How frequently to practise horse-riding stance?

[Jonno]

Kung fu books generally, and sifu Wong in one of his books seem to recommend that your practise Ma Bu
- every day
- many times a day
to make the best gains

modern conventional western physical training (army, sports, etc.) suggests that it is necessary to allow the body to repair - typically this is put at minimum of allowing a day of rest between exercsions that take you 'to the limit' (e.g. like Ma Bu typically should)

obviously someone trying to increase the strength of their dead-lift, and someone trying to develop internal power through horse stance are aiming for slightly differnt things, but in physicality they both involve taking their quad-muscles (and minor others) to their limit. so is the kung fu approach justified? might the western approach of day of rest perhaps be more selective or why isnt it? and has anyone actually practised horse-stance to hold comfortably (without sweating or heart-racing) beyond 5 minutes (butt to around knee-level, not thighs at 45degrees)

[Matt F.]

Dear Jonno,

I have spent a good deal of time (in the past) pushing my weight lifting ability beyond my limits. I have also spent some time in Golden Bridge. The approaches, exercises, and results are DRASTICALLY different. If you approach stance training like training the deadlift, your benefits will be small. In fact, your benefits would be much greater doing the deadlift.

Stance training is not about muscle tension. In fact, the goal is muscle relaxation. I can only speak about my own experiences, and at this time in my stance training, a certain level of muscle contraction is necessary to maintain the position, but there is no muscle tension, if that makes any sense.

A deadlift requires full-body muscle tension. If you can contract a muscle harder, you should as it will benefit you. In stance training, if you can relax a muscle more, you should as it will benefit you.

Weight lifting breaks down your body, and as your body rebuilds it comes back reinforced to limit further breakdown. More weight is added, more breakdown occurs, more rebuilding, etc.

Stance training builds your strength energetically. A stance is held, energy is built, the body becomes stronger/healthier, the stance can be held longer, more energy is built, etc.

With weight training, the body needs time to recover from the intentional damage. With stance training, the training itself is recovery, so days off are actually discouraged.

-Matt

[Antonius]

Jonno, it's obvious from your post that you have a warped and incorrect understanding of the horse stance. Definitely do not practice it until you learn it from Sifu or one of his instructors.

[shao]

jonno

Jonno army training dosen't fit in with shaolin kung fu.

[Charles David]

Generals and Emperors

Shao,

In fact, many generals and emperors received martial training at the Shaolin Temple, so it definitely does fit in with army training.

Best,

[yasminejade]

Perhaps Shao means it is not fit in "modern" army training.

[Charles David]

Yes, I can imagine how much modern army training violates basic Shaolin principles.

Still,

[Jonno]

Forum celebrity

Jonno, it's obvious from your post that you have a warped and incorrect understanding of the horse stance. Definitely do not practice it until you learn it from Sifu or one of his instructors.

Its obvious from your reply that you have a warped and incorrect understanding of how to show basic human respect or be polite. you can shaolin-this and chief-master-chuff-that as much as you like but your words are plainly negative and hollow, which no doubt is a reflection of you

I'm asking a perfectly sensible question, western logic suggests 1 day rest between sessions. 'kung fu' suggests constant daily practise. western logic would suggest that constant daily training would have a negative effect on your results. debate.

your forum-celebrity attitude has a negative and detrimental effect on genuine and honest people with genuine and honest interest in being introduced to shaolin and its arts, I've watched you throw your weight around a few times already, like you're someone special and better than everyone else - presumably you've spent more on seminars - you seem to take a certain pleasure in dismissive and humiliating messages and stating how little others know. if you're such a sucker for authority, join the police force. if they'd let you.

[steve]

Hi All

Hi Jonno,

A quote from Sifu's biography:

Secondly, stance training develops strength at the legs. At the early stage, "old" strength is drained away. This is when the student's knees feel weak. Then "new" strength is built up, and he can easily walk ten miles without feeling tired.

Initially stance training is about changing from using muscle strength to internal strength. The muscle (gets tired) begins to relax and the fascia/sinew needs to take over. As this happens the fascia/sinew becomes more elastic, which allows the energy to flow more efficiently.

Weight training is about strengthening the muscle.

Obviously, in stance training there will be some muscle strengthening, but the emphasis is not the muscle. And in weight training the fascia/sinew will adapt, but won't have the same type of fibre flexibility as in stance training.

[Jonno]

Thankyou for a sensible reply!

Dear Jonno,

I have spent a good deal of time (in the past) pushing my weight lifting ability beyond my limits. I have also spent some time in Golden Bridge. The approaches, exercises, and results are DRASTICALLY different. If you approach stance training like training the deadlift, your benefits will be small. In fact, your benefits would be much greater doing the deadlift.

Stance training is not about muscle tension. In fact, the goal is muscle relaxation. I can only speak about my own experiences, and at this time in my stance training, a certain level of muscle contraction is necessary to maintain the position, but there is no muscle tension, if that makes any sense.

A deadlift requires full-body muscle tension. If you can contract a muscle harder, you should as it will benefit you. In stance training, if you can relax a muscle more, you should as it will benefit you.

Weight lifting breaks down your body, and as your body rebuilds it comes back reinforced to limit further breakdown. More weight is added, more breakdown occurs, more rebuilding, etc.

Stance training builds your strength energetically. A stance is held, energy is built, the body becomes stronger/healthier, the stance can be held longer, more energy is built, etc.

interesting

I certainly see what you're saying, and it makes a lot of sense

though in the beginning you are recommended to hold the horse-stance till failure, i.e. as long as you can, right?

I guess what I'm getting at is that daily, numerous practise would be regarded by 'over-training' by western training attitudes, so you're saying that it doesn't take your musculature to the limit in that way, which is fair enough I guess.

incidentally, its not just weight-lifting but sports and military have the rest-day approach too.

With weight training, the body needs time to recover from the intentional damage. With stance training, the training itself is recovery, so days off are actually discouraged.

-Matt

thats a very interesting way of looking at it. certainly with the whole qi aspect I can see that being the case.

[Matt F.]

[QUOTE=Jonno;94723]though in the beginning you are recommended to hold the horse-stance till failure, i.e. as long as you can, right?

incidentally, its not just weight-lifting but sports and military have the rest-day approach too.
QUOTE]

Dear Jonno,

Yes, at the beginning, you do want to remain in the stance until failure. However, you must remember that the goal of stance training is relaxation. Therefore, failure is the moment when you are no longer able to remain relaxed (physically, mentally, or both). This is the time when the training becomes an endurance test of grit. You will feel your muscles straining to continue holding the position. That is stance training failure. It is unlike muscular failure, where you collapse or can no longer do the movement.

I can say from my own experience that Shaolin training does take days off. It's just not from everything. Stance training and chi kung are very much like a good diet in Western exercise. It is something that must be done every day because it is the foundation to success and health. I have found that after a good combat sequence training session, it is nice to take a day off from partner training to allow the blockages in my forearms to clear. I am sure that at a more advanced stage, this might not be necessary. But for me, right now, it's great.

-Matt

[Antonius]

Its obvious from your reply that you have a warped and incorrect understanding of how to show basic human respect or be polite. you can shaolin-this and chief-master-chuff-that as much as you like but your words are plainly negative and hollow, which no doubt is a reflection of you

I'm asking a perfectly sensible question, western logic suggests 1 day rest between sessions. 'kung fu' suggests constant daily practise. western logic would suggest that constant daily training would have a negative effect on your results. debate.

your forum-celebrity attitude has a negative and detrimental effect on genuine and honest people with genuine and honest interest in being introduced to shaolin and its arts, I've watched you throw your weight around a few times already, like you're someone special and better than everyone else - presumably you've spent more on seminars - you seem to take a certain pleasure in dismissive and humiliating messages and stating how little others know. if you're such a sucker for authority, join the police force. if they'd let you.

You got all that from my two line response?

You'll need to tone down the personal attacks if you want to stay here. I never attacked you personally. In fact, I took the time to give you some advice and answer your original question. Attacking someone because you don't like them doesn't go over well here, or anywhere else for that matter.

If you don't like my attitude, that's fine. The feeling is mutual.

As for my attitude having a "negative and detrimental effect on genuine and honest people with genuine and honest interest in being introduced to shaolin and its arts", I disagree. I've dedicated my life to sharing these arts, and I've already helped thousands of people to change their lives.

[Jonno]

I see, this is along the same line as drop360 was saying, yes this makes a lot of sense. so the training is really going into the tendons, not the muscle. I've heard a lot of qi-training say that. certainly if its long-time holding you go for, you're clearly not strength-training in the typical sense as per weights

If you dont mind my asking, how long are you able to hold golden bridge for? (bit of a primitive question I know)

thanks for the thoughtful replies guys

Hi All

Hi Jonno,

A quote from Sifu's biography:


Initially stance training is about changing from using muscle strength to internal strength. The muscle (gets tired) begins to relax and the fascia/sinew needs to take over. As this happens the fascia/sinew becomes more elastic, which allows the energy to flow more efficiently.

Weight training is about strengthening the muscle.

Obviously, in stance training there will be some muscle strengthening, but the emphasis is not the muscle. And in weight training the fascia/sinew will adapt, but won't have the same type of fibre flexibility as in stance training.

[Jonno]

cheers for the patronising response grand-mega-master-super-chief.
most people find having provocative adjectives like warped and twisted attached to them insulting, not just me. most people don't throw empty, provocative and insensitive suggestions around and expect to be thanked for it either.

if people spoke to you the way you speak to people, you'd be far more upset.

You got all that from my two line response?

You'll need to tone down the personal attacks if you want to stay here. I never attacked you personally.
etc.

[Matt F.]

Dear Jonno,

I am not defending Sihing Anthony. I don't feel what he said needs to be defended. However, I do feel you have misunderstood what he said, and also his intentions as a Sifu.

Jonno, it's obvious from your post that you have a warped and incorrect understanding of the horse stance. Definitely do not practice it until you learn it from Sifu or one of his instructors.

Warped means only distorted from the norm. Incorrect means, just that, not correct. They are not negative adjectives. In fact, sihing Anthony picked very good words to describe your views on horse stance training.

From your first post, it is clear you are viewing stance training from a Western paradigm. This makes sense if you were raised in a Western society. However, Shaolin arts do not originate from a Western society. It's like using science to describe music. It can be done, to a certain extent, by discussing wave lengths and resonance, however, it would be a warped view of music. So, in this extent, your Western approach to stance training is a warped view of what stance training is in the Shaolin paradigm.

To say the horse stance is training the quads is incorrect. It is training the chi and internal force. By this, I mean the main purpose of stance training is internal force training, though many other things are trained including the quads.

Sihing Anthony could have said your views on the horse stance are "wrongly focused due to a view point based in an alternative paradigm", but that wouldn't have been very clear. What he said was much clearer and to the point.

You have already shown that you have the ability to cause yourself blockages due to incorrect practice of Lifting the Sky. I am glad to read that you seem to have altered your practice and are not suffering as much. However, the blockages you are sure to cause yourself with your current ideas of horse stance training will be much more severe.

As a Shaolin Wahnam Sifu, in a Shaolin Wahnam school, it is Sihing Anthony's duty to give you the best advice to keep you from hurting yourself. That is all he was doing. In fact, I would say he was being kind.

-Matt