Whenever I go into a deep horse stance I can't help but have to lean forward and I can't keep my back poster up straight even if I try. Is this normal?
yes it's quite normal. try straightening your spine, THEN dropping into the horse stance, trying to keep your body from leaning. also, train your glutes. in order to keep your back straight for a horse stance, you must keep your hips in, which is done via the glutes, so training them should help a bit.
Agreed, Horse stance is stressful on the legs, so if your legs are not strong enough you will stick your bum out and arch the back to maintain balance. Its like everything else and requires practice. Try to sit high and have a good posture and lower your self slowly until you feel like your gonna fall backwards unless you "bend" forward. Just hold it as low as possible, as long as possible with good posture and you will soon progress.
Your posture must be correct to protect your body from damage.The previous poster is spot on. Get your posture right first, however high that is, then as your body adapts you will find that your stance will progressively and automatically deepen. To achieve horse stance takes time, don't try to rush to get lower before your body is ready. :evil:
Like everyone said, it takes time, and when you do it properly the burning in your legs will let you know Tips - push your heels outward: This will help keep your feet in line. Tuck your ass in: This should help keep your back straighter. Relax your shoulders for the same reason. Then try to SLOWLY drop your weight down directly and see how far you can go without having to change your foot position. If you're doing it right the burning (on me anyway) should be not so much in the thighs (although it can be), but around the knee and ankle. But I suspect this might be down to my own body and the fact my legs are pretty used to stress positions I'll try to post a photo if I can find a decent height/angle to put my camera at
/shameless plug/ http://www.martialartsplanet.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10604544&postcount=15 second paragraph /shameless plug/
A good exercise to get the right alignment is as follows. Stand with your back against a wall, feet shoulder width, back of feet either touching the wall or one inch away. Press the small of your back against the wall, keep your spine, neck and head upright. Lower yourself/squat down along the wall untill it feels like your heels are about to pop up. This will put lots of pressure on your knees, be careful. To get the pressure off your knees, push them outward this will make you lean forward, to counter act that push the small of your back against the wall and straighten out your spine, neck, head. Will feel like your spine is being stretched down from bellow and up from the neck. Two important things keep the legs parallel and maintain a strong arch in your crotch. Your hips should feel like they tuck under your body. The opposing pressure of your knees pushing out and your back pushing out will take the weight off your knees and the stretch of your spine will stabilize your posture, making your weight drop throug your knees in to the ground. Over time try to relax in to this posture, though maintain some structural pressure to keep the opposing forces stable, also try to relax your abdomen. The majority of the work should be done by the spine. This exercise is really hard, its easier to do a horse stance. The point is to get the mechanics of this exercise in to your horse stance. Enjoy
Your upper body will lean forward if you have properly rotated the pelvis. This is a good thing. Some people cannot assume a deep squat because they fail to rotate the pelvis, thus causing the top head of the femur to jam into the acetabulum (hip socket) and they experience pain because of this. The same principle applies to high side kicks and side splits.
See this video. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czk4cBftUhg"]YouTube - Horse Stance Toes Forward or Rotated Outward[/ame]
this is my tutorial video of the correct form and how to do it! good luck hope this can help brother [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tml0Qq0g-Ho&feature=channel_page"]YouTube - Horse Riding Stance[/ame]
umm, your left leg seems to bend a lot lower than your right leg, your feet aren't parallel, and why do you line dance before going in to the stance? Personally, I'd pay more attention to the guy in the other video, but that could by stylistic... edit: 3:24 - hips not aligned properly - you seem to push your knees forward, not outwards. It would be pretty easy to push you over. You're wobbling all over the place. With my knees pointing forwards I can get my ass to the floor... not very useful though 4:12 - you're leaning forward. Bad posture. You can tell by the fact your navel is further away from the camera as opposed to your chest.
it probably is by stylistic. tell me llamageddon, do you have a video of yourself doing said technique?
Toes usually point forward rather than out at an angle,well that's how I was taught to do it,we also sank into it after 3 moves- toes,heels,toes then sink.
Not yet, but when I do, I'll be sure to show you how to do kiba dachi To the OP - not an in depth look at horse stance, but you'll know it when you see it. Kiba dachi in Japanese (don't know what art you practice, so sorry if you already knew this!) [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D864Zd1vEVk&feature=related"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D864Zd1vEVk&feature=related[/ame]
Oh man - WushuRichard is a brilliantly ironic comedy portrayal of the fake kung fu master - I mean, I could wax lyrical for hours on the subject of the fallacy and tactic of pretending that the critic's skill/knowledge/own ability has any bearing on the criticised person's ability - but WushuRichard has it nailed in one line - do you have a video fo you practicing horse stance, lol - as if, if you can't do it that would make his somehow magically better. It's a beautiful, ironic dissection of standard MAP argument fallacies.
They can point out a bit, but usually only with a wide, Southern Style horse stance, and only a little. WushuRichard's stance is just a little bit too narrow - you shouldn't use over-narrow horse stance to get lower any more than you should lift your heel or bend your bodyto kick higher in wushu. In a narrow stance like Richard's, the toes should most certainly be pointing directly forwards - but he should be wider in his stance anyway.
It's true, man - there is a direct correlation between the quality of my stance and the quality of his. Oh, and the amount of mars bars sold on any given day, of course.