Praying Mantis Kung Fu Crane Stance

Video Transcript

"My name is Wesley Rhodes from the Chinese Kung Fu Academy and for Expert Village and this is how you perform the Crane Stance. Now the Crane Stance is a one legged stance, use to train balance and this is use for blocking. You want to start with the foot, either straight or slightly turn out, and the legs are going to be straight. The left leg, you're going to lift up, starting waist high is okay, pointing the toe down just slightly in front of the knee. You make sure you don't touch so that you don't hurt your leg if somebody actually kicks you. The idea is to point the toe down and lift the knee as high as you can. You start, waist height is fine, eventually you want to get the knee elbow height. To see it on the other side. Left foot down, right leg up, see, lift, elbow height. You practice these stances with the weight hands on the waist. To see it on the other side, very good. Try the right foot up. Very good. Now again, this technique can be used to block kicks to the waist, or even punches to the body. The higher you lift your leg, the better. So you don't want to be able to block techniques down here, you have to lift leg very, very high. It's going to strengthen your hips and your abs and it's going to help with the balance. To see one more time. Very good. That's how you perform the Crane Stance in the Praying Mantis Techniques."