Horse Stance, Cat Stance and Other Stances

Today I learned that horse stance is to me as stairs are to Kung Foo Panda. 

I am really only comfortable with three stances - standard, cat and horse. Cat stance, which has the wonderfully rhythmic Japanese name of neko-ashi-dachi, is hard and needs to be practiced again and again. Up and down to get the weight distribution correct (80% on the back leg, so that the front foot can be lifted off the ground without loosing balance) and the synchronous arm and foot movements. Cat stance looks obviously wrong when not done correctly. Standard stance and horse stance are much easier to adopt, but not necessarily easier to do correctly - it's just harder to spot mistakes.

This Wikipedia link illustrates how complicated my world of stances is going to become.

Stances illustrated with footprints

Stances are absolutely key in karate and probably other martial arts and fighting in general. Since legs in the wrong place inherently predisposes to instability, nothing else you do will work effectively from a bad stance. So I really need to work on these. The thing is they are knackering! Standard stance (zenkutsu dachi) can just be adopted and looks fine, but actually you should push outwards with your legs so that they are under constant tension, not arch your back, tense your abdomen yet keep your shoulders relaxed. Horse stance (shiko dachi) is a cripplingly low stance that requires your feet wide apart, knees vertically above your ankles (shin bone vertical), knees pushed backwards, bum tucked in (generally don't stick your bum out. It means your core isn't tense and increases the curvature of your spine which is bad for your back as well as appearing comic). Not too hard until asked to hold it for minutes at a time - seriously hard. However, I must be getting stronger / fitter because this sort of carry on used to result in knee pain, but now it just hurts my thighs. This is progress. Like Kung Foo Panda I have found out there is no secret, just hard work

Those not distracted will notice that this stance is too high. She still looks significantly better than me, so credit where credits due.