Kung Fu Stances Breakdown: The Horse Stance

[@MonkeyStealsPeach]

Is the horse stance the same or different in your style? Let us know how yours works in the comments below!

[@robertkiss8282]

The southern shaolin style I practiced a number of years back is incredibly similar and the T'ai chi I do now isn't massively different either although much higher up in the T'ai chi version. Great video on this and I've been really enjoying catching up on on your other content as well. Particularly liked the difference defintion of posture naming, I was unaware the stances weren't really named but instead the full posture was the driving point (and that this is a more recent development).

[@simpleman8644]

I’m the guy who made the post in the group. Ours was a little higher like the gentlemen under you commented. Thanks for the video

[@huntergrant6520]

Same. Love northern shaolin.

[@houkongzhuanti]

In Fu style tai ji quan ( idk if you ever heard of it, derives from the work of the famous bagua practitioner Fu Zhengsong) they have a very smart indication about the tailbone, that is: " Just sink down in a relaxed fashion. It will go where it has to go". And surprise! If you follow that intention, you'll get an anterior pelvic tilt, basically because it's the physiological movement of the pelvis when the hips get abducted, in order to optimise the muscle activation/ reduce the risk of bone to bone impingement. As always, in many movement traditions there's a ton of biomechanic knowledge, the problem is having the basics to distinguish it from all the noise they are often adorned with.

[@Veepee92]

@@houkongzhuanti The degree of anterior pelvic tilt is ultimately very dependent on individual anatomy: the length of the shins and the femur, the structure of the hips and the angle of the femur head etc. I have relatively long femurs which generates a very pronounced anterior pelvic tilt in a narrow horse stance, but it evens out when I bring the legs further apart because I have good hip mobility. This is something people have to very often work out when they start to do weightlifting and seek to improve their squatting form.

[@fxmedaccelerate]

Amazing tutorial! More of these videos on footwork. So valueable.

[@MonkeyStealsPeach]

Thanks! I have planned to at some point

[@realherbalism1017]

This video has been super instructive & you should do more like this. A side note: I noticed the stances in MMA as well & had independently came up with the conclusion that the stances were taken from actual combat. People think that Kung Fu is this outdated sort of symbolic way of fighting when in fact it's very practical & straightforward when you know what's going on.

[@ShizumaKusanagi]

Great video! I remember someone once said that we fight our way to forms/postures, not from them. I took that to mean exactly what you mentioned in the video.

[@larrydicus7822]

I’m so happy to see that you have made a new video. And to see that you are doing well

[@lw1005]

I used to train it for a couple of hours daily, mainly for postural alignment. It's about aligning your knees over your feet to get your weight to the ground properly. You tuck the tailbone to try to get there but once you get that it's more rotate the thigh bone so that the knee doesn't track inward. We called it yang Lao ma. Id train it to try to bring that feeling / alignment back into our normal hitting ma.

[@KCECC-ActiveHealthyAgeing]

Thank you 🙏 excellent instructions

[@jordivilaioliveras]

Excellent breakdown of the horse stance, Will. In Chen-style Taiji we don't have this posture "officially", but in fact, we use it all the time to sneak under the oponent's punches to our upper-body. Great video!

[@mattiethemongoose3rd]

Really interesting and informative video thanks.

[@joezane]

this is a really great video. i would love to see more like these.

[@NotOrdinaryInGames]

I did eventually learn the stance should be narrow, and ONLY widened when really needed. Did not figure out the hips part though, guess I was wrong for years.

[@bankuei]

Thank you! I hope to see more stance videos. Very informative and just the right length.

[@bogwoppit792]

Great video Will I can relate to this demo because Wing Chun has the Kung Fu Horse stance in the 6.5 Point Pole Form, but the narrow stances in the rest of the system requires the pelvic tuck. This threw me off when learning Pole form, but makes sense for leverage to work from a low position. Also through past lockdowns and not being able to train, the amount of form and isolated movements within form I practiced by feeling and visualisation has taken the sloppiness out of my postures into my present day partner training. Like you say, the traditional hour long rule is taken far too literally. I personally see stance training as like Isometrics training, a daily short practice where its a different way of building the body up, like the yoga plank for building up the core, so you're body is becoming a stable platform to recieve pressure inbetween stages of movement

[@bobbader4789]

I practice Tai Chi but really enjoyed this video!

[@pernologos84]

Very informative. In my 7 star school we actually do not push the hips backwards. The stance is larger, about 2 times the broadth of the shoulder

[@alessiofabbrini8546]

Brilliantly presented!

[@jamesdevine6452]

Absolutely brilliant video thank you both for sharing 🙏🙏🙏

[@salcanzonieri]

over time, information disappeared. Ma Bu can be used as a take down as you hook your leg around someone else's and sink. Front (bow) stance same as well, you hook and turn to make an even more severe leg takedown. So you can step into Ma Bu to make a Shuai Jiao like takedown, it's called "biting" with the leg. the arms are used to tip over the person you are biting with your leg.

[@MonkeyStealsPeach]

Yea, there’s lots of uses for it. I just covered some

[@alLEDP]

Good solid body mechanics are universal. Thats why kids who take Martial Arts as kids do good in other sports most of the time

[@THEWORLD-fi1mz]

stance is create for movement or shift momentum from back to front , left to right momentum make great force in hitting and grappling somthing like this

[@monkeyking371]

Hey Will could you make a video about the Iron Palm and Iron body and how it relates to the mantis system and kung fu in general?. Thank you for all the knowledge you are sharing

[@alpachinko9154]

Thanks for another interesting video :) - off topic, but, where'd you get your trousers?

[@MonkeyStealsPeach]

Haha! Amazon. I think I just searched Thai Yoga pants or something

[@RobertoTorresCL]

I love your videos, greetings from Chile 🇨🇱

[@williambreazeal387]

Really informative. One possible correction, I believe the stance work is mostly meant to open and strengthen the pelvic connective tissue and to connect the upper and lower body (so you can feel the strength of the toes in the fingers etc...). If your legs increase a lot in size/strength from stance work, it usually means the pelvis is being in a congested manner. Standing properly with the pelvis properly opened and strengthened tendon wise should feel like it requires minimal effort. Since the practice involves tendon transformation, the first sign of training too much is usually brain fog/mental fatigue since tendon transformation uses a lot of kidney yin.

[@MonkeyStealsPeach]

It sounds like what you are referring to is high stances, not deep stances like I am showing. Different practice

[@sifuthai]

Great explanation 🙏🔥🔥

[@Wwim58687]

excellent

[@nyclee9133]

This is so true the fact that most kung fu guys don't do this is very crazy to me even mike Tyson uses a horse stance

[@huzhuiwei]

Thank you!

[@katandmart]

Hey man. Does the no tail forward thing apply to every “stance” I’ve always rolled it forwards in WC stances and I suffer with lower back trouble these days. I’ve been trying to push it back since watching this video and see how it feels…

[@MonkeyStealsPeach]

I’m only discussing fully squatting stances, styles that use a high stance tend to tuck the tailbone in to get a different kind of connection. But even with tucking the tailbone in, the way we learnt back in Leeds to sort of lean back and push the crotch forward is definitely wrong and detrimental

[@katandmart]

@@MonkeyStealsPeach yeah I stopped with the lean back crotch forward kind of thing time ago. I keep more perpendicular, try to decompress my spine then sink down and just kind of roll the tail bone forwards but I don’t force anything unnatural. Since training boxing and Muay Thai I have been keeping my stance more loose and mobile to still have a solid connection from the fist with the ground but mainly focused on keeping a dynamic balance.

[@MonkeyStealsPeach]

@@katandmart exactly, that stance was just asking to be obliterated by anyone who comes at you with aggression

[@jassimarsingh6505]

Hey, great video! What does Mr. Sean mean when he’s saying curled and natural tailbone postures while he was demonstrating his Taiji? Thanks.

[@sseet]

Curled tailbone meaning when is tucked up or rolled the hip under, while natural means the opposite.

[@jassimarsingh6505]

@@sseet So the curled tailbone means that the hip is tucked in?

[@sseet]

@@jassimarsingh6505 yes

[@geoffreynelson6413]

Helpful.

[@ilustradorel-javi5566]

is there a Mandarin or Cantonese concept, in Kung Fu, similar to Bunkai?

[@MonkeyStealsPeach]

Not specifically. There are a few different words that could be used, like 用法 (yong fa, usage), 拆拳 (chai quan, deconstructing forms), but not formalised in the way it is in karate

[@Veepee92]

You have to remember that "bunkai" does NOT mean "application" in a literal sense at all; the word for application is yìngyòng/ōyō (应用/応用). Bunkai/fēnjiě/分解 really only means to "break down, to disintegrate" in the meaning of taking apart to analyse or resolve (or to literally dismantle/disassemble things). It's a part of a larger heuristic in karate as the first step of an interpretive process that leads to applications, which does not exist in any way in Chinese martial arts.

[@mtfhs]

I have bad knees, can I just hold a higher horse and still be able to root / ground

[@MonkeyStealsPeach]

Yes, just adjust it according to your own situation

[@MejorStrength]

Interesting. My Tai Ji, Xing Yi, & Xin Yi teachers all taught a higher stance with a tucked tailbone. Fun fact: doing so actually helps properly load the thoracolumbar fascia which coactivates obliques. It is a more sustainable way to distribute load throughout the body. Interesting to see the differences across traditions.

[@MejorStrength]

I also love the breakdown of how changing the upper body changes the intent of the posture. I’ve only heard my Xin Yi teacher talk about that.

[@simpleman8644]

I was also taught a higher stance with the tucked tailbone and thats the one we held for a long time

[@MonkeyStealsPeach]

Yea, styles that use a higher stance tend to do that. Totally different practice from what I am showing here though, even if sometimes the names are the same.

[@sicksidemadness]

None of the biomechanics proben until today supports your point or the one you talk about in your videos.

[@VanishingNomad]

I actually disagree with the position on stance holding. For me, I didnt really start getting my horse stance (usage and understanding) untill I was holding it for 20 minutes at a time. Building up to the point where you can hold each of the major stances an hour is a really important training phase. Once you can do that, holding 3 to 5 minutes will maintain that development. As for hurting yourself by holding too long.. I have never seen that from holding too long. Holding WRONG, with bad posture and pressure sitting in the knees, and even over training (trying for too much too soon and too often with no recovery time), but that is true for all exercise.

[@MonkeyStealsPeach]

I mean if you want to, go ahead. But I prefer to spend my training time on other things

[@Escafermo]

I've seen people in horse stance trying to reach the ground with their bottoms bent inwards! that seems fine, but it's very dangerous for your joints. remember people: cartilage doesn't grow back!

[@thekungfuintellect]

👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

[@taylorbee4010]

Ma Bu aka IRON BOOTY 😂

[@ryanramos3491]

Personally,I prefer the traditional term of Qi Ma Shi rather than the shorten term of Mabu

[@AfroShaolinAmaniel]

How can you say your back is straight, when it clearly is not. Your Mabu from the side showed this clearly. Yes your supposed to tuck in your butt, let your backbone drop and relax. Mabu isn't supposed to be easy. None of the traditional stuff is easy.