Principle 11: Strong Flexible Stance
While getting ready to launch a technique, and even when retreating and then standing their ground, the very, very best Shotokan sparring champions of old never assume rooted positions and sling their techniques like beginners standing with their thighs burning trying to summon their power from their connection to a firm surface through friction with their bare feet. To the contrary, they put their weight in the balls of their feet, virtually uprooting themselves, even as they hold a position, and when they move, they move swiftly into stance after stance, not as a launch pad, but as a landing gear. What I observe, and the way I use stances, is as a landing gear. The body’s center of gravity, being propelled forward, sideways, or backward, is far over-extended beyond our ability to use mere strength to recover our balance. The only option we have is to move a foot in the direction of travel and then bend the knee of that leg to catch ourselves. So, I see stances as being the result of motion, not a posture from which to throw a technique. Never in my long years of Shotokan practice at home or in Japan have I ever seen rooted stances used to launch techniques. But I have always seen people lunge backward and forward with one another, or pivoting around each other, catching themselves with their stances, cushioning the shock by bending a knee. Thus, my view of Karate stances, while controversial to some, I believe is supported by the observed facts present in the real world. And viewing stances as being my landing gear, they must be strong, because if they are not, they will fail to catch me when I leap forward into an opponent, or quickly move backward, trying to stay just out of range. Only a strong stance can help me remain standing after I grab my opponent and send him to the floor while he grabs and pulls at me attempting to pull me down with him. Only a strong stance can enable me to reverse my retreating body and turn defense into counter-attack. Far from being rooted, I am using these postures as transitions from one step to the next. It is the steps, shifts, and pivots which are part of the techniques. The stances are simply necessary to finish them out. Stances must also be flexible for us to move in them. If we engage in “pelvic rolling” or attempt to consciously squeeze our legs toward one another in the futile effort to reinforce the rooted nature of stances which do not work like that anyhow, we reduce our mobility, our ability to rotate, our ability to change direction, and our ability to quickly get out of the way. Strong. Flexible. Given these requirements, and our observations of what happens in sparring when we are under pressure, we find that kata enforce some arbitrary rules on stances that make no sense in the real world of combat. Some of these rules have become dogma such that challenging them is akin to screaming that there is no such thing as gravity or that we never really went to the moon. But the truth is, our rear heel has no actual need to be in contact with the ground. This is a Shotokan “tradition” which is aesthetic (that means it looks nice) but functionless.
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