I was thinking about how different systems approach how you hold/move your body. I have seen karateka who try to maintain a level head position throughout kata and when sparring and then I have seen boxers who bob and weave/slip etc. I know that even within kung fu circles these two extremes exist. Some purposefully use the up/down forward/back motions to generate power and to avoid getting hit by the opponent. So which way does your system go? Are you stable, relatively rigid/upright etc or are you moving back and forth, up and down? Can you give a reason for what you do? I'm sort of in a mixed camp as we have both things within the system. I do think that body movement both for evasion and to generate power is useful. Your call! LFD
I am a whitebelt or none. Once I was going to get yellow in Karate but didnt. Out of my interest in Ninjutsu and I dont know what it is that I am doing I have defined ... 3 stances: 1. High heavenly (it is liike angry tiger in Ninjutsu). Low heavenly, medium height. And underground, very low center of gravity (but it is too exthausting and my strength and stamina is poor). What I would use would depend on the situation. I made it as part of my experimentation on Thaijutsu.
You should not look at from the angle of the MA system but from the angle of body function. You head can perform 10 different functions such as: - touch, - press, - bend back, - bend forward, - ... It doesn't make sense not to utilize your head functions just because your particular MA system doesn't emphasize it. Some MA systems emphasize to keep your head vertical. If you drop a $100 bill, anybody will bend his head down. If any MA system puts restriction on your body function, you should run away from that MA system ASAP.
When you are going to bend your back, for example to pick up a 100 dollar bill. That is not optimal for humans although feasible for young people. But old people risk injuring their back. And when lifting heavy things, you get the picture. My underground stance, the one with low balance center. It does allow for greater balance (I suffer from bad balance) and is stronger in striking, kicking/sweeping, and rooting. The problem is it consumes too much energy. If energy is no problem, air usually, you can effectively combat stronger (usually taller) opponents and you would be out of their reach since you keep low stance and can break their "stem". And when they fall they fall hard.
I would be of the opinion that a low stance would be difficult to kick with. At least a quick kick. Sweeping would be understandable. Just nitpicking
Since i am a newbie i prefer circular motions more than linear (in martial arts). There is this, Penckat Silat i think it is called. I saw they kicked with their back afront toward the enemy, and when he would kick he would bend down with erect leg and and twist his body simultaneously and support on one arm. And kick. I wouldnt have kicked higher than to the knee anyway. And they are muslim, i got it in my blod
Sounds an awful lot like a kind of Capoeira kick - I don't know the term for it - a chibata presa - perhaps?
Being hard doesn't mean you should be rigid, the same as being soft doesn't mean you should be like a wet noodle. IMHO, martial arts is not being hard or soft. Martial arts is not being somewhere between hard and soft. I believe martial arts requires being both hard and soft at the same time. For example, be relaxed always in movement (softness) but keep proper structure (hardness). Movement becomes a matter of proper footwork and structure, not having anything to do with being rigid. Kajukenbo (martial art) has both hard and soft. I think it is difficult to be both hard and soft at the same time, so at the beginning, there is more hardness and less softness, but the footwork allows for head movement and level changes. Developing strong legs is key. I think we all see things based on what we expect. If we expect rigidness we see it, if we expect fluidity, we see it. Knowing this, change your expectations and you can see things differently. Is karate supposed to be rigid? If you look for rigid you will find it, but is you look for fluidity, you will find it too. How rigid or how fluid is the following? Is there head movement in there or not? [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq7WJlAMTOg"]ã€ç©ºæ‰‹ã€‘大山å€é” 5人組手 - YouTube[/ame]
I've thought the terms "hard" and "soft" in the MA context to be similes for linear (angular, crisp, intersect, shortest path, rigid-line) and circular (flowing, soft, circuitous,circumscribed, sinusoidal, sweeping) Which, until one gets down to the business of really analysing how the "hard" and "soft" arts deliver their strikes *, for instance, seems to fit the general use of the term. * At which point, things get really blurry and those rule of thumb definitions don't seem to fit at'tall.
