Considering that Chinese martial arts has been used for fighting for over 2000 years, it has an unusual practice, one you would not immediately associate with combat and killing.  In this practice we stand, motionless. I have had my own questions and doubts about the efficacy of the practice. For years I participated but resisted. I could certainly grasp why a Shaolin monk might prefer to meditate in a Horse Stance rather than in a lotus position: it would be good strength-building and increase his rooting skills. But in general, the question “why should martial artists stand?” kept bugging me.

I have, over the years, tacked together an explanation that—at least in part—gives a functional explanation as to why we do what we do; not just standing, but the particular poses involved. It even explains why they might increase fa jin, our ability to issue strength. Fa Jin is, after all, supposed to be major benefit of standing, allowing us to increase our power through what is essentially stillness training. So, this is just an idea, but here’s how it goes:

Horse stance training

Everyone knows you create power in a technique by muscular contraction, weight shift, and torque. It’s this last I want to address. Strikes generally torque as they are executed. The question is, not how to get torque, but where it should lead. It makes sense that at the point of impact, the bones should be aligned so naturally that there is nothing discomforting about the position. In this case we go from the deformation, or maximum torque, to the minimized torque of a perfectly aligned position: a perfect slot to slip into. Maximum twist, execution, perfect alignment. Then the process starts over.

Most strikes in Kung Fu are highly specialized postures, almost never entirely “natural.” Therefore we need to practice training the muscles so that these ultimate positions are ingrained in our neurons, completely relaxed and structured. This can be conditioned through standing practice, and very few other methods. This is why almost every classical posture can also proxy as a standing practice, a nei gong.

What’s the criterion for knowing that you have achieved just the correct posture? After all, each position has 100 variations and a thousand ways to go wrong. The discipline of standing with intent, keeping to the posture, will allow the precise adjustments. In other words, it’s like having a landing spot so that every time you execute, you end up where you should be.

We practice moving up and down the line, exploding with energy, peaking at each punctuation, each completed execution. But, rather than tensing up with the last ten per cent, we find the correct groove by relaxing into the posture, training ourselves to see relaxation as power instead of surrender.

It takes time, patience, and an understanding that Yin and Yang are not combatants but compliments.

One additional note: some of you may ask, “What about postures that are martially neutral, like Wujishi?” This is a different aspect of the martial; once you’ve expended energy and are neutral, you have to create torque for the next move. In other words, a proper sequence might start with something like this: a highly torqued strike which transforms into a relaxed posture held as in Wuji, then torques again to add another strike. Like a sine wave, the power crests and falls but, because we have Yin moves and Yang moves, there is always a way to find power from any position. In this paradigm, Wuji Shi is the Yin, and the martial posture is the Yang, with the strike itself being “Hua”, transformation, from one to the other.

Thoughts on this?