“There are no fixed postures in Karate”

I realize that this is a bit of an ironic followup to Marlon’s previous post on the Crane stance, but that’s why I recruited him to broaden the intellectual offerings of this blog. This month’s issue of Classical Fighting Arts was a real winner for me. Besides a nice article about Choki Motobu by his son Motobu Chosei, (with an uncredited translation by Kiko Ferreira) with recollections of his father, there was an article by Mario McKenna entitled Stances. In the article, the precepts of Nakasone Genwa are mentioned, highlighting the 17th,

“Fixed postures are for beginners; as you advance use natural postures.”

Sometimes I think that I’m forward thinking in my attempts to ‘clean up’ my kempo, my thirst for cross training, and my goals of eliminating wasted movement and bad body mechanics. Perhaps I’m just ‘old school’ and don’t know it.

When I explain stances, I usually refer to them as ‘snapshots’ of a position you will be in if structured properly in a movement. My favorite example is in combination 15, the twist stance. I always found twist stances to be disaster waiting to happen. As luck would have it, many years ago a friend invited me to a seminar when Tat Mau Wong was visiting to teach the Siu Moy Fat Kuen (small plum blossom fist) to the Choy Li Fut school where he was studying. He sent me a tape to learn the choreography, and over the course of the day working with master Wong, I learned a passable version of the form. What was really useful however, was a chance to see and feel the body mechanics that he used to transition his stances and generate power in his strikes. I couldn’t do that form to save my life today. In case you are wondering, this is what it looks like, done by Tat Mau Wong no less. Note the twist stance transition at about the 0:47 second mark in the video.
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What I did walk away with was a great perspective on the twist stance (among other things) and how he used it as a split-second transition while changing direction. It totally made sense after that, and it has affected how I teach any technique involving a twist stance. Sometimes you have to go outside your art to understand the tools you already have in your toolbox.

I think of stances as examples of structure that crop up moment to moment, and evaluate every technique on posture. Throughout, I maintain good posture, and a constant goal is to disrupt the posture of my opponent to diminish his ability to attack or defend. A good cross block starts in the feet, but you can’t stay in any one stance and admire your work in combat.