It has been noted quite accurately that, as a student of Itosu, Funakoshi started on the road to athleticizing karate.

Shotokan stances are very misunderstood, I think.

Initially, there is a lot of confusion surrounding exactly when stances lengthened.

It has been noted quite accurately that, as a student of Itosu, Funakoshi started on the road to athleticizing karate. He no doubt was lengthening the stances of his students somewhat into the 1940s. His son, Gigo, is very definitely a factor in this development. However, it is most likely that it was his students, direct and indirect - most notably Masatoshi Nakayama - who actually emphasized length and depth.

People seem to forget about Nakayama Sensei, for some reason.

The JKA has had an _incredible_ impact on Shotokan karate world-wide. The introduction of competition sparring, the JKA instructor program, the export of instructors across the world and just it's sheer size have resulted in much of the development of Shotokan as we now know it. Chief instructor of the JKA from inception, Nakayama was instrumental in this evolution.

Nakayama was the architect of the "Dynamic Karate" concept. JKA students, particularly those in the Instructor Program, were educated in this idea of strong, powerful and athleticized karate. As chief instructor of the JKA through 4 decades, he promoted this concept and continued to develop JKA karate along scientific lines. His books, including Dynamic Karate but even more so the Best Karate series, were predicated on this concept. The current JKA instructors, and many of the chiefs of other Shotokan organizations, were all educated and rose to prominence under these concepts.

As Sensei Palumbo points out, the JKA culture was essentially a sport organization where these concepts had predictably good results.

It's hard to describe JKA culture and competition. Suffice to say, in an arena where a fight is decided on a single explosive technique to a single targe, one can appreciate the neccessity of the stances we usually associate with Shotokan. The rules are designed to place two opposing fighters in circumstances where the fighters don't dare take risks. Thus, appearing to be immovable and indomitable is actually an advantage.

It doesn't help that a JKA-style tournament match can be a very dangerous place to make a mistake.

So, now we have the competitive environment defined.

Turning to the dojo, we find that JKA-affiliated karate-ka are systematically training their technique towards this kind of fighting style. Gohon, sanbon, nihon and ippon kumite exercises slowly narrow action/reaction to one or two techniques. There isn't very much mobility in the fighting/sparring/defense exercises, at all.

Kata is practiced very similarly. Many times, Shotokan kata are drilled methodically and precisely, often stopping to look at and identify problems or concepts. Rarely, will you see Shotokan yudansha blast through kata over and over and over again. Thus, methodical and powerful stances are once again emphasized.

Kihon practice is similarily often predicated on a practice of techniques all from these very strong stances. Students push to squeeze every erg of energy from their stance shifts and every millisecond of speed from their release of techniques. No matter how long the combination is, the same principles are ultimately emphasized.

Therein lies the problem. The same principles are emphasized over and over and over again.

We Shotokan stylists give a lot of lip service to the concept that low stances are for dojo practice and high stances are for defense/fighting. The problem is so few of us actually do the latter part, ie. stand up and practice fighting/defense. Certainly, we never come close to putting the time in practicing karate from the stand up position that we do in deep, powerful stances.

As Sensei Ogden points out, we fall back on in-grained habits.

I think very few Shotokan dojos manage to find a good balance between levels of stances. This is very unfortunate because balance is very important on so many levels. Self defense involves situations one will never find in competition sparring. Likewise, competition sparring teaches us to deliver technique to the target when the pressure is on. The two can compliment each other BUT that can't be done when one over-shadows the other.

Personally, this has been my biggest problem in karate. Being short and kind of stocky, I find it very easy to fall into the trap of being immobile and thus my competition karate was very wooden, lacking in mobility and pretty pathetic, really. But, I was doing what I knew.

The stances themselves are _not_ the problem. They do what Funakoshi then Nakayama wanted them to do - generate power. The problem is training, education and application. The link between practical application and theory has been broken by us, the students. We haven't created an environment where we can develop a more flexible and mobile system of delivering technique.

Having cross-trained extensively, I have seen other karate systems use longer and deeper stances more effectively than Shotokan people. They did not have the same power generation happening but they were moving much faster (I remember being in Shito-ryu dojo last year and being left behind by white belts who were doing a fair set of oi-zuki). If Shito-ryu and other systems can do this, why can't Shotokan do it .... and preserve the power?

I suppose there are two possible solutions to the dilemma.

One, we modify curriculums to allow slightly less long and deep stances. Many organizations are doing this but, I think, there is a worry that if it is too lax it won't be Shotokan any more.

Two, we modify curriculum so that equal time is given to deep stances and to doing defense/fighting from high stances (and I don't mean just a loose zen kutsu dachi). This would be a SIGNIFICANT change in training practice for most Shotokan dojos.

I honestly don't know which approach is the right one.

However, I do know that a lot of Shotokan practitioners are going to dismiss the above points with various comments. There is a lot of pride in Shotokan power and explosive delivery of technique. Perhaps that is where the problem really lies?

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