What is the correct posture for horse stance?

I believe many of my friends rarely pay attention to the practice of standing in horse stance in life, because you don’t know the specific requirements of the correct posture of standing in horse stance. Generally, if we want to develop the correct horse stance, we need to adjust our body posture. First, the shoulders and abdomen should be kept in a horizontal line, and we should stand firmly in the horse stance, keep our head up, chest out, and abdomen in. It is recommended that everyone can correct the wrong posture.

There are many ways of standing, for example the common ones are: horse stance, Wuji stance, etc., and every "fixed posture" in Tai Chi is a stance method. If you make mistakes in the key points and postures of Zhuanggong, it will cause you to make a big detour. Not only will you not make any progress, you may also harm your body. The most important thing when standing in a stance is to have the correct method and posture. "Chest in, back straightened" is not a single requirement, such as "empty mind and clear top of head (or empty neck and top of head strength), hollow belly and full abdomen, qi sinking into dantian" and so on.

In fact, the above are not so much "key points" as they are "results" or "feelings" after following the key points. It's just that different people have different experiences, so it can hardly be considered an "precise standard." This is determined by the way of thinking of Chinese traditional culture (traditional philosophy). The most basic requirement of internal martial arts (such as Tai Chi) is to "hold the chest and straighten the back", which has caused a great misunderstanding among people. Some masters or old men in the park lower their heads or bend over to find the relaxing feeling of Tai Chi, but if they continue to practice like this for a long time, they will hurt their bodies. The more effort they put in, the more damage their body will suffer. The more persistently they work, the more likely it is to cause harm to their body.

When standing in a posture, one must properly handle the dialectical unity of "pulling and pulling upwards" and "relaxing and sinking downwards". This degree is "natural" and "central". "The body should be more relaxed and sinking, and the body must have more "rigid" upward support (collar). Looseness and tightness are relative, but the process should be natural and gradual. That's why there is a saying that "Tai Chi is the art of hiding a needle in cotton."

The sayings: "If you seek softness intentionally, you will unexpectedly become hard", "Always seek to be soft on the outside, and after a long time you will naturally become hard on the inside. It is not hardness that is intentional, but softness that is intentional" all speak of this principle. Taking the "Wuji Posture or Mabu Posture" as an example, it is normal to feel soreness in the shoulders, back and leg muscles when you start practicing, but if there is severe pain in the joints, it means that the posture is wrong. In short, no one can get it right in one practice. Many people slowly adjust their bodies through horse stance exercises, find the feeling, and gradually get it right from wrong. How could you not find it? The principle is that when the body is straight, relaxed, heavy, smooth and natural, it is good and right.

Based on the horse stance posture described in this article, I believe that the elderly should know how to develop the correct horse stance posture. In your life, you should adjust the pressure on your abdomen and feet by standing still, so that you can ensure that you can adjust your breathing, etc.