what's the deal with the wu style lean?

[everything]

the other taiji styles and most other martial art styles try to keep the posture upright AFAIK, so what's up with the wu style leaning forward?

[Chris Fleming]

An efficient and improved way to get disbalanced.

[Chris McKinley]

Once a real fight starts, the difference in forms training will be irrelevant.

[johnwang]

In CMA there is a general guide line and that is your back leg, your back, and your head has to be in a perfect straight line. Since your back leg is always in an angle, there is no way that your head can be upright unless you are in a golden rooster stance. You can notice this guideline is well followed during "brush knee" in the following clip at 0.25, 0.29, 0.31, 0.33, and 0.37.

http://johnswang.com/Chang_Taiji_Part_1.WMV

This guideline can also be seen clearly here:

[bigphatwong]

In CMA there is a general guide line and that is your back leg, your back, and your head has to be in a perfect straight line.

Right, it's designed to maximize power by launching yourself into an opponent like a spear. Same principle I've seen in Dai, and some Honan style Hsing-i.

[Chris McKinley]

Like I said, once a fight starts, it won't matter significantly how you train your forms anyway. If an opponent is so incompetent that he actually allows you to choose the exact angle of your back while fighting him, you so grossly outclass him in skill that fighting him constitutes predatory assault on your part, making you the aggressor. For all other circumstances, it simply won't matter how you train your forms.

[Nick C]

The forward body lean (in a forward stance) keeping the crown in a straight line with the heel of the back leg (and back leg straight) also makes biomechanical sense when the feet are parallel facing forward, for either delivering force or directing force down the body structure to the ground.

I think the idea of practicing forms is to try and make those positions 'natural' for your body, so that it is more likely to be in the correct position in an actual fight.

[bigphatwong]

Like I said, once a fight starts, it won't matter significantly how you train your forms anyway. If an opponent is so incompetent that he actually allows you to choose the exact angle of your back while fighting him, you so grossly outclass him in skill that fighting him constitutes predatory assault on your part, making you the aggressor. For all other circumstances, it simply won't matter how you train your forms.

Well, IME the way it is meant to be utilized is on the initial burst, to shock and displante. Kind of like a professional linebacker, if you will.

The critical elements are timing, distance control, and the willingness to act when you know that trouble is imminent. If any of these are lacking, it won't work.

[everything]

hmm yeah ok thanks. form doesn't matter, ok, but guess this form makes more sense from what y'all say

[CaliG]

the other taiji styles and most other martial art styles try to keep the posture upright AFAIK, so what's up with the wu style leaning forward?

When your car runs out gas or your battery dies how do you push your car forward?

[GrahamB]

Yeah Wu style - what's the deal? Sort it out and learn to stand up straight, will you?

( in case you didn't realise )

[GrahamB]

the other taiji styles and most other martial art styles try to keep the posture upright AFAIK, so what's up with the wu style leaning forward?

It's not just Wu style: Yang Cheng-Fu leaned forward too, (just not as much):



Bagua leans all over the place:



In contrast Cheng Man-Ching likes to stay upright:



Chen Xiao Wang seems to like to stay upright (mainly):



At the end of the day, I think the only conclusion you can come to is that both work and it's down to personal preference. Going further, you could say that being upright is actually an expression of a principle, and if you understand the principle you now how to break the 'rule' correctly

[GrahamB]

the other taiji styles and most other martial art styles try to keep the posture upright AFAIK, so what's up with the wu style leaning forward?

When your car runs out gas or your battery dies how do you push your car forward?

I've been thinking about that example a lot - I'm not sure it's a good example. Yes - when you push a car you'd lean forward and put your weight into it.... just like a Wu style push...but a person is not a car, so it's a bad example.

How would you push a punch bag? (I'm just using that as an example of something light that would swing back at you... and potentially hit you in the face... - a swing maybe?...there must be some better example to use, but I can't think of one right now) Personally I wouldn't push it the same way I push a car. I'd probably stay upright so I don't commit forward so much. That's not a good example either, since it's not a person, but it just shows that the way you instinctively push changes depending on what you are pushing.

For example - check out 0.44 in this clip - ignoring the rights and wrongs of what's going on for a moment, notice he pushes from an upright position to immediately pull the person back to knock him out with a headbutt:



But anyway, I think that once you look into it more, using pushing a car as an example isn't so great... hmmm... back to pondering...

[CaliG]

For me punching is the same. I lean forward so the distance my hand has to travel is shorter. Although I'm not pushing for a split second that forward lean allows me to deliver a lot of power straight forward. (Afterall if you think about it in sparring most punches don't land correctly so that forward lean could bring up your hit ratio.)

Basically the way I see the Wu style is that it is based on natural movements.

If you watch a game of billards hall or watch a goalie playing football/soccer in all these situations everyone is leaning toward the ball whether they are hitting it with a cue or catching it with their hands. To me this is just natural. If you look up Steve Morris's stance it's not that different from what you see in the Wu.

Interesting note though, the Gracies used to use that very upright posture in their fighting stance with all their weight on their back leg in the early days of MMA. Go check out Royce and Rickson's fights you'll see them fight as if in santi, this was to keep the distance from their opponents before closing in for the takedown.

To each his own...

[everything]

Rickson looked really upright. Same thing with Lyoto Machida as a more recent example.

OTOH, they probably don't hit as hard as this guy did: