1 - Hi Chris, thank you for another interesting article. I believe that in standing, as with all aspects of martial arts, we start off by regurgitating our teachers opinions, then through experience understand vicerally what we thought we understood intellectually when we were told it..... as you say, the benefits of zhang zhuang are realised through practice over a long period, and through experimentation with all its aspects.
Your article brings up the potential benefits and pitfalls of deep standing - this is an area I would like to address. Alongside martial arts, I primarily make my living as a sports therapist, specialising in endurance athletes. In any endurance sport, an athletes training over the course of a week will have some days of long duration low effort training, days of high intensity shorter duration training, days of 'recovery' training, days of 'active' rest etc.
In my own standing I adopt a similar strategy - a typical week might be:
Mon - a long session of shoulder-width standing with a level of sinking that allows a minimum of an hours standing. Works the nervous system more than the muscles and allows the body to 'soften' from the inside out.
Tues - the nervous system may be quite tired from Mon; standing for a comfortable length of time at a level of sinking that depends what I am working on - power/endurance etc.
Wed - deep wide standing, for power, as deep as possible for as long as possible while still able to maintain internal alignments. Builds muscular power and again works the nervous system hard, but differently to Mon.
Thurs - as Tues - staying well within comfort level.
Friday - vary both height and width of stance - for each posture held spend half the time shoulder-width and half wide and deep.
Saturday - run through all favourite forms holding postures where wished and experimenting with different levels of sinking, trying to bring the feelings from standing into them.
Sunday - take a day off from every form of physical exercise to allow any small (even unnoticed) injuries to heal. If you want to still be doing MA's when you are 90.... this is essential! Too many people have the 'paddling a boat against the current' mentality... a day a week off will not loose you any 'learned skill'; from a physiological point of view, it will help it.
From a mental point, varying training this way reduces boordom and staleness. From a physical point it produces maximum results for the time spent, with minimum potential damage. From a Taoist perspective this training has yin days, yang days, and days that integrate change....

Thanks again for your balanced views.

Best regards,
Hugh (Comment this)

2 - Awesome! (Comment this)