Taekwondo Stances Explained: The Korean Names and What Each One Is For

Nobody starts Taekwondo because they are excited about stances. Then you discover that every kick, block and strike is only as good as what your legs are doing underneath it, and stances become most of what your instructor corrects.

Here is the vocabulary.

The building blocks of the names

Stance names in Korean are descriptive, so once you have four words you can decode most of them.

• Seogi (서기) — stance
• Ap (앞) — front
• Dwit (뒤) — back
• Kubi / gubi (굽이) — bending, referring to the bent knee

So ap kubi is the front bending stance and dwit kubi is the back bending stance. The pattern repeats throughout.

The naming confusion worth clearing up first

This one genuinely catches everybody, and most online guides get it muddled.

Ap seogi and ap kubi are different stances, and both can be translated as something like "front stance."

• Ap seogi is conventionally called the walking stance in English.
• Ap kubi is conventionally called the front stance in English.

But ap seogi translates literally as "front stance," which is the English name given to ap kubi. The literal Korean and the conventional English name point at each other.

The practical consequence: when a published list disagrees with your instructor, your instructor wins. Terminology varies between schools and organisations, and the name on your belt test is the one your school uses. Do not learn stance names from the internet and then correct your instructor with them.

The main stances

• Moa seogi — close stance. Feet together, body upright. The stance you stand in to bow and to receive instruction. Simple, and the one most students are sloppiest about.
• Naranhi seogi — parallel stance. Feet shoulder-width apart, parallel, weight even. The default neutral position.
• Junbi seogi — ready stance. Parallel feet with fists held in front of the abdomen. This is the position you begin almost every form from, and the instructor's command junbi means move into it.
• Ap seogi — walking stance. A natural short step, roughly the length of a normal walking pace, weight distributed fairly evenly. Described as the most commonly used stance across Taekwondo, and the one most forms spend the majority of their time in.
• Ap kubi — front stance. Longer and lower than walking stance, front knee clearly bent, most weight forward. A committed, forward-driving stance used to launch striking techniques. It is also the one that makes beginners' thighs burn.
• Dwit kubi — back stance. Body turned to the side, most weight on the back leg, front foot pointing forward with the front leg bent. Defensive, and the stance where beginners first discover their balance is not what they assumed. Usually introduced around the third form.
• Juchum seogi — horse riding stance. Feet wide, both knees bent, weight even, as though sitting on a horse. Used for side-facing techniques and, in most schools, as a conditioning position. If your instructor has ever held the class in juchum seogi for a minute, you remember it.

Why so much time is spent on them

Three reasons, and they are worth knowing because the drilling makes more sense once you do.

Power comes from the ground. A kick is generated by the leg pushing against the floor and the hip rotating. If the base is unstable, the force has nowhere to come from. A technically perfect kick from a collapsed stance is weak, and a plain kick from a solid stance is not.

Stances are transitions, not poses. This is what most beginners miss. In real use you are never static — you are moving from one stance to another, and the stance is the shape your body passes through. Drilling them statically is how you make the transitions clean later.

They are the diagnostic. An experienced instructor can tell your approximate level from your stance alone, before you throw anything. It is the first thing graded and the thing that separates a form that passes from a form that is actually good.

What to expect as a beginner

Your stances will be too high and too short. Everyone's are. Depth requires leg strength and hip mobility that you do not have yet and will develop over months.

Do not force depth before you have the mobility — that produces a collapsed knee position, which is both wrong and hard on the joint. Go as low as you can hold with correct alignment, and let the range come.

Expect specific soreness. Low stance work loads the quadriceps and hip flexors in a sustained way that most people have never done, and that first fortnight of soreness is entirely normal.

The rest of the technique vocabulary

Stances are one of four families. For the others: the kicks and their Korean names are here, the blocks are here, and the hand strikes are here.

Stances are also where the forms spend most of their time, which is why the forms are taught in the order they are — each one introduces a new stance before combining it with anything.

For the commands you will hear calling these out in class, the counting and class terminology is here.

Get them corrected from day one

A stance learned slightly wrong becomes a habit in about three weeks and takes months to undo. This is the single best argument for having a qualified instructor watch you from the first class rather than learning from video.

Your first class is free, with no contract, and new students receive a free uniform and white belt. Call (408) 243-1001.

Corrected by an 8th Dan

Grand Master Hwang trained at the Korea Hapkido Headquarters Dojang in 1971 and won gold at the 10th Wushu World Cup in Milan. He still walks the floor adjusting individual students' stances, which is the level of detail that makes the difference five years later.

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