Weight Distribution

One of the differences that many of us experience is when we learn a specific weight distribution ratio for the lead-leg stance. Some learn 100/0 while others learn a combination of 80/20, 70/30, etc. So which one is "best?"

My personal take on it is that none of them are the absolute "best" over another. In that, however, I also believe that it depends on what you've learned. To explain it differently...

Each lineage is driven off their personal views of weight distribution, and from that, all kinds of things take place. How our initial reactions will be, how we'll drive into the opponent, how our footwork will respond... these and many other actions are learned due to the instructor's or lineage's take on where the lower body should be.

If your training is with a 100/0 ratio, then you might focus on using hand and leg attacks simultaneously, each and every time. Everything you do might revolve around that. On the flip side, move the ratio up a bit and make it 80/20, and now more focus is on the hands, with the feet also able to respond, of course, but more as a driving "wedge" into the opponent's legs to cut off their response vs. responding to their kicks or jams.

Further still, push the ratio to 70/30 or even 60/40, and now a whole new world of hand responses open up. Sometimes it takes a great deal of training to deal with these practitioners, because their upper body has become so strong and their hands so fast, it takes a lot of relaxation to deal with it. They can easily walk right over you if you're not up to par.

Whereas all of these have their "pros," they also come with "cons," too. A practitioner training 100/0 ratios has to spend an inordinate amount of time in stepping and covering distances. It's not easy to respond to a gap in distance when an opponent has suddenly moved backwards or out of range. At that moment, you have to re-capture the ground you lost in order to maintain the proper working distance.

And for practitioners with other ratios, they have to deal with attacks to the legs because in order to use the lead leg, now that weight has to transfer to the rear leg in order to lift the front leg. It's either that or they have to continue driving inward in order to close the gap, thereby decreasing the distance between their leg and the attack, which in effect decreases the striking distance. A great deal of training is required for that, though, because leg attacks are very difficult to see, which means they're difficult to respond to (which we all know so well, because that's the very tactic we employ).

So no matter what weight distribution ratio one employs, there's good and there's bad. The focus is on learning what all of these points are about and how to use them for your advantage. Knowing the weakness of an area, you can bring it up to become a strength.