Adopting Stances

[Ian]

You don't need to adopt stances. You end up in stances in the process of trying to accomplish an outcome.

Friendly simplistic reminder

[middleway]

nice!

If this means that a 'stance' is part of a achieving an outcome, from that perspective, should they be trained?

[kenneth fish]

Yes - stances are essentially the end point of a continuum of motion, and represent the moment in which force is either exerted or redirected. The more you train moving in and out of stances with stability, the more likely that you will perform this way when you need to.

[NoSword]

I think it's helpful to think of stances as snapshots of fundamental movement patterns. E.g. ma bu = squat, gong bu = lunge, xu bu = pistol.

AK

[Steve James]

I think it can help to think of "bu" as steps, not stands.

[NoSword]

Very true, it is not an accidental quirk of the Chinese language, they have a very clear character for 'posture': "shi 勢." If they'd intended for the stances to be understood statically, they'd have used that character.

There is a big chain of dance studios that established itself through mail-order at the turn of the century, much as weight training was once taught through muscle mags. From what I understand they were the first to teach dance "from the feet up," drawing out outlines of shoes to teach various steps. That's how I think of the main 'steps' of Chinese gongfu.

AK

[Doc Stier]

[Ian]

I think it can help to think of "bu" as steps, not stands.

Bu should obviously be trained as bu, i.e. transitional.

There are shi (e.g. santi shi) and zhuang (e.g. wuji zhuang) as well.



Shi/zhuang are useful solo tools, but you don't consciously adopt them while you're trying to solve real time problems; you just let your body organise itself.