Have you ever felt like you’re suffering through something, only to realize there’s a smarter, easier way to achieve the same results? That’s how I felt when I first learned the Horse Stance.
I suppose all humans suffer one way or another, but traditional qigong masters had a talent for amplifying it with their training methods! And their favorite method was to torture new students with the Horse Stance!
The Old Way of Learning
In my book, I paint a picture of the traditional way of learning qigong and kung fu. Here’s an excerpt:
During the first week of training, you learn the Horse Stance and nothing else. The master shows you how to take a stance roughly double the width of your shoulders, how to sit deeply in the stance with your back straight, how to hold your fists at your waist, and how to breathe. Sitting in the stance, your legs begin to tremble after just a few minutes. When you rise up in the stance to give your legs a rest, the master simply tells you to sit back down again.
That’s it. You go to the master’s house every day to practice. And I mean practice! There is virtually no instruction. What little instruction you receive involves the master whacking or poking you with a thin bamboo cane saying, “Not correct.” Your legs are so sore that you can barely walk, but you persist.
After two weeks, the master teaches you another exercise called Lifting the Sky. He shows you the form but doesn’t mention the breathing. You copy his breathing as best as you can.
So now your practice sessions consist of grueling bouts of the Horse Stance followed by easy sessions of Lifting the Sky. You look forward to Lifting the Sky because it’s so much easier than the Horse Stance. You take short breaks to drink some tea, and then you rush back to practicing, eager to prove your commitment to the master. You are persistent because you don’t want to bring shame to your family by quitting.
You learn nothing about the theory of qigong, very little about breathing. The main piece of instruction that you receive is “not correct” without ever learning what actually is correct. Not once does the master say, “good job!” or even “correct.” Whenever he looks at you but says nothing at all, you feel proud of your progress!
On your 108th day of training, the master says, “fang song” in Chinese, which means “release and soften.” He shows you how to relax more in both the Horse Stance and Lifting the Sky. You’re amazed at how big a difference this makes! He also teaches you a new exercise called Three Levels to Earth, which involves squatting up and down. It’s a nice break from the monotony of the Horse Stance.
Let’s be real—this old-school method would never fly in today’s world. It wasn’t just the physical pain that was tough—it was the emotional toll of the method. You’d get no feedback other than a disapproving ‘not correct,’ and you never really knew if you were on the right path. It was grueling in every sense.
My Early Training
My early qigong training was less intense than this, but barely. When I was an apprentice in the 1990s, the emphasis was on something called jibengong (基本功), pronounced a bit like the English words “gee been gone”, but with a g at the very end. This term roughly translates to “fundamental power training.”
My former teacher viewed jibengong as the foundation for both qigong and Shaolin Kung Fu. And so my early years were filled with the Horse Stance and its variations, like Luohan Carrying Water and Golden Bridge.
In retrospect, I believe that this traditional method gets things exactly backwards. Those 3 techniques – Horse Stance, Luohan Carrying Water, and Golden Bridge – are not for beginners. They are for intermediate and advanced students!
Old school teachers weren’t really building a solid foundation in their students; they were just weeding out all but the toughest and most physically talented specimens! If you work your students so hard that only Olympic-level athletes can endure it – then you’re actually just SELECTING people with a naturally strong foundation.
What Beginners Really Need?
As I said, I think that the Horse Stance and its variations are for intermediate and advanced students. There are better things to teach a beginner. For example, I believe that all beginners should start with the following:
- Entering Zen
- Smiling from the Heart
- Dynamic Qigong (like the 8 Brocades or 18 Luohans)
- Flowing Breeze Swaying Willow
These techniques will build an ACTUAL foundation in students regardless of their natural ability. As an added bonus, you won’t scare away 99% of your students with the Horse Stance!
Keep in mind that I myself would not have survived an old school method. I was young and strong when I began learning, but I was also sick. I would not have made the cut.
In other words – the old school approach could have killed me. I desperately needed qigong, and in the end, it saved my life. Luckily, my teacher wasn’t old school enough to turn down American dollars. He loosened his traditional standards because he knew they wouldn’t work for Westerners like me.
A 21st Century Method
A more modern approach to the Horse Stance is as follows:
First, you need to learn the basics of the 5-Phase Routine. You can do this with my book, my Qigong 101, or my Qigong 201. (Note that my Qigong 301 program DOES NOT teach the 5-Phase Routine. You are expected to have learned it elsewhere.)
Second, open the leg meridians. You can do this with a wide variety of dynamic qigong exercises. Here are some examples, separated by the program they are taught in:
- Qigong 101: Nourishing Kidneys; Three Levels to Earth; Dancing Crane; Lifting Heels, Bear Walk
- Qigong 201: Holding the Feet; Heaven and Earth; Old Man Taking Off Shoes; Rhinoceros Looking at Moon
Third, learn the Big Universe. This technique will open both the arm and leg meridians. With these meridians already open, the Horse Stance will not only be easier; it will also be more productive.
Fourth, learn either One Finger Shooting Zen or Two Finger Shooting Zen. Both of these techniques involve sitting on either the Horse or Goat Stance. The key here is that the top half of the body is doing dynamic qigong, which makes it easier to sit in a stance, probably because of the distraction. Learning the hand postures will also make Golden Bridge much easier.
Fifth, learn the Horse Stance.
Sixth, learn Golden Bridge and Luohan Carrying Water.
The Variations
Here’s an old image of me doing the Horse Stance. As you can see, the hands are at the waist. It looks simple, and it is, but it’s one of the hardest things you’ll ever do.
Next, we have Luohan Carrying Water. The stance is the same, but the arms are floating. Legend has it that the Shaolin monks would carrying buckets of water from the nearby stream. Some even think that Luohan Carrying Water was practiced with buckets or weights.
And finally, we have Golden Bridge. Again, the stance is the same, but we add the One Finger hand postures, similar to One Finger Zen and Two Finger Zen.
Want to Learn More?
I’ve put all of these techniques– the Horse Stance, Luohan Carrying Water, Golden Bridge, and Two Finger Shooting Zen, into my new Qigong 301 program. We will learn them systematically, and without all the suffering!