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Azato
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TSD/SBD/TKD back stance

Anyone have a good explaination for why the Korean styles have such a different back stance? My style has a 90%/10% from back to front leg weight distrobution with the heel raised on the front foot and only the toes and ball of the foot touching the ground. The explaination I was always given was that the weight distrobution is so drastic because it is a stance that you are meant to be able to kick quickly from. Fair enough, but as I've done more application work I've found that I always use a 'natural posture' more akin to the Shotokan 70%/30% weight distrobution. Forcing my weight to stay so far back feels awkward while trying to strike with my arms.

Marc
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Can you give us some visual on the stance in question as well as context (e.g. a form)?  

Azato
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In terms of context I would say really any instance where you are advancing into a back stance. I can understand keeping the weight so far back it I were moving backward into the stance but moving forward and trying to strike it feels awkward keeping 90% of my weight on my back leg.

Marc
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Azato wrote:

Anyone have a good explaination for why the Korean styles have such a different back stance? My style has a 90%/10% from back to front leg weight distrobution with the heel raised on the front foot and only the toes and ball of the foot touching the ground.

From your description it sounds like a cat stance (neko-ashi-dachi). In this video you can observe the difference between neko-ashi-dachi and kokutsu-dachi (back-stance):

Is that what you are describing?

Katz
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I've been teaching Tang Soo Do for threee years now.

Our "fighter stance" is something between what is shown in the video above. It is similar to the back stance, but with legs slightly closer than what they are in that stance. Back foot is 90° from front foot. And I've been taught different variations over the years as for weight distribution. Now I teach "somewhere between 60/40 and 90/10", and let my students pick what works for them. So far, I haven't seen 90/10. Also, I don't like the "front heel up" version. Feels to me like a cheap way of making sure you don't put too much weight on your front leg.

I have also been given the "fast kicks" explanation. To me, though, I tell it as : You must be able to kick with your front leg without shifting your weight.

One explanation for the difference is probably due to style. TSD is a "flying art" (although I don't teach too many flying kicks), and TKD goes for a lot of kicks. You need to be lighter on your feet than the back stance as demonstrated in the video above, where I feel your feet are too wide apart to be able to kick fast with either leg.

Anf
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I don't think it's meant to be taken so literally. At least that's what I was taught. The heel off the ground is more so that instructors can see at a glance that there's little weight on the front foot, and to develop the habit of being ready to shift weight where needed with maximum ease. That will become obvious in free sparring, when formal stances go out of the window, yet strangely you find you can still move with great agility, because you've trained your mind and conditioned your legs to hold whatever posture serves you best at any given instant.