Wen Hsiu Quan

  Modern martial arts are to a large extent what had happened when classical martial arts met Western Boxing. The foremost reason modern fighters will give you for using a short fighting stance when sparring or fighting is that a short stance is more mobile. Is a shorter stance more effective, though? Well...  Let's have a look at that... Can you attack more easily from a short stance? Can you defend more easily from a long stance? Do this simple test and tell me what you find... With punching one can indeed spring into the attack and cross a long distance to land a punch on a target. The feet and body are both out of reach in the beginning, but that changes as soon as you shoot that hip forward... This is of course effective in competitions where fighters start off away from each other. This enables you to go in, score your point, and get out of reach again In the case of a long stance we see that the body may be out of reach, but the lead foot has already arrived on the scen...

A joyful and prosperous new year to all my followers! I have noticed for some time that I have been preferring certain angles of attack during my training. This is a natural consequence of staying mindful of the opponent's centre line and the limbs that you have to get past when attacking. For a long time, especially in one's early years of Karate, we get used to square off with our sparring partners. Free sparring at this stage is then usually a manner of moving back and forth with the most dominating fighter driving his opponent back most of the time. Sooner or later we realise, however, that while increasing the distance between ourselves and our opponent's may keep us safe for a while that safety does not last and- we find it impossible to counterattack from so far away. One of the reasons why I choose a slightly long stance is that the space between my feet give me enough room to make the space that I need to move back just far enough to counter with a kick. That dista...