How important do all of you think the traditional stances are in Karate? I tend to fluctuate a lot. Sometimes it feels very important other times not so much. How important are the traditional stances for generating power?

Ha, you are asking 2 different questions, which will have different answers.

"How important do all of you think the traditional stances are in Karate?"

I would imagine that stances are very important in karate from a stylistic/historical perspective. Changing the elements of a style will change the style. Pretty soon, you are doing wing chun, right?

"How important are the traditional stances for generating power?"

Not at all important. Boxers don't use *any* stances, and KO people all the time - with gloves on.

I go back and forth on this also. Actually I'm leaning towards not using the traditional stances. This is not to say that power is generated just out of thin air. An example of this is the common chudan tsuke. In order to get the most power from this technique I need to get my body to work as machine. By that I mean that I have to ground my feet in a stance and let the technique flow up my legs through my core all the way to my fists. The trick is finding that instant of grounding your stance. It can't be a long time because you need to be mobile.
This is a misconception about my style (Okinawan Goju ryu.) People see us walking in Sanchin or shiko-dachi and think that we would approach an attacker like that. You know, moving using the crescent half-moon steps.The crescent walking is just a excercise to train the body to get into sanchin at a moments notice when a full frontal assault comes.You use that stance to absorb the attack then get out of it to transition into a more mobile stance.
Traditional stances,IMHO, are to rigid to use exclusively in a self defense situation. By that I mean staying in stance at all times. I do believe that they can be used for techniques as long as they are fluid. The transition from stance to stance has to be smooth or one will be torn apart.
On the street an attacker with boxing skills and good footwork will waste you if you aren't mobile yourself.

keep training, Mark

It depends on your knowledge of the stances and their proper application.


Duane

Matt I was talking more about stances for the most power out of a technique. Also, boxers use stances. Orthodox Stance Detroit stance. Peakaboo stance.

Speaking strictly static stances aren't important at all for power generation, you can learn to hit hard on one foot, from a variety of stances and methods of movement.

Stances serve a tactical purpose, for instance things done from Zenkutsu dachi are done that way because whatever you are doing (take the simple example of an forward elbow spike) requires forward momentum and posture.

Neko ashi dachi is a backward flinch motion, shiko dachi is an uprooting and throwing posture, which can actually be found in Judo throws, and older battlefield techniques. Look up ura nage if you want an example.

If you stop looking at the end points of Karate techniques frozen in time, and look at what they are actually meant to do it will make alot more sense to you.

Do you need them, well that depends, if you are doing Karate, the techniques are the way they are for a reason..but the fact is that a ton of Karate dojos don't spend any time on the combative bits, preferring kata-as-show, point sparring, and some uninspired static bunkai drills.

If you don't know that reason, or don't actually know what the techniques are for then they won't hold that much relevance for you, in that case, is it Karate? I don't know, apparently plenty of people think it is.

Take a look at Ian Abernethy or Kris Wilder's stuff if you are having a hard time understanding what stances are for..it's really pretty obvious, but if most of what you do in class is typical ranged Karate sparring you will normally be putting like 2% of what is there to use, and most of the stances and other stuff in your curriculum isn't gonna make sense from that standpoint.

And yes...you can spar, do freeplay, go dynamic with the traditional techniques with some safety modifications.

There really is no panacea for hitting hard, there are a bunch of different ways to hit hard "correctly".

So how you stand and move, yeah of course that affects power generation, when you break stances into different points in time and evaluate them from there though (like kata nad kihon)...that's a thing of looking at tactics.




That is just common sense, holding a static posture for any amount of time in a real situation is usually a bad idea, and quickly gets you beaten. A "fighting stance" is the stuff of fantasy. Stances are not meant to be viewed like that, someone who views them like that (instructor, student, hanshi, grand poobah, whatever) does not get what they are for.

Do you think the people that invented the kata you do thought it was a good idea to stand statically in stances while someone pounded on them? I don't.

One must be fluid in self-defense and stances are important in karate as these are the foundation to good technique. These are the "first baby steps" you need to take to learn karate and is it important to have proper karate stance.

Stances have different meanings in training.
At the entry-level it is important to have a strong base for your techniques. Zenkutsu- and Shiko-Dachi are good for that.
At an other stage those same techniques can be a real challenge while in a less stable stance (at first) like Kokutsu- or Neko-ashi-Dachi. The techniques will become less dependant of the stance.

Well I consider traditional Karate stances to be training tools.

Using them with that in mind is very beneficial.

There is no grand secret behind them. I.o no movie magic as in you stand this way and generate 3 times more power than ususal!

Like Zach Zinn said obviously stances, the way you move etc affect power and such but if you just go through the old stances and kata using them as training tools and practice some sort of contact kumite and train with contact in mind you will eventually develop movement that is fine tuned to your body and what is best for you.

It depends on your goal for the stance. The stance in our system, for instance, has the main goal of delivering all offensive weapons, countering the takedown, and being centered in a position of balance. A thai fighter stands higher to deliver faster kicks, and he doesn't have to worry about takedowns to the same extent. As point fighting developed, boxers moved from a more squared bare knuckle stance into a stance that utilized the jab more prominently. Takedowns and clinch are not as much of an issue for the boxer, so his stance can afford to be more bladed since he doesn't have to worry about the sprawl. Traditional stances for your particular system probably evolved the way they did for a reason. I am not as hip to traditional martial art history so I cannot say whether your art developed it's stances for asthetics or functionality. I would venture to say, however, that if you are doing techniques from a differing stance, you are probably modifying them to fit your own style. This can have its place, but know why you're doing it