Training the Horse Stance

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Techniques and Tutorials

By Pete Mills, on 21-03-2008 11:10

In Ving Tsun horse training must accompany every drill, form, and Chi Sao session. It is the horse that lends us movement, power, and stability. It is the horse that makes chung chi (forward energy) possible. It is the horse that connects us to the Earth.

If you think about it, gravity is the most constant force that effects us. Always pulling us to the Earth.

Training the horse doesn't mean looking at your feet. As one of my Sihings put it "There isn't anything down there but your shoes.". Horse training involves not only rooting yourself, but also aligning your posture, shifting, stepping and FEELING the transfer of weight from foot to foot. Not only should your legs be strong and flexible, but also they need to become as familiar to you as your hands have become through Chi Sao.

Find an older brother/sister and have them push and pull you around. Receive the gifts of training with someone with more experience than you do. Be conscious of what you train. When training the horse, feel your balance. Set up drills that make you shift and step, and with each shift and step take the time to FEEL. Once you get the concepts then speed it up and make it fluid -but don't rush! Don't sacrifice good structure/technique for speed! Speed is a by-product of good technique -train train train train!

The Yee Chee Kim Yu Ma (Ving Tsun training stance) in Siu Lim Tao has us root down, place out hips up, and grab the floor with our toes all in an effort to what? I'll tell you. Rooting down to lower center of gravity. Hips up to align the spine vertically. Toes grab the floor to lend forward energy. In Chum Kiu we begin to move and crank the horse, but the feeling (in your horse) you developed in Siu Lim Tao remains. So as it should be in your exercises.

If you think about it, gravity is the most constant force that effects us. Always pulling us to the Earth. Posture, or I should say, correct posture makes use of the body's natural structures (bones, joints, etc.) and minimizes the use of muscular force in order to keep the body up-right. Thus resulting not only with good balance and rootedness, but also in greater relaxation, as you are no longer using muscular tension to stand up. If we compare posture with attitude, and gravity with life in general, then as posture is a way to blend with gravity, then attitude is can be a way of blending with life, no? I guess that's another paper all together.

Applications of Wing Chun Kung Fu
When learning ving tsun, you will hear many different opinions about what is right and what is wrong. How something should be done, and how it should not. Often two different people will have completely different views, yet somehow, they both make their methods work. How do you really differentiate and determine who is right and who is wrong? How do you know who to believe?

When we have a good horse, and have control over it, then all our techniques come to life. All of Ving Tsun's "hand" techniques are not just hand techniques, they are body techniques! When we unify our upper and lower halves, then we become a whole. The Earth to our feet, to our legs, through our hips, spine, shoulders, down our arm, seated in our elbow, and extended though the forearm, hand and fingers. Why hit with a fist, when we may strike with the Earth? This is surely the nature of the horse.