Horse Posture
Practicing Horse Posture against a Wall
Traditional internal martial art teaching includes a low and wide stance known as Ma Bu, or Horse Stance. This stance develops leg strength, or rootedness. In the Earth Dragon Canon method, we abandon wide and deep stances for proper alignment and function. This does not mean we can abandon leg strength.
We need a posture that can engage our leg muscles functionally without dedicating hours to just standing around. My version of the Horse Posture is like the Bear Posture, but against a wall and standing up.
Find a sturdy wall and stand with your heels, buttocks, back, and head against it.
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As a martial training posture, this is not all that new. We did this same exercise when I was practiced Hung Chuan in Taiwan. It was part of our Iron Thread warm-up period. Although after “Warm-ups”, I was mostly beat. lol.
I love this posture for training my leg strength. I didn’t realize how detached from my legs I had become. Now when I watch other people sit down or stand up, I see how much they depend on their upper body to get moving.