Balance and stability form a key part of all physical movement, though many people don’t pay much attention to these aspects of physical performance until something goes wrong (or one has had a couple too many drinks…). Having good strength through our core, and through our posterior and anterior muscle chains, gives a strong foundation from which to operate and perform a wide range of movements, and many sports people need the ability to move and withstand shocks to this balance, which is what stability means. As martial artists many of these shocks, or perturbations, will be unexpected and violent.

The world of fitness now has a great awareness of core stability and strength, and I recommend that you all investigate the world of functional movement and CrossFit to improve your knowledge and gain inspiration. I’m not qualified to speak on these topics in the broader sense, and today will look at some ways in which we might improve our balance and stability for the purposes of our Art.

The first observation I’d like to make is that for fully-sighted people a lot of balance depends upon vision. To illustrate this try the following exercise: do a quadriceps stretch, in which you stand upright, grab your right ankle with your right hand, and point your right knee at the floor. Find a nice balanced position, then close your eyes. Do you feel yourself toppling? While the inner ear is key for our sense of balance, we rely on our eyesight to provide additional information. We can improve our balance and decrease our dependence on our eyesight by doing movement exercises with our eyes closed, such as spinning around then stopping suddenly, keeping the eyes closed (Google “Cawthorne-Cooksey Exercises” for some ideas from the world of rehabilitation). By paying extra attention to the feeling of the ground beneath our feet we’ll soon improve our intrinsic sense of inner-ear balance. Needless to say from a martial arts perspective you won’t see every blow coming, and lowering your dependence on vision for your sense of balance can only be a good thing.

Static stability is an important component of building your physical resilience to blows, but it isn’t enough: good performance of techniques in our System relies on having dynamic stability, where we may be in movement and/or subject to perturbations during movement. There is generally a trade-off between stability and agility in a stance: the most stable position to adopt would be lying flat on the floor; very stable, but not great for movement. In contrast a horse-riding or fighting stance has excellent stability along the axis between the two feet (the “sharp” side of a stance), but isn’t so good at right angles to this axis, which is why we like to move around to get access to our opponent’s “flat” side, the agility of such stances is of an intermediate level. Our forms and drills generally start with our feet and hands together: not only for historical and respect reasons arising from our monastic heritage, but also because this position allows movement in almost any direction with ease, albeit with minimum stability. This same trade-off between stability and agility is found in modern fighter jets which are (aero)dynamically unstable and require flight computers to control them: a human being cannot control these aircraft; this same “twitchiness” is what gives such aircraft their supreme agility. In contrast an airliner and a glider can be controlled by humans, and can even glide stably if their engines or flight computers fail.

We should also distinguish between stability that can be maintained without constant conscious intervention, and stability that requires constant correction. We learn to walk as children, and don’t usually need much conscious thought to control our walking once we’ve acquired the skill. Standing upright and walking does, however, require intervention to maintain balance, but once we’ve learned to walk these interventions are not so present in our conscious minds. Other forms of movement, especially complex movements like those in our System, require a huge amount of focus when we learn them, but they do become easier to control, and even eventually become instinctive, with practice. It is easy to feel satisfied that we can do our complex forms, but remember we are effectively following choreography: we should look to generalise our movements, challenge our stability, and constantly test our capabilities to avoid complacency.

Here are some example exercises to investigate and improve your balance and stability:

– Do a basic punch in a horse-riding stance. Pay attention to the fact that the punch, extending the arm, requires a countermovement, or slight shift of centre, in order to execute correctly and retain balance

– Now do (or imagine doing) a basic punch in this manner to a large mitt with power. The mitt holder can withdraw the target at any time: does this change the way you execute the technique?

– Stand on a pile of sofa cushions, on either one or two feet, and try executing some of your basic punches and kicks. Without the frictional stabilising effect of the ground you’ll need a lot more conscious intervention to maintain your balance. If you have access to a foam pad, wobble board or – best of all – a Bosu ball, then please experiment with these, but be careful!

– Do a familiar form, such as Sah Poh Poo 1 or 2 with your eyes closed – be careful! Note how your senses of both balance and direction are affected

– Do the familiar form again with your eyes closed, but have a housemate throw cushions at you or push you randomly during the form. Note how you modify your stance to increase your stability. Do you notice any change to your level of awareness too?

– Do Sah Poh Poo No 1, but spin around a few times before closing your eyes then performing each next step of the form. For bonus points have your housemate(s) push you as you perform
Please note that stability doesn’t necessarily imply resistance, it’s just another element of our physical capability. We often have a choice between resisting an external impulse, or simply going with it (“rolling with the punches”). Often sacrificing our position enables us to regain our centre more easily, and I use the term “centre” here in both its physical and psychological senses of the word.

There is a huge interrelationship between physical and psychological centre, but a discussion of that will need to wait for another day.

What exercises do you like to do to challenge and improve your sense of stability? Please share your thoughts with our community.

Good luck, keep training and stay safe!
— Sifu Leppard