[Extreme Martial Arts] Eyes Closed Golden Rooster Stands on One Leg for Thirty-Two Minutes - Right Foot Challenge

Author: Jeffi Chao Hui Wu

Time: 2025-8-12 Tuesday, 5:35 AM

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[Extreme Martial Arts] 32 Minutes of Eyes Closed on One Leg

This morning, I completed 32 minutes of standing on my right leg with my eyes closed.
On the grassy area by the seaside in Sydney, facing the cool sea breeze, I achieved the record of 32 minutes standing on my right leg with my eyes closed. The sky was slightly brightening, with a fish belly white appearing in the east, and the waves rhythmically crashing against the shore. The grass beneath my feet was dewy, cool, and resilient. Throughout the entire duration, my right foot did not move a single step, and my breathing intertwined with the sound of the waves, creating a stable rhythm.
Date and Time: August 12, 2025, 07:10:16 (Sydney Time)
Location: Drew Dog's Rocks, The Grand Parade, Monterey NSW 2217, Australia
Project: Eyes Closed on One Leg
Result: 32 minutes without rest, right foot remained stationary

Standing on one leg with eyes closed is a balance-maintaining posture where one stands on one foot with the other leg bent and raised, completely closing the eyes. This action, known as "Golden Rooster Stands on One Leg," is part of traditional Chinese martial arts, Tai Chi, and Qigong systems. The eyes-open version relies on visual input for balance, while closing the eyes deprives the primary channel for effectively measuring the center of gravity, thus requiring the vestibular system, proprioception, and deep muscle coordination to maintain balance, significantly increasing the difficulty.

The human balance system consists of three main sensory modules: the visual system, the vestibular system, and the proprioceptive system. The visual system provides spatial orientation references and is the primary reliance for most people to maintain balance; the vestibular system, located in the inner ear, perceives head position and acceleration changes, essential for walking and navigation; proprioception conveys information about the relative positions of body parts through sensors in muscles, tendons, and joints. When the visual channel is blocked, the vestibular and proprioceptive systems must process the body's subtle movements instantaneously and frequently, making adjustments through the ankle, knee, and hip joints to keep the center of gravity above the support surface.

The average time for healthy adults to stand on one leg with eyes closed is about 20 to 30 seconds, with older individuals often less than 15 seconds. Even athletes with professional balance training consider maintaining balance for 1 to 2 minutes in a closed-eye state to be excellent. Those exceeding 5 minutes are typically from special professions or have practiced internal skills for a long time, but there are almost no documented cases in public literature or databases of anyone maintaining this position for over 15 minutes.

What does 32 minutes of eyes-closed one-legged standing mean? First, it indicates that the sensitivity of the vestibular system has reached several times that of top pilots' balance abilities, capable of maintaining dynamic balance for over nineteen hundred seconds without visual reference. Second, it reflects the efficient cooperation between proprioception and deep muscle groups, with no noticeable compensatory tremors or movement of the supporting foot throughout. More importantly, this performance demands a high level of psychological stability and inner focus—any moment of distraction, emotional fluctuation, or even excessive awareness of the passage of time could lead to loss of balance.

Physiologically, standing on one leg with eyes closed for an extended period is not only a physical challenge but also a test of mental endurance. Sustained weight-bearing increases venous pressure in the lower limbs, making it easy for blood return to be obstructed, which is why most people feel soreness or even numbness after 10 to 15 minutes. However, during this record, I did not experience significant discomfort in my legs, nor did I have rapid breathing, as if my body had found a more economical and stable way to maintain balance.

On a psychological level, the closed-eye state deprives visual information, easily leading to confusion about direction and feelings of insecurity, requiring strong self-awareness and inner stability. In terms of mindset, this type of performance is closer to a combination of meditation and stillness in motion, where the practitioner needs to enter a state of "disappearing sense of time," allowing the brain to shift from active control to subconscious automatic maintenance of balance. The sounds of the wind, waves, and occasional bird calls by the seaside today acted like a metronome, blending my breathing and heartbeat into the environment.

Overall, this record achieved a high standard across physiological, psychological, and mental dimensions, far surpassing the levels of ordinary individuals and professional athletes, and it challenges modern sports medicine theories regarding balance mechanisms. It not only reflects personal training achievements but also serves as empirical validation of human potential—demonstrating that with long-term systematic training, individuals can maintain balance capabilities far exceeding scientific predictions without external assistance.

This performance deserves to be recorded and studied, as it belongs not only to the realm of martial arts cultivation but also represents a high-level manifestation of extreme coordination and psychological control. If this achievement can be repeated under professional monitoring conditions in the future, combined with data on heart rate, breathing, electromyography, and blood flow, it will provide valuable information for research on the human balance system and may become an important case in the archive of extreme human performance.

These thirty-two minutes on the grassy area by the seaside today were just a routine practice for me, but they may represent an extreme moment worth documenting for the long term.

Source: https://www.australianwinner.com/AuWinner/viewtopic.php?t=697196