JLBC BASIC STANCES
Stances are critical key positions from critical transitions that apply to essential movements and techniques practiced within the JLBC Martial art you're learning. They are also a great beginning point for practicing some basics because you need to know your body's position at critical moments. Stances are the body's weight distribution, foot orientation, and positioning adopted when attacking, defending, advancing, or retreating. It's a great starting place! Without a good idea of the body
to sit down.
Position concerning directing force, distributing weight, and altering direction.
Learning these positions for a martial art is of great significance when creating an understanding of transition. I mean that most stances are simply snapshots of a single moment when the body is transitioning from one position to another. Over time, the idea of what a stance is has been lost because it was not explained, or assumptions are made about the purpose of learning a bunch of static positions. Think about your body shifting from one place to another. This is a stance I am going to call Sit Stance. Sit stance, you say? Yes, imagine the act of sitting down in a chair. Seems simple enough, right? It becomes a little more complex when we start to break up the front of sitting in a chair into moments when you're transitioning from one position to another before the final position of actually sitting.
What does everyone do just before they sit down in a chair? For one, you have to get to the chair. Let's assume you walk over to it. Next, you have to stop at the chair or slow your motion down a little. Then, you need to turn your body and face away from the chair so that it's behind you. Next, you will begin to bend your legs while pointing your rear end in the direction of the seat. Next, if the chair has armrests, you may start to reach back in preparation to grab those armrests. Next, you begin to squat downward. Next, you will shift all of your body's weight onto the surface of the seat while perhaps using the armrests to slow your momentum. Next, you will adjust your body weight again until you are in the position you want to be. Next, you might lean back and again shift your body weight. Finally, you could be sitting down. Lots of movement going on there to sit in a chair. It makes me tired just thinking about it. It kind of makes me want
What's the point of all this? Well, it's to demonstrate how a stance is just a snapshot of transition. Now, imagine you have never sat down in a chair before. Ever! We meet, and I tell you I will prepare you for sitting in a chair for the first time by making you practice this thing called sit stance. You might think I'm crazy, and you may not even understand fully how this sit-stance thing gets you sitting down in a chair. Doing this static position doesn't get you across a room, turned around, and sitting down, but it gives you a critical situation that's key among all those movements required in sitting down in that chair. After I make you practice this stance for an hour, I make you walk across an empty room, have you "about-face" halfway in, turn around, and perform the sit stance. I'll have you do this 15-20 times or until I believe you've got it right. Now I bring a chair into that room and place it right in the center with the seat open toward you. Go! I tell you, do what you just did 20 times before. You walk over to the chair, turn 180 degrees and position yourself into this sit stance you've been practicing for 2 hours. At this point, I'm laughing because I brought you a chair with wheels on it to be the first one you ever try and sit in.