Horse stance: knees in vs knees out

[citrus538]

I'm sure that everybody knows that they teach you to keep in your knees in when doing horse stance at YMAA. To be honest, Dr. Yang is the only master who I have ever seen teach like this. I was checking out another gong fu school in my area (no YMAA instructors around here) and he said that having your knees out is better if somebody tries to step on your knee.

I thought about it a bit, and this seems to make sense. But then, standing horse stance with knees in makes it easier for me to shift into mountain climbing stance and four-six stance.

So, I was hoping to get some thoughts from both sides about this : )

[Tosh]

I had the same question in my mind, since i'm practicing longfist and i'm taught to push my knee out, I'm not sure but i was thinking maybe dr yangs mabu is influenced by his white crane(please correct me if I;m wrong)

[darth_freak]

there's the He Ma Bu, crane ma bu, with the knees in
and the normal ma bu with the knees out

[citrus538]

Hmm. . .I guess there are actually three options : )

He ma bu with the knees almost touching, the ma bu Dr. Yang teaches in long fist with both of your feet pointed forward, and the ma bu you normally see in long fist with your toes and knees both pointed out.

What interests me is comparing the two different horse stances in long fist.

[Tosh]

Isn't ma bu always done with the feet pointing forward ?

[Tosh]

I also noticed that dr yang doesn't go so low at mabu, Im encouraged to go much lower

[OnlyMe]

I also noticed that dr yang doesn't go so low at mabu, Im encouraged to go much lower

Whatever gets you the strongest root. You dont want to get too low (unless your conditioning) or your weight is pushed a little too far back, not as good balance. Then if your too high your feet are not rooted into the ground. I would go with slowly sink and have someone push you and whatever feels like your strongest root than thats where your horse stance should be. I say this because we are all differently made, and someone that is 100 pounds might feel very rooted in like a full squat horse stance position, where someone like 225lbs might have the same strong root but is up a little higher in his horse stance. I guess the height of ma bu is all in our genetics. As long as your comfortable and feel rooted, it shouldnt matter how low you go.

[N0M4D]

Hi, guys and gals

It's true that in YMAA the traditional Ma Bu stance is taught in a way that makes it "narrower" and with your knees lined up with your feet (i.e., pointed generally forward). The reason for this is that when Dr. Yang started teaching in the West he noticed that allot of people just didn't have strong enough knees and got injured easily. The modification to the stance was brought on by the need to provide a less agressive alignment of that particular joint.

And don't be fooled: once you have strong enough legs and knees - you'll get them through practive - , you ARE encouraged to go low.

Walter, if you have any aditional info on this, feel free to chip in.

Cya

[No.6]

A data point:

The YMAA White Crane book notes that one should train in the knees out position and only after you can hold that for five minutes comfortably start training the knees in variant.

When you do the stance with everything in-line (knees out) you're training mostly muscle. When you bring the knees in you're training tendon, too. If you do the second when the muscles aren't trained all the weight goes on the tendon and this can cause injury.

[Walter Wong]

For Long Fist just before to have you knees lined up with your toes in Ma Bu. Your feet should be "1 fist" worth of distance from your shoulder. So say your right foot should be out 1 fist worth of distance to your side from your right shoulder and your left foot should be out to the side from your left shoulder. Hence if you have a wide torso, your shoulders would be out further and your feet are placed a fist away's distance from your shoulders. And the more narrower your frame the closer your feet would be to each other in Ma Bu compared to the person with the wider torso. But either or put your feet at 1 fist distance from your shoulder. Then, you line you knees over your toes. So if your stance is wider cause you have a wider torso, then you have to push your knees out to the side til your knees line up with your toes. Use a full length mirror and check your alignment when you do Long Fist Ma Bu.

The Crane's Ma Bu as you know is knees are turned inward and toes turned inward. The knees are still lining up with the toes at this point as well. And feet are closer than they are when doing a Long Fist Ma Bu.

The Ma Bu you describe that is narrow but knees lined over toes, where this stance doesn't quite look White Crane but not as wide as Long Fist is kind of an inbetween stance of the 2 styles. Kinda modified. This stance will make a good transition training stance from Long Fist Ma Bu to Crane Ma Bu.

Hope that was comprehensible. This stuff is so much easier to explain in person.

[dc]

i feel like when practicing longfist, ma bu should be somewhat wider than having your feet one fist length beyond your shoulders. for instance, when pushing into deng san bu, to achieve a correct stance, your feet should be pretty wide. i know that you should be pivoting on the rear toes and front heel, but if your feet were a little more than shoulder width, i would have to lift my foot off the floor to get all my power out.

then again, i am not master yang (or walter wong!), but after years of years of doing longfist, ive found this is what works best for me.

[Walter Wong]

Well, those are just guidelines. The fist out from shoulder thing I got it from Grandmaster Li.

But in regards to the guidelines, I do cheat a little.
So I know what you are saying Dan.

[scramasax57]

it makes sense to me that each person will have to adjust their stance to make it best fit their body. every one is built a little differently.

[BaguaMonk]

I like to do the hung gar step thing, in which you point them in, out, in and out (like a dance move) from the center to get the appropiate distance. Usually I keep it toes pointing forward aligned with knees, and sometimes shoulders, butt tucked in, and as parallel as I can get to the floor.

[TonyM.]

In Hasayfu hung ga we do both methods. They both do different things.

[Damion78]

I think some one does not like me. B) xx(

[scramasax57]

spammer. mods, delete this guy.