Stance Training

All Chinese martial arts schools do stance training. It is often considered the most important training for developing a gongfu foundation.

I estimate that I have stood still for on the order of 6000 hours, probably more. The longest period of time I have held a single stance is 6 hours. My shaolin students learn and train the following stances: Horse, Cat, Falling stance, Bow'n'arrow, Monk, cross leg or t-stance, and natural step (ziran). Every movement in taijiquan should be held, and basically the same goes for xingyi and bagua.

Wang Xiangzhai, the highly influential 20th Century founder of Yiquan said quality stance/stillness training was what all great Chinese martial artists have in common.

My own experience is that deep stance training is more effective than stretching and high kicks for re-making young Northern Shaolin students bodies so that they have a bigger range of movement potential. This is sometimes called, "getting the qi in the channels."
While in my twenties, an hour a day of low stance training initially made my thigh muscles and shoulder muscles bigger, but as time passed and my alignment improved my muscles got smaller and smaller. This is sometimes called, "qi going into the bones."

It's true, my muscles got smaller. My alignment improved and along with it my ability to issue power, to connect (integrate), twist, and pulse (open/close). Believe it or not, I got weaker. Not lazy or deficient but muscularly weaker and functionally more sensitive.

As time has passed I feel my use of higher stance training (still an hour a day) has helped develop more freedom and naturalness in my everyday movement. This is sometimes called, "Writing the Classics (jing) on your bones."

Stances on one leg, both high and low, are essential for developing kicking power, and are of course great for balance (in a future post I'll explain the physiology as I understand it.)

There is a ton more I could say about this subject and probably will in future blogs. I encourage readers to add your comments about what role stances have played in your training. In your opinion, what does and what doesn't stance training achieve?

Our Teenage Qi Bodies

What ever type of movement or training we do when we are still growing has a lasting effect on the shape our physical body takes as adults. As the physical body is developing so is the 'shape' of the Qi body.  The particular quality and flexibility of the muscles we have as teen-agers will give shape to the qi meridians in and around the body, the body we develop as teen-agers will usually be the body shape which for us has the most unrestricted qi flow.  Practices like Northern Shaolin have been specifically refined to maximize qi circulation and should be taught in the schools.
Adults cultivating weakness should consider their development toward flexibility, softness, looseness, and internal connection in relationship to the body they grew into as teen-agers. For instance, someone who developed big muscles and played football as a teen-ager and now has muscles which are much smaller will tend to be sluggish  the circulation of qi will tend to stagnate in meridians that originally developed in a highly active muscular body.  Assuming such a person is not suffering from injuries they should consider building up the muscle a little to re-familiarize themselves with what their body feels like when qi circulation is at it's optimum.  If we take the uninhibited circulation of qi as our measure of health and our measure of how to practice- the best way for each individual to practice will reveal itself effortlessly.  The process of cultivating weakness should be a gentle peeling back of the layers of history, not an abrupt end.

Student Performance

My fourth and fifth grade students at Mission Education Center in San Francisco performed this week for the rest of their school. They really rocked the school yard. The show is a demonstration of 19 weeks of training once a week for 45 minutes. Check out the video!