5 exercises to improve your karate stances

5 exercises to improve your karate stances

Martial arts instructors often make the same comparison to explain why good karate stances are needed. Your attitude is like the foundation of your house. If you build it on a bad foundation and it falls, no matter how good your house is, the foundation will destroy everything. Their stances are the same for karate. No matter how good you are, if you don't have good karate stances, you will fall.

We take time to look at some karate stances and how we can improve. Above all, let's take some time to understand why everyone needs to do it. What is the goal behind improving your karate posture? The truth is that the goal is indirectly to increase your hitting power. A good stance gives you better stability and your balance is crucial to your punching power.

The reason can be explained by physical laws, more precisely by Newton's third law: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This means that when you strike, an equal force is exerted on you. Remember this simple fact. If you push something heavier than you in a natural position (two feet apart), you will easily lose your balance. However, if you assume a half-moon position (one leg bent in front of you and one leg behind you), you will likely move back without losing your balance. This is a big improvement, but you can do better. If you ground your feet, you have a much greater chance of successfully moving the object. Your feet push toward the ground and this redirects the opposing force into the ground. Later in this article I will talk about an incredible method for grounding your karate stances.

There is an interesting analogy between the bamboo and your karate stances. Do you know that the bamboo takes four years to form its roots and almost does not grow? Most impressively, after four years, he is growing two feet a day! This is a good example of working with the basics first.

If you want to have a firm stand like bamboo, you need to develop your leg muscles. Have you ever done this before? You need to train your stabilizing muscles in your legs. You may already be strong with them, but you need to be strong with the four muscles in the quadriceps.

This is one of the main reasons why karate teachers often ask for a long position. Short karate stances are for experts only. By practicing long stances you will gain more control and stability in the long run. However, you should receive this for educational purposes.

For the five exercises, we have three exercises to build muscle, one exercise to improve your crescent position, and one to develop your back posture. We'll start with three exercises starting in the crescent position.

1. Muscle your front leg in a crescent position

Put yourself in a crescent position. Without moving your front knee, bring your back leg next to your front foot and return to the original position. Make sure you don't put any weight on your back leg before returning to the original position. Do this exercise for 1 minute on both legs. If it's too easy or too hard, adjust your speed, but never stop.

2. Muscle your back leg in a crescent position

In this exercise you need to start again in the crescent position, making sure not to move your front knee. For the first 30 seconds, lower your back knee close to the floor without touching it and return to the original position. Repeat as many times as possible and after the 30 seconds, stop your knee near the floor and do not move for 30 seconds. Don't forget to do both legs.

3. Practice your forward movement in the crescent position

The final exercise for the half-moon position is to simply practice your step forward (doing the "half-moon" with the back leg). This may be the easiest, but no matter what rank you are, you still need to practice the basics. Once you've progressed enough, you can practice the movement backwards, left, and right. Focus on how you move your weight as you move.

4. Muscle your back leg in the back stance

In the back stance, your back leg is the one with the heavier weight and it is crucial to have strength in that leg. To gain more strength, place yourself in the back position. In slow motion, lower the back leg as much as possible without moving the heel, jump with it and return to the original position. Repeat as many reps as possible for 1 minute for each leg.

5. Practice your back stance shuffle

The Back Stance Shuffle is the more important move in Kenpo and no matter what level you are, you should practice it a lot. Go to a hall or somewhere where you have enough space and practice lots of small shuffles. Once you're on the wall, practice your backwards shuffle. Also, make sure you never lean forward or backward when moving.

If these exercises are too easy, you can do them with 20 pounds of weight on your hands. It will be more difficult this way. Make sure you never forget to push the knee of your supporting leg outward to have a good karate stance.

Practice your ability to ground yourself with these karate postures. To develop this special skill, you also need to use your imagination. Imagine that the tibia of the bent leg is a metal rod. See this bar in your leg and it's longer than your leg. In fact, in your head you can see the pole going through the floor. This bar cannot move and therefore your knee cannot move either. With practice, your ability to ground yourself will be multiplied tenfold.

The challenge is not the complexity of the exercises. You have to realize, no matter what level you are, you always have to work on your karate stance. When you stop improving, you slowly lose what you have already gained.

If you start now and take a day or two, I can promise you that after just two weeks you will have better karate postures. Can you do it?

Inspired by Benoit Denis Tremblay