...it would also be interesting to know which style of Kungfu you are studying

For self defence I think you should practice hitting from all angles. However, let's face it in a real fight, you are going to be in a pretty neutral stance to start off with. When it kicks off, it's more important that you are trying to deal with the opponent than worry about your stance.

Just my thoughts
Steve

Your stance can either be your root or your vehicle for movement all are paramount in real life scenario's. The transition between the two is what i believe should be drilled into muscle memory. What do you guys think ?

Hi Meditator,
A stance is a static position. When applied, a stance becomes a step; fluid and capable of change.
In application, you don't stay in one position for any length of time, you constantly move. As such, your body should flow from one posture to another.

BT

Your stance can either be your root or your vehicle for movement all are paramount in real life scenario's. The transition between the two is what i believe should be drilled into muscle memory. What do you guys think ?


Well put Shaun...

"Snap shot of time" what a fantastic way of describing it, can i pinch that one sir ?

Shaun agree. If you drill the stance and move that way in conjunction with the upper body you will eventually do this instinctively. and in a fight situation the action will overcome the thought.......

I can see what you mean as I also started off doing Karate and now do a traditional form of Kung Fu.

Firstly about the low stances and more importantly what you were saying about doing it as a discipline and fitness etc and not for fighting: Kung Fu was originally created to train the mind to focus and develop an inner strength of the mind and the self defense and fighting aspects all came later so the low stances eg Horse stance are meant to focus your mind and train both your muscles to endure more then they have to and your mind to be able to overcome pain and the distraction of muscle tension enableing you to focus on the task at hand.

What I mean by training your muscles to endure more then they have to is similar to what other people have been saying. You're not going to have to go as deep into your stance in a real fight as you do in your training but the concept is if you can hold it in such a deep stance then when it comes to an actual fight where you're higher then it should be significantly easier to keep your balance and move around quickly.

The other thing you said about bouncing is interesting as we were talking about this in class yesterday. The concept of bouncing is so that you can move quicker which is true but bouncing tends to happan in styles like boxing, karate, taekwondo etc but if you watch styles liek MMA, wrestling, jiujustu they don't bounce because they have to be wary of the take-down. This is why Kung Fu doesn't bounce especially in tradityional styles as it's based more around actual fighting rather than sport which is why San Shou (modern sport version to traditional Kung Fu) looks completely different as you'd get disqulified for tiger-clawing someone in the face or grabbing an opponents special bits. So they're all good techniques but they're all for different things which is why you can never compare different MA as they're all used for completely different things.

K that was a bit of an essay but I hope it helped...any other points you want to know about then feel free to message me and I'll try to do my best :)

Li

FFS,
Getting sick of repeating myself (and you all know how much I love doing that boys n girls).

It's like this;

look!
There's a rabid bear behind you, with a headband on!

"Aha, you do Karate?" says man to Bear, reading the headband, which says "Karate".

Bear turns over dual print headscarf, which now reads "I love Kung Fu!"

"That Karate thing was just a class I was at last night!" He says "Kung Fu is for life and it'll be the last thing you remember!"

dmccarthy wrote:
Just remember that stances are just snapshots of time. They are not meant to be held for any length of time in real combat. They are there for the instant of the technique and then you should be back to a neutral fighting position that allows for good movement.Yep, transitional. We practice them as static, to learn and train muscle, but in reality they are dynamic movement.

Bailu Taiji wrote:
A stance is a static position. When applied, a stance becomes a step; fluid and capable of change.
In application, you don't stay in one position for any length of time, you constantly move. As such, your body should flow from one posture to another.Exactly.