Ma Bu (Horse Stance) Training

[paper_crane]

Again, my point was that extended horse stance training does not carry over into fighting due to SAID because there is nothing in fighting that approximates horse stance training.

i was to believe one of the reason we do horse stance is to lower our center of gravity therefore improving our balance....surely that could carry over?

[IronFist]

i was to believe one of the reason we do horse stance is to lower our center of gravity therefore improving our balance....surely that could carry over?

Your center of gravity is lowered when you're in a horse stance because you're physically lower to the ground. It doesn't carry over tho when you stand up again. The same thing happens if you crouch down not in a horse stance, and the same thing happens to a car if you lower it. It's physics.

Word of Honor, I agree with what you said.

[paper_crane]

to add..... i know a trainer of mine who is current Australian kickboxing champion who holds true to the POWER of Mabu!!!. He said to me that after every match his legs would shake uncontrolably, but every since he started doing mabu training for 5 mins after his 5k run every morn he doesn't have that problem anymore. Now this guy does serious spar training and its Testament to the Power of Mabu!!

[SevenStar]

it's odd that he has the endurance to run 5k, but lacked the endurance to remain standing in a ring...

However, you did say that his legs would shake AFTER his fights...so he was fine while he was fighting, but shaky after?

[IronFist]

it's odd that he has the endurance to run 5k, but lacked the endurance to remain standing in a ring...

It's not that odd. A lot of people feel gassed in the ring, so they increase their running from 5k to 10k and still feel gassed in the ring and wonder why. The energy systems being taxed are different. Long distance running is low-output over a long period of time. Fighting is definately NOT low output. Fighters seem to have better success with interval training.

:gasp: that sounds like SAID

However, you did say that his legs would shake AFTER his fights...so he was fine while he was fighting, but shaky after?

Being shaky after a fight could be partially due to leftover adrenaline, as well as other things.

[SevenStar]

It's not that odd. A lot of people feel gassed in the ring, so they increase their running from 5k to 10k and still feel gassed in the ring and wonder why. The energy systems being taxed are different. Long distance running is low-output over a long period of time. Fighting is definately NOT low output. Fighters seem to have better success with interval training.

:gasp: that sounds like SAID



Being shaky after a fight could be partially due to leftover adrenaline, as well as other things.

Nah, I'm not talking about gassing, I'm talking specifically about his legs. I agree about interval training - because fighting is largely anaerobic.

[fa_jing]

"If you develop it better by training to failure doing presses and squats, that's your thing, I can't argue it. The idea with horse stance is to train for success- I try to reach a goal, and everytime I do, I feel like I'm on top of the world. "

Actually, that's the idea behind not training to failure and goal-oriented training. It has nothing to do with your choice of exercise.

[fa_jing]

Iron, you know I disagree with you. The low horse is just like the initial part of a chambered front or side kick. It trains this position statically. I know that you are very flexible, but for me the hardest part of executing a chambered front or side kick, and the key to its success, is getting the leg in the correct initial position. Now, TKD guys have great chambered side kicks and they don't practice a low horse. They get it from 1000's of kicks per day on the wall. But, that approach also has drawbacks.

[Akhilleus]

I remember when I played bball back in school, we would do a drill where we were in like a horse stance and then did like machine guns with our feet (ie we would like pick them up put them down as quick as possible while only bringing them a few inches off the ground, one foot at a time) also we would work on sliding from side to side in the horse stance...come to think of it, we did this in football too, the sliding/shuffle part....without crossing the legs...

[SevenStar]

we did the fast foot thing as well - it was called chopping. When you are a lineman and you come off the line to block, what position are you in? We also did the slide. That position is very relevant to them though - blocking. same thing with round ball - what position are you in when playing that man to man d? In these cases, it falls into SAID.

[BlueTravesty]

"Spiral Energy" does not exist. A muscle either contracts or it relaxes. You have tension or you have no tension. A muscle doesn't have special things that it can do.

<.unnecessarily long-winded response>
Perhaps we're talking in circles then. As it was explained to me, spiral energy isn't a "special" way of moving the body, just a different one i.e- most street brawlers and thugs will **** their arm back and punch, a boxer will bring the energy up through his feet, coordinating the punch with his body movements (not consciously of course, it's just my own way of envisioning the contractions of many muscles working in unison.) There's nothing "special" about it. As for sport fighters using spiraling, when you use your waist in any sort of torque and twisting, that is spiraling at its most basic level. (Hip throws for example- how many Judoka do hip throws by pulling someone's arm straight over? They turn the hips along with it.)

Many old-time boxers in the Marquis of Queensbury era would put their up their "dukes" (named after the Duke of York) with the thumbs facing toward them rather than out, therefore drilling their punches as they extended. This should sound somewhat familiar to anyone who has done basic punches in just about any TMA class, the main difference being that they did not chamber at the waist (TMA meaning the usual suspects, Karate, TKD, etc.) Yes, that's right, it's not a crude, goofy stereotype on old-timey boxers, that's how quite a few of them fought. (Not to mention that quite a few of the boxers around Jack Dempsey's time fought with a vertical fist too- kinda like wing chun, but instead of calling it chum chuy, they just called it a "punch.")

When you move your body in a curve you have a greater amount of physical space to work with. When you coordinate your punches with the movement of your feet, your hips will usually move as well, generating a curve. and again, you will get more power by rotating with your punch than you will by drawing your arm back and pushing your fist forward using only your fist and elbows. A lot of this is due to the fact that by doing so, you're able to put more of your body weight behind a punch. Does anyone disagree with this?

If you're referring to some motion, then that would be a function of body mechanics which is caused by either tension or lack of tension in the muscles. Your muscles don't go "ok, now we're going to use spiral energy."

You are correct, sir. Neither do one's muscles say "Ok agonists, you're going work against the antagonists, and antagonists, you go ahead and get ready to reciprocate, thereby causing a sudden contraction which will..." Yes, I am referring to "some motion." The Chinese call it Spiral Energy/ Silk Reeling because that's what the heck they felt like calling it. One particular long-fist named Sifu Henry Gong, just calls it "Lower Spinal Rotation" since he feels this power originates in the lower spine rather than the waist. In their opinion, the energy traveled through the feet and up the body in a spiral. Sort of like how we call it a Roundhouse Kick despite the fact that there are no circular dwellings involved. How many Kickers have you seen kicking around someone's house? If a Thai boxer decided to call a Teep "Wallaby Bounds o'er the Fruited Plains", that should be fine too. A bit long winded and somewhat esoteric, but there'd be nothing wrong with it so long as it gets the job done. Just like if Grog the caveman calls Dumping a Big-Azz Rock On Ya Face simply "grugghhh...." it wouldn't make any difference. Get over it.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to practice "Badger Plays in the Stream"... I'm stank :-\
<./unnecessarily long-winded response>

[Akhilleus]

Chopping okay good I'm glad you knew what I meant, that was a hard one to describe...also the horse stance is similar to how a baseball player usually stands when leading off a base, or when playing in the field...I use to bat out of a horse stance, and did pretty good with it, till some professional batting coach screwed me up by trying to get me to assume a more conventional stance...

[Lowlynobody]

Fighting (sparring) makes them better at fighting.

They don't just fight they do other things. If SAID was the be all end all then they wouldn't do any other forms of training at all. They wouldn't lift weights for one.

Lifting weights allows the muscles to generate more tension and therefore striker harder. How is that not SAID?

Because SAID tells us that really they should only be lifting weights so that they get better at lifting weights. Not to get better at fighting. Doesn't that debunk it? If lifting weights allows the muscles to generate more tension and therefore strike harder then it does actually have other benifits other than just helping you to get better at lifting weights.

The real big problem I have with SAID (as I touched on previously) is that the world is not black and white but infinate shades of grey. Which is why we can have a 15 page discussion about horse stance

Again, my point was that extended horse stance training does not carry over into fighting due to SAID because there is nothing in fighting that approximates horse stance training.

There may be nothing in fighting resembling horse stance TRAINING but there certainly is things in fighting that resemble horse stance and benefit from the training.

Lastly I think I skimmed over some posts yesterday and I found you correlated lifting weights to failure to the mental exercise of holding a horse stance for a long period of time. This is incorrect due to the fact that you arn't at the painfull point of failure for 20 minutes. When pushing to failure you know it will be over in just a little while. With horse stance the pain stretches out into infinity before you.

In adition holding horse stance for a very long period of time (after training it for a while) can actually get boring before the pain reaches a level sufficent to force most people to stand up. Then it becomes a fight against yourself. It can even become an exercise in mindfulness meditation as you watch your boordoom, see it for what it is, and watch it pass.

Again these are martial arts. There must be something in them for the word "art" to be included.

[omarthefish]

Originally Posted by IronFist
"Spiral Energy" does not exist. A muscle either contracts or it relaxes. You have tension or you have no tension. A muscle doesn't have special things that it can do.

ROFL@the ignorance.

IronFist is just putting his head in the sand now. Presented with endless examples, photos of boxers, typical sports drill and even a champion kickboxer he still plays the ostrich and sticks to his own little world.

But that statement there is staggering in it's narrowmindedness. Here's a clue:

There is more than ONE muscle in the body and those muscles work in unison with all the other muscles, bones and tendons, synergistically creating said "spiral energy". Trying to apply muscular physiology to it is about as relevent as applying quantum mechanics.

edit: remembering why I usually just lurk here.

[IronFist]

Because SAID tells us that really they should only be lifting weights so that they get better at lifting weights. Not to get better at fighting. Doesn't that debunk it?

No. Lifting weights for power allows the muscles to contract harder (generate more tension) which when combined with proper body mechanics will allow for a harder punch/kick/etc. than somebody who does not lift weights could throw.

If lifting weights allows the muscles to generate more tension and therefore strike harder then it does actually have other benifits other than just helping you to get better at lifting weights.

Yes. I never said it only made you better at lifting weights. Ok look at it like this:

Lifting weights = training your muscles to generate more force, whether through hypertrophy (muscle growth), neural adaptation, or both. That's SAID.

^ The additional strength gained from that transfers into punching or kicking or whatever where you want to generate maximal force from your muscles.

That is exactly how SAID works. I cannot break it down any more than that.

The reason horse stance does NOT have the same carry over is because long endurance training does not result in the muscles being able to generate more tension. If you increase your horse stance from 1 minute to 10 minutes, the maximal tension your muscles are capable of generating doesn't increase. That is also SAID.

The real big problem I have with SAID (as I touched on previously) is that the world is not black and white but infinate shades of grey. Which is why we can have a 15 page discussion about horse stance

Cheers to that.

There may be nothing in fighting resembling horse stance TRAINING but there certainly is things in fighting that resemble horse stance and benefit from the training.

My point when I mentioned that was that in a fight you're never in a horse stance long enough for the added endurance gained from training to pay off.

Lastly I think I skimmed over some posts yesterday and I found you correlated lifting weights to failure to the mental exercise of holding a horse stance for a long period of time. This is incorrect due to the fact that you arn't at the painfull point of failure for 20 minutes. When pushing to failure you know it will be over in just a little while. With horse stance the pain stretches out into infinity before you.

If time matters, just reduce the weight. The correlation was fighting through pain. A kung fu newbie who can only hold a horse stance for 30 seconds vs. a weight lifter who does a set to failure with a TUT (time under tension) of 60 seconds. If time matters you could theoretically do a set of bench with like 5lbs for 20 minutes or however long you want to hold your horse stance for. I never argued that holding a horse stance didn't build mental toughness.