, and i'm in deep long stances. They get even deeper if I have to move faster, as a rule. It does not wash to just say "But you guys are weird" and think that that gives us a dispensation to interpret the laws of physics in ways that you cannot. If I can slink around a space rapidly with my feet far apart, so can anyone else.

[Wastelander]

From my own training, I have definitely utilized low stances while grappling in order to lower my center of gravity and stabilize my base in order to defend against throws. That is something that has already been mentioned by others, as it is a fairly common use for low stances. I have also used them in my striking-only sparring to re-establish my base if I have stumbled or been knocked off balance, which is a similar concept.

In regards to mobility in low stances, I have had success with covering long distances quickly in low stances, but it is very difficult (at least, for me) to change directions quickly because you have to be committed to your movements over a larger distance. The higher stances that I use in Shorin-Ryu allow me to change directions more quickly/frequently, while I can utilize the longer stances to cover greater distances, faster. It isn't that the long, low stances aren't mobile, just that they are not mobile in the same way that higher, more "natural" stances are mobile.

I will admit that I am not very knowledgeable about Capoeira, but in regards to the video that JZ posted, Capoeiristas do not seem use stances the way that most martial artist use stances, so while they are certainly very mobile they are moving in a completely different way--if you are going to use the ground to pivot on and push your body off of in the way that they do, then of course being lower to the ground is going to benefit your speed and mobility.

[bushido_man96]

Deep stances work when you need to bee rooted to the ground. With high stance you may be able to move quicker, but you can be moved quicker too.

This is what I was taught early on, as I think a lot of us are. Long, deeper stances had more stability, but sacrificed mobility; higher, narrower stances sacrificed stability for mobility.

So, when its all said and done, it does appear to be teaching methodology that is the issue. Perhaps some things changed along the way, and just like the initial intentions behind the forms, the initial intentions of the stances lost their way, too, and training hasn't made up for that yet.

I have never experienced a deep stance to be "rooted", and I use them exclusively. If your deep stances are "rooted", the blame lies in the practitioner and possibly their teacher, not in the stance itself.

When we do our basics in class, we are moving from front stance to front stance quite often, but its in a straight line, for the most part. We also land the foot at the time the technique is performed, which kind of lends a bit of a pause to allow the technique to penetrate with that mass behind it. Perhaps this causes a bit of a slow down, I don't know, though.

I am impressed by the physics lesson you gave, JusticeZero. Nicely laid out, and it opened my eyes some (as well as had me scratching my head a bit....I'm not a big science/math guy).

You've given me something to think more about it my training. I'm going to experiment with moving from stance to stance more, and not think about doing techniques with it, for now. It should help build the legs up, too.

Your opening post starts in regards to discussing a small person using these stances to gain power. But does a larger person suffer the inverse of not benefiting as much from a deeper stance, or do you feel its down to practice?

[sperki]

What about the happy medium stance? The Sumo guys start real low, but immediately pop up, at least some. And yes, they are mobile, but would I be more mobile if I assumed a higher stance? Obviously all of this depends on circumstances and fighting style preference, in a sumo ring there's not much turf to utilize. If a sumo size guy jumped me on the street I would stay high and work on putting distance between us.

[bushido_man96]

If you stay high, you raise your center of gravity. Against someone built like a Sumo Wrestler, with a naturally wider base and a lower center of gravity, I think you tend to put yourself at a disadvantage when it comes to leverage.

I think the point JusticeZero is trying to make here is that there is a fallacy in pointing to the immobility of lower, deeper stance. The real reason the stances tend to be more immobile is a lack of proper mobility training in these stances.