One of the things that I like most about my teacher is his insistence that there simply isn’t one right way to do things. He often tells me to be careful when I think I can criticize what others are doing based on certain aspects of their performance.
Take stances, for example. People go on and on and on about THE correct way to do mabu — the horse stance. What always gets lost somewhere in the argument is that there’s simply more than one way to correctly do mabu. Different widths, heights, feet placement, etc. are all allowable within a specifc range. Whatever falls within that range is probably going to be correct given the particular style in question and the practicioner’s body and desires.
So one person’s mabu may be quite different than another person’s mabu, even within the same style.
Yet, I very rarely see an awareness of this in discussions by MA practicioners. I’m always amazed that people who agree that their arts are based on principles will then go at each others throats because someone else isn’t doing techniques in exactly the same way.
But even if the art isn’t prinicple based, you would still expect some variation.
For example, a 20-year-old kid holding a thigh parallel horse stance may be correct, but would that make a 60 year-old man from the same style holding a higher horse stance incorrect? Of course not.
My teacher likes to say that he can make corrections of students only to a certain extent. He says that the forms will teach our bodies what we need to do. He doesn’t like to force students to hold stances that are too rigid for them. He will also allow people who can’t kick very high to kick low, etc. Both are correct.
I love his approach because he stresses the principles of the art and teaches in a manner that makes the material available to anyone, but then allows the material to change their bodies. His non-dogmatic approach is refeshing and it’s the way to go IMO.
1 response so far ↓
1 Orz // Oct 18, 2006 at 5:15 pm
In my opinion, “mabu — the horse stance” is a very basic training (weight training) in CMA, especially for the thighs, legs and the sole of the feet muscles - the lower body.
A correct mabu should be very very comfortable; it’s just like sitting on a chair. Besides relaxation, the main points and principles of mabu are “luokua”(落骻), “saiyao”(塞腰) and “kaixiong”(開胸), no matter high postures or low postures. If you feel unconfortable, that means the posture of your mabu is incorrect.
For internal (Neijia) mabu of CMA, Upper body should not be upright - as stiff as a ramrod. If you act like that, your chi would be suffocated. Upper body must be like bows, one is inside your body, another is in front of your chest and the other is right behind your back. Unfortunately, most practicioners don’t know that, even many CMA “masters” don’t. Those people always show off their beautiful postures and movements to fascinate others. But they probably learn nothing about CMA during their whole lifetime. Mabu — the horse stance seems easy and basic, but also important.
What is different between high-position mabu and low-position mabu? For CMA young beginners, teachers always force their students do low-position mabu, as I mentioned, it’s for lower-body training. But some people discover that, those CMA performers (entertainers) who enjoy practicing forms (quanjia), they like to lower their bodies. But real CMA kungfu fighters always keep their bodies standing, even if they practice forms (quanjia). Why?
Normally, CMA performances emphasize the sense of beauties, that’s why people say CMA is visual arts. For those CMA performers, their movements and postures must be wide and exaggerative. And this can show off the difficulties of CMA. For most people and CMA beginners, CMA is a lower-body kungfu. The basic fajin(發勁), strength and power always come from your thighs, legs and the sole of the feet muscles. So the lower-body training is always very important for CMA beginners and performers.
As many people know, most of CMA is “standing fighting-techniques”. For those real CMA kungfu fighters, the basics they’ve learned. They don’t have to bend their knees (dun mabu) all the time. They have already learned how to make the power come from thighs, legs and the sole of the feet muscles without mabu. And they know the most powerful fajin(發勁)doesn’t rely on the lower-body, but the upper-body and waist. However, training of mabu administers to improve the agility of feet.
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