Front stance

Please note that all stances, strikes, walks, and kicks are described in the way we teach them at our school. Your school can teach you in a different way, and the way your school teaches you is correct. There are many flavors of martial arts, and in each flavor the techniques will vary slightly. Always do your techniques the way your instructor taught you when practicing your forms, but learning other styles and other techniques will expand your knowledge of martial arts.

To begin our front stance style, start by standing with your feet shoulder-width apart, with your weight resting on the balls of your feet. For a right forward stance, step forward with your right foot. Your right foot should be one and a half feet in front of your left foot and your feet should be shoulder-width apart. It is important to keep your feet pointed straight ahead, so check the position of your feet frequently.

From this position, look at the toes of your right foot. Keeping your eyes on your toes, begin to bend your right knee; As soon as you can’t see your toes, stop. At this point, the knees should be just above the heel. This should result in approximately 65% ​​of your weight gain on your front foot. While your front leg quadriceps will feel working, you shouldn’t feel pain in your front knee. If you feel pain, you are probably bending your front knee too much. (You want to be able to easily move forward from forward position to another position or on a kick; if you have too much weight on your front foot, you will have to shift your weight back before executing the next technique, which is slower.)

Your back leg should remain straight. Be careful not to let your back foot roll out. If this happens, it usually means that your stance is too long – your front foot is more than one foot in front of your back foot, or too wide. (As you gain experience and practice, you will be able to adopt a wider stance while keeping your rear foot pointed forward. Stability and balance in the stance, however, is more important than width or length; if you feel balanced and able to move forward with ease, then stay in that width and length of the posture).

Although we want to keep our weight on the balls of our feet, don’t let the back heel lift off the ground. This happens when you lean forward and your shoulders and head are in front of your hips. Keep your weight centered on your hips.

While in the forward position, keep your shoulders on your hips – do not lean forward or backward. Be careful not to tilt your head forward either. The easiest way to do this is to keep your eyes straight ahead, rather than looking down. (If you feel any discomfort in your back, neck, or shoulders, you are probably leaning your head forward.) When you first start working on your postures, you may need to make a conscious effort to keep your head straight. , instead of leaning forward or looking down; Practicing good body position now will help make it an automatic action as you advance into ranges too high.

Raise your hands in a guard position. Your hands should be between your head and waist, with your arms bent and protecting your chest area. Keep your hands in fists, making sure that the thumb is wrapped in front of the fingers; don’t put your thumb inside your fist, and don’t put your thumb next to your fist – both ways can result in injury to your thumb when blocking or striking. Don’t put your hands too close to your body; you want to have enough distance in front of you so they can block a kick or punch before it gets close to your body. Likewise, don’t spread your hands too far in front; keeping your elbows bent will help protect your chest and allow you to respond faster.

The left front position is performed in the same way, but with the left foot in front.

Although we teach the front pose as the first pose, it is not the easiest pose to learn or perform. Getting into the front position and maintaining a good position takes practice. You can do this by stepping forward into a right forward stance 10 times, checking your body position and foot stance each time, and then stepping into a left forward stance ten times. If you notice your rear foot turning outward, try this technique: start with your feet shoulder-width apart, then step BACK with your right foot, letting your toes touch first and then letting go. that the foot moves towards the heel. If you feel your weight shift from the front leg to the back leg, then you are turning your foot; roll up on your toes and lower your heel once more.

Front stance is an important technique for executing front kicks, punches, and blocks in our forms and should be practiced regularly. However, it is just as important to learn to move from one frontal position to the next. Check out some of our practice exercises to move from one pose to another!