Martial Art Stances

How to Stand like a Ninja

 
Stances, are important in learning any new martial art style or
practicing the art of the Ninja. They are essential and begin to offer
a foundation for your training. How to stand, move, and fall are
important tools for any martial arts beginner.
Stances are your first step towards mastering the beginning physical
levels of the Martial Science and Ninjitsu. Too often students rush
through the early skills only to end up with a sloppy and less
focused development.
Just because you can stand in a particular position in less than an
hour, does not mean that you have learned the stance. Learning
requires many hours of practice until that skill becomes a part of
you. As time passes and your lessons increase, your skills will
improve.

Focus

Another important concept to keep in mind is that you are also

going to be growing mentally. Just because you are learning to
maneuver the body, doesn’t mean you won’t be developing the
mind. Concentration, technique and discipline are just a few of the
skills you will enhance through your training.

Building a strong base

In order to build a solid structure in the Martial Science and for

your Ninja Training, you need something to start with. It is
important that you develop the habit of beginning each training
session with a review of your stances. This can be done right after
your warm up stretch.
Balance

Even though you will learn most of your techniques on one side of
the body or the other, it is important to increase your skill at being
ambidextrous. This means, don’t over train one side on any
particular technique. This is an easy mistake to get into, since we
usually favor the right or left side. Break this habit early on and be
sure to practice your stances by reversing the feet.

Environment

Along with training both sides of the body, you want to add variety
to your Ninja training. Nothing hinders development more than a
boring routine. So when you train, have fun and be flexible with
your approach.
Try changing the terrain – practice on grass, sand, dirt and when
you advance – cement. Also, add some spice to your training by
practicing at different locations. Train at the beach, in the
mountains, at a park, in front of a river or deep in the woods. Try to
get as much variety with environment and terrain as possible. These
classes will be great memories and offer more than the traditional,
(on the mat in a box) approach.

Angle

This isn’t something that most martial artists think about, but it is a
key factor in the development of a Total Warrior. With most
training, techniques are taught in a linear, forward and back
concept. For example: you roll forward and you roll backward.
Changing the angle is simply the concept of changing directions.
Instead of doing all your stances facing one direction, try twisting
and turning. This is more realistic to how you move in real life.
Also, try some techniques with a partner and see if you can develop
some new training ideas.

Foundation

Many ninja students find stances boring and repetitious or perhaps

even too basic. It is true that they are basic, but this is why they are
so important. Basics supply us with a foundation to stand on.
Stances, are often overlooked as minor principles. Yet it is the
utilization of these simple principles that allows us to perform
complex procedures. As I like to say: “You have to go to Simple-
City to get the key for Complex-City.”

The Stances

In the Martial Science, we use a set of ten stances to teach an overall

concept of good fighting positions. The first of these is the horse
stance. It simulates the position you form when riding a horse. Many
stances were developed from the movements and attitude of
animals. This is especially true in the Chinese martial arts. This is
also how we first began to develop many of our strikes and kicks.
Maybe you have heard of snake, monkey, dragon, crane or tiger
strikes, stances or movements. But what exactly is the purpose of a
stance?
It is important to know the best stance to take during a situation
that requires self-protection or self-growth. If you want to be mobile
and quick, it is important to get into a fighting stancewhere you will
be light on your feet. If you want to have stability, then it is wise to
use the combat stance. The situation will determine the stance.

Stances and States of Mind

Every stance is an attitude. If you want to have a specific feeling,

you change your stance. Remember, stances are nothing more than
physiological changes. Change your physiology and you change
your mental attitude along with it. Thus, we can use stances to
determine our states. What state of mind do you want? We all know
that when someone is depressed, they change their physiology to
match their emotional outlook. The same rule applies when
someone is happy and enthusiastic. Have you ever seen a joyous
motivated person with their head down, shoulders slumped and a
barely audible mumble of, “I can do it?” It is totally incongruent
and impossible to succeed in this way.
Our mind and body are linked; if you change one, you will change
the other.
This is how we use our stances. If we want a feeling of power, then
we stand in a power stance. It is much faster to change your
physiology than to meditate over your emotions, especially in a
combat situation. Can you imagine asking your opponent to wait a
minute while you mentally prepare for the situation? It is much
faster to simply drop into the correct stance and use it like an
anchor. When you drop into a power stance and yell (kiai) while
you’re breaking a piece of wood and you do this over and over,
whenever you drop into the power stance, that mental attitude of
breaking through is going to be triggered. This way you don’t have
to think about it. It is an automatic reaction.
Once we know this, we can begin to build our physiological arsenal.
By having ten different stances, each with a given attitude and
purpose, you will have enough postures to adapt to almost any
situation.

The Elements

The four most popular stances are those that relate to the elements.
These stances are important because they teach us the basic
reactions with a variety of attitudes. The mental strategy and states
concerning the four elements are:
 MENTAL STATE OF
ELEMENT ATTITUDE MIND STANCE

Strength and
Earth Control Neutral Combat

Adaptability and
Water Flow Defensive Defensive

Aggression and
Fire Speed Offensive Fighting

Compassion and
Wind Sensitivity Passive Open

Each stance provides us with a different attitude. This is important

in communication as well as in self-defense. Most people fit into one
of the elements at any given moment in time. If you wish to build
rapport, then it is wise to adapt the same or similar element in use.
If you want to compare this with the three modalities: site, sound
and feeling then:
Fire would be the visual.
Water would be the auditory.
Wind would most likely be the kinesthetic person.
It is best to use these elemental states when the person in question is
in that particular element, “in his element,” so to speak. If someone
is reaching out for someone to listen, then it is wise to adapt the
element of wind. If someone is screaming and shouting, then you
can adapt the element of fire. If someone is being stubborn, you can
adapt the element of earth. If someone is leashing out for self-
protection, then you can adapt the element of water.
Once you have entered into the same element as another person, it
is possible for you to lead them into another element. First you pace,
then you lead. Remember that people will respect you when you
enter their element. If you try to motivate a person in the earth
element with an attitude of fire, they may get upset with you. You
first must have rapport and one of the easiest ways to do this is to
get into that person’s element.
In combat, this might be a little different. Most likely you will need
to adapt the physiology of fire if you have no time to negotiate. If
you see an upcoming attack following a verbal assault, it would be
wise to use this verbal moment for getting into that person’s
element. In kickboxing, a fighter can quickly change from one
element to the next to keep his opponent from being able to adapt
and learn his strategy. This is fighting from the void or all of the
elements.
These elements are also used when determining a proper attitude
for self-defense techniques. If you are facing a dangerous opponent,
then
you would use a fire technique to stop your attacker. However, if
this person was simply drunk and not quite aware of the mistakes
he was making, you might use a wind element to evade his assault
and leave him out of harms way. The element you choose depends
on the level of intensity and the type of situation at hand. As you
can see, there are many variations and applications for the stances
in combat and in life.
In the Martial Science, stances are very important. Different
postures are associated with different mind sets or feelings. The
same is true in our life.

Next is the elemental age. 

When we are children, we start off with lots of energy and we can
be very aggressive. This is the fire stage. We then get a little older
and begin to learn a little about life. We take some risks, but we also
pull back. This is the water stage. When we become adults, we often
become reserved, take fewer risks, and attempt to stabilize our
lifestyle. This is the earth stage. As we become grandparents and
senior citizens, we begin to be more sensitive to our surroundings,
we tend to care and listen more. This is the wind stage. Of course
we all have moments where we pass through different elements.
But overall, there can be some logical classifications. Using this
information, which element should one be in when speaking to the
kids? Which type of element should one adapt when speaking to
the elderly?
When you practice your stances, you start off in one and then adapt
from that position into the next. It should be a smooth transition.
The goal is to be able to go from one stance to the another with
fluidity. When you can do this, you become more flexible with your
surroundings and when change is necessary, it doesn’t take you off
guard and knock you to the ground. You simply adapt and go with
the flow.
Make sure that when you go from stance to stance, you are also
practicing your mental attitude and state of mind. By doing this,
you will anchor (mentally program) that response to the change in
physiology.  This is called “Mind Control.”

The Kiai

During some of the stances, we also practice a loud shout or yell.

This yell comes from the lower area of the belly or hara. We usually
practice this shout directly after horse ready stance. This gives the
instructor a chance to see if you are performing it correctly.

Understanding the Stances

As you now learned, there are 10 basic stances. We teach these ten
to offer a well rounded approach to learning body postures. Now
that you are familiar with some of the stances, let’s talk a little about
classification. Not every stance is the same and each has their own
application. We can pretty much break up a stance into one of four
categories: Offensive, Defensive, Training and Technique.

1. OFFENSIVE

(stances that are combat and attack oriented)

Fighting
Combat

2. DEFENSIVE

(postures used for defensive purposes)

Defensive
Cat
Bow
Blade
Reactive
Ground

3. TRAINING

(positions that assist in developing balance, strength and

control)
Horse / Elephant
Crane
Kick knee
Teapot

4. TECHNIQUE

(body skills that are used for non combative purposes)

Power
Classical / low
Although Ground, Crane, Elephant and Kick Knee are not one of
the primary 10, we do teach these and a wide variety of other
stances. Many of the stances can be used in more than one category
– yet each has a primary classification.

Applications and Response Theory

Another thing you will need to know about stances, is how they are
used as reactions or responses. In many cases, this will also break
the stances into another two parts:

Stationary and Mobile

When most of us think of a stance, we think of standing still in a

certain posture, like that of a statue. In the Martial Science, the
movement to and from a stance is just as important as the stance
itself, if not more so. We can better understand the movements
involved when we talk about the applications of each stance
specifically – so refer to the individual stance lessons for details.