Stance and Confidence

[LC-Evolution]

Hi everyone,

I have been doing kumdo for about three years and a couple months and ive been wearing armor for two and a half years. When i just started wearing armor, i was taught how to spar, counter, and evade rather then having the proper stance. After almost two years of learning how to fight, i seemed to encounter more problems in fighting, many people who started wearing armor earlier then me beat me. Most of the root of the problem might be the fact that all the guys i spar are a lot bigger and stronger then i am.
About half a year ago, a new teacher came by. He specifically taught only people wearing hogu. Thats when i started to learn how to fight properly. I learned that Stance is a lot more important then learning how to fight. It is a slow recover and i hope to improve. After learning how to purely fight for two years, it is really hard to learn how keep my back straight and use power on my left side of the body. Confidence also came a lot with what i learned as well, my new teacher always told me i need lots of confidence and to remember that the opponent is nervous as well. I am slowly improving, but i am still having problems with stance once in a while. I have to constantly remind myself to keep my back straight.
Any tips that may help me remind myself of keeping a good stance? Sure i am slowly learning, but i want to learn it faster. Thank you!

-Jon

[cesarekim]

I'll take a crack at this.

I was always told that your basic stance is your introduction when practicing with someone you don't know. I guess the best way to describe your position is to show relaxed confidence. Your teacher will know which specific points to look at but here's my personal checklist when I square up for a sparring session or a match:
1. Feet at a distance of 1 1/2 fist from each other;
2. Left leg straight but not locked right leg slightly bent at the knee;
3. Weight distributed 70/30 between the FRONT and back foot;
(The weight should be on the inner /front part of the foot)
4. Arms in a circular position and relaxed;
5. Hands relaxed with left hand pinky over the butt of the jookdo and the right forefinger touching the leather guard (fix the leather if it's too long or short);
6. Both hands form a triangle with thumb and forefinger and the jookdo should be in between them;
7. The elbows touch the gabsang;
8. The hands are at about a fist from your belly at the level of the tandem (one fist from your belly button);
9. The point of the jookdo should point at the throat of the opponent or, if you tend to get hit on the sohnmok, at your opponent's left eye;
10. Your chin should be tucked in. This will ensure that you have a straight line from the back of your head down the back to your hips.

As far as the attitude when in basic stance, I base everything on not looking at any specific part of your opponent but trying to see the whole. The best description I can think of for this type of surveillance is when you look at a far away object. You will immediately notice when something changes. I was taught that the brain will take about 0.3 seconds to analyze incoming signals. If you look at one object rather than trying to look at everything (hands, eyes, body, legs) you will reduce the incoming signals and have a better response.

The really good guys will never lose their composure and will never break out of their stance unless they are preparing an attack or counter-attack.

Sorry for being long-winded but this is what works for me. I would really be interested in seeing what other practitioners are doing.

Regards,
Cesare

[LC-Evolution]

Thanks a lot this will help me, especially no looking at specific areas.

[samuelp1994]

hmm.. i disagree with having to be big and strong.. im skinny and strong and im top in my dojang

[CESAREKIM]

Wow,
Re-reading this almost three years later is kind of weird... I've switched to a 40-60 weight distribution with 60 on the back leg...

Samuelp, where did I say BIG? I meant strong and relaxed... I'm fat and slow and going on 40. Get the sheet kicked out of me by my 68 year old dad all the time. Then again, I can whoop a lot of the younger, faster. stronger and bigger guys. Size matters but experience counts too. How long have you been doing kumdo?

[b8amack]

70-30 on the front... isn't that sangdan, Cesare? :) (Even there, though, I'm only 60-40)

I swear though I'm only JUST starting to get the weight right in jungdan. My right foot always used to stick when advancing until about three weeks ago.

[CESAREKIM]

I had a problem with going backwards too much and I forced myself to switch to a forward leaning stance back then. I've since switched back to a more neutral position. I've gotten away from working on sonmok and now just look for the muhri. I get hit a lot more but I tend to get the point when I actually go for it whereas I used to get a lot of mixed results when I was basically living off of my sonmok...

I go to 70-30 when I am working on sangdan. I actually do it backwards meaning that I hold the jookdo with the right hand on the bottom. Main reason I do this is when I am facing people who are doing sangdan or ssang kal. Just like to throw them for a loop...

[b8amack]

Am I the only one who started working on sonmok because mori was such an easy hit? I don't mean to sound all high falootin' about my kumdo skill... my skill level is low. It's just mori's always seemed the easiest shot for me. I often ignore mori in yonsup as I find sonmok much harder to hit and get away cleanly from. I'll hit it fine, but often get tagged afterwards, or don't get away quickly enough. I find chaekkyon sonmok also requiring much more control than chaekkyon mori, which is what I go to when I can't seem to beat someone in shiai.

[CESAREKIM]

I don't think that one is harder or easier than the other. It often depends on your size and speed. A lot of tall people just hit mori. Mori IS the ultimate cut in Kumdo, after all, and there is nothing wrong with that up to about 6dan...

I've been forcing myself to go for mori because sonmok was not educational. I could always sneak in a marginal sonmok and then slam into my opponent for cover. No real sutemi there...

One thing that I always try to remind myself about is that sonmok and mori are complementary insofar as one may be easier to do than the other (depending on the person) but you need both to keep you opponent off balance. I get a lot of easy mori because people know I'm a sonmok specialist. If all I did was sonmok, I would have an exponentially harder time getting any point as my opponents would just have to cover one target and that is a lot easier than convering both...

YMMV

[b8amack]

I hear ya Cesare, and I wasn't meaning to imply that mori was easier than sonmok. Everyone's different, but where I've noticed a LOT of sonmok specialists at my dojang, I've always found the sonmok more of a challenge than the mori. Even from [s]jodan[/s] ssangdan, I tend to clip the kodungi more than I should, whether I'm hitting yang or han son.


On a bit of a tangent (although related to the thread, I think) does anyone know what kasumi is called in Korean? I've never seen it mentioned in any of the books I have, but I watched someone win a highschool tournament a couple of weeks ago using kasumi pretty exclusively. So it's taught here, anyway.

[CESAREKIM]

Kasumi is often taught at the highschool and college level to play against sangdan and really quick sonmok specialists. I'm sure there is a Korean term for it but all of my friends just call it kasumi... Sorry, no help on this...

[b8amack]

Well this guy did it pretty exclusively... against everyone. No worries, though. I'll ask around.