[Martial Arts] Three Seconds in a High Horse Stance, Crushing the Boxer

Author: Jeffi Chao Hui Wu

Time: 2025-08-09 Saturday, 11:10 AM

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[Martial Arts] Three Seconds in a High Horse Stance, Crushing the Boxer
The day before yesterday, I witnessed a scene that made me exclaim, “The difference between internal and external martial arts is like heaven and earth.” It was a 44-year-old Brazilian male student, of medium build, with solid muscles and sharp eyes. He told me he had practiced boxing and Brazilian jiu-jitsu for many years, with rich practical experience, and that explosive power and speed were his strengths. Looking at his confident demeanor, I secretly thought that with such a physique, he should be able to hold a high horse stance for a few minutes without any problem.
In fact, many years ago, my senior brother Master Lin Wenhui had reminded me: “Ordinary people can generally only hold a horse stance for three seconds.” When he said this, I was half skeptical, as I had long been able to stand for thirty minutes, feeling relaxed and with a long breath; that sense of stability had become part of my daily training. He even laughed and added, “People like you are one in a million.” To verify this statement, I specifically went to observe his students—indeed, the vast majority could only hold for three seconds; by the fourth second, either their stance collapsed, or their faces showed signs of pain.
This Brazilian student once again confirmed this fact. As soon as his feet hit the ground and his hips sank slightly, before I could even count to three seconds, his whole body began to shake like a sieve, and he already had a strained expression on his face. He quickly straightened up and苦笑着说：“不行，这太难了。” I was stunned for half a second and couldn’t help but laugh—not at him, but because I didn’t expect a practical “tough guy” to be defeated by a seemingly simple static exercise.
Many outsiders might wonder: Isn’t a high horse stance just about spreading the legs, slightly bending the knees, and holding still? For those accustomed to explosive power training, this is actually the most “incompatible” state. Boxing and jiu-jitsu emphasize the instantaneous power of strikes, agile footwork for evasion, and muscle tension during confrontation, while the core of stance training is precisely the opposite—relaxed, stable, with a locked center of gravity and deep, slow breathing.
In combat training, muscles are often in a dynamic cycle of “tight—loose—tight—loose,” with frequent changes in direction and power concentrated in short bursts. However, a high horse stance requires the entire body to be externally relaxed yet internally tight, with the bones supporting the form and the breath sinking into the dantian; one cannot be rigidly braced nor slack and collapsed. It appears motionless, yet in reality, all the fascia, joints, and ligaments are bearing continuous, uniform pressure.
The first challenge for this student was the inertia of force—he tried to hold on with his thigh muscles, but this would lead to unbearable soreness within three seconds, because the source of power in stance training is not from a single muscle, but from the “structural strength” of the overall skeleton and the “internal support” from the dantian. The second challenge was the clash of breathing—boxers are used to short breaths coordinated with their strikes, while stance training requires deep, long, and steady breathing; once the breath is disrupted, the body immediately trembles. The third challenge is the static pressure on the bones—during combat, joints bear pressure dynamically, while in stance training, pressure is borne statically; over time, the muscles will send out strong “retreat signals.”
I told him that stance training is like laying the foundation for a house; if it is deep and stable, only then can a tall building be erected. Boxing and jiu-jitsu are like the upper structures of a house—beautiful, imposing, and practical—but if the foundation is not solid, once faced with a stronger impact, the entire building will shake.
From my own experience, whether it’s Tai Chi, swordplay, or techniques like the Golden Rooster Stands on One Leg and Lingzi Step, these practices that embody stillness within movement and movement within stillness all rely on a solid foundation of stance training. Especially at the seaside in temperatures of six to nine degrees, under my autumn clothing, standing in a horse stance for three minutes makes my body warm, and after ten minutes, I start to sweat slightly; that feeling of internal energy surging cannot be replaced by explosive power. Senior Brother Lin once candidly stated that I can walk in Lingzi Step for three hours without muscle fatigue, hold the Golden Rooster Stands on One Leg with eyes open for over forty minutes, and with eyes closed for twenty-three minutes, which, to my knowledge, no one has achieved. This is not boasting, but rather an indication that once one enters the realm of internal training, the body’s performance will completely surpass conventional physical capabilities.
After class that day, this boxing expert sincerely said, “It turns out that after so many years of practice, I only have good muscles and techniques; I haven’t solidified the foundational roots.” I smiled and replied, “This is the charm of internal power; it seems slow, yet it can make your punches heavier, your feet steadier, and your body more agile.”
The difficulty of stance training does not lie in how long you can hold on, but in whether you can find strength in relaxation and let your whole body be permeable in stillness. This is a world completely different from any external combat. The awkwardness of three seconds is precisely the starting point for him to truly embark on the path of internal power.

Source: https://www.australianwinner.com/AuWinner/viewtopic.php?t=697151