Stance

stance is a morpheme meaning stand, used in several ways:

• to take a position in an argument;
• refers to a particular standing posture, such as warrior postures in yoga.

There are a wide variety of stances adopted in martial arts and sports, the most common of which are listed below.

List of stances

Ready stance

Ready Stance refers to the most common ready position used in Tae Kwon Do training, which is formally known as Parallel Ready Stance. Ready Stance is performed by standing with the feet one shoulder width apart, measured from the outside edge (Foot Sword) of the feet, with arms slightly bent and loosely held fists about one hand width away from the belt knot. Muscles are relaxed to promote movement speed from this position.

Riding / Horse stance

The riding stance or horse stance is generally used to practice punches. It is similar to the ready stance, but the legs are much wider, about 2 shoulder widths. Also, the knees are deeply bent. In skilled practitioners, the thighs are parallel to the floor. The hands are held in fists, on the hips at belt level, with the thumbs up. When a punch is thrown, the hand rotates 180 degrees to turn knuckles up before making contact. In combat, variations on this stance can be useful for dropping quickly beneath your opponent's attacks and coming in through their defenses.

In some taekwon-do styles, this is known as a sitting stance.

Front stance

The front stance is used to shift power to the front leg. This can be useful for stronger blocking or strikes. However, the body is unbalanced and generally more open to attack than the basic fighting stance. To perform a front stance, the practitioner stands with both feet together. One foot is moved about three short steps forward and one step to that foot's side (right for right, left for left.) The front leg is bent until the knee obscures the toes, and the toes of the back foot are rotated slightly outward so the foot makes a 45 degree angle.

Fighting stance

This stance varies with the martial art and practitioner, but is the basic all-purpose stance used in sparring and combat. Common features across the arts include turning the body to the side to present a smaller target, slightly bent knees for balance and agility, and hands up, protecting the head. In an art relying heavily on kicks, the body's mass is usually shifted slightly to the back leg, making the front leg easier to lift and increasing the speed of kicks. Regardless of the exact stance, this is the most familiar stance for a martial artist. All other stances, blocks, and attacks flow from this stance.

Back stance

This stance is specifically focused on shifting weight to the back leg, much as with the fighting stance. To perform this stance, the body faces to the side, with the front foot straight out in a line with the shoulder blades, leg slightly bent. The back foot is at a 90 degree angle to this line, with the body's mass centered over it, leg slightly bent. The point is not generally to make kicks easier - though that effect is certainly obtained - but rather to prevent a front leg sweep. Since there is virtually no weight on that leg, it can be swept without affecting the practitioner's overall balance.

Cat stance

This stance refers to standiing with both feet close to each other close to V-shape, with the front leg landing only on the toes. Both knees are bent slightly and the majority of bodyweight is distributed on the back leg while the front leg takes up about only 20% of the weight. This stance appeared in Taeguek ChilJang, which is the brown belt pattern. This stance is also known as Tiger stance.