[Extreme Education] Can humans still squat?Author: JEFFI CHAO HUI WU Time: July 30, 2025, Wednesday, 7:11 PM ········································ [Extreme Education] Can humans still squat? Once upon a time, "squatting" was the most basic action. Children squatted in the fields playing with mud, the elderly squatted to repair shoe soles, and workers squatted on the ground laying bricks and tiles. Squatting is a posture close to the earth, a primitive response of humanity to gravity. But today, how many modern people can squat fully? Especially in Western societies, even the term "Asian squat" has become a cultural phenomenon— as if only the bones and muscles of Asians could accomplish such a natural movement. We have not lost technology; we have lost structure. From the lifestyle of "toilet replacing squat toilets" to the "sedentary" office model, from the misconceptions of "systematic training" to the misguidance of "muscle worship," we have unknowingly devolved into a species that cannot squat. Squatting is not just a movement; it is a structural self-check: Can your ankle joints stabilize and touch the ground? Can your hip joints open up? Is your spine upright? Are your muscles developed for gravity, or are they trained for the camera? The modern person's inability to squat down is essentially a rupture of the fascial chain—from the plantar fascia, Achilles tendon, hamstrings to the sacroiliac joint, this original line of force has long been interrupted, causing the body to resemble a rusty hinge, with each joint misaligned and rubbing against one another. In my realistic portrayal of "One Year of Horse Stance," the true horse stance is not merely about training leg strength, but rather about the reconstruction of the entire body structure. As I have demonstrated in "The Void of the Sole in Horse Stance," the soles should not rigidly push against the ground, but rather embody a clear distinction between solid and void, balancing both internal and external aspects. Whether you can naturally squat for an extended period is not a test of explosive power, but a test of stability, coordination, and inner perception. Standing meditation is precisely the starting point for relearning "how to squat." During my practice, whether it is the stability of "Golden Rooster Stands on One Leg for 23 Minutes" or the body awareness training in "Practice Boxing by Practicing Skills," it ultimately returns to a fundamental logic of "low posture": Can one maintain structural stability in the face of gravity? Can one still remain fully connected when the body is close to the ground? The detail of "heels slightly off the ground" during standing meditation (such as in Tai Chi's "empty step") is precisely to rebuild the elastic connection between the arch of the foot and the hip joint—this is the "factory setting" of the human body that gym squats can never replicate. Many people are unable to squat because their hips are tight, their ankle joints are out of control, and their knees are misaligned. The solution is not to "build muscle," but to "adjust structure." Therefore, I proposed the concept of "structural hip sitting" and empirically wrote the article "Structural Knee Sitting," which specifically explores the dynamic relationship between hip joint release and spinal realignment. Squatting is not just a movement training, but a restoration of the survival structure. A person who cannot squat often cannot stand either. A person who cannot stay close to the ground often cannot reach higher. A person who only knows how to sit will ultimately be confined by the chair, hollowed out by softness, and suffer from venous obstruction, lumbar collapse, and physical breakdown due to prolonged sitting. We are witnessing a scene of civilization's degradation—not a degradation of the body, but a loss of "grounded awareness." The empirical evidence of "structural sitting on the knees" indicates that the degeneration of the hip joint is not due to muscle weakness, but rather the anterior pelvic tilt compensates for the mechanical structure of the original squatting posture. The "emptiness within fullness" trained in standing postures is precisely the dismantling of this compensation—like repositioning tilted building blocks. Only when you can squat for ten minutes with your eyes closed, and your breath sinking into your feet, can you truly reclaim the "land rights of the human body" that have been confiscated by toilet civilization. In "Cultivating Cold Resistance from Extreme Sensitivity to Cold," I recorded how I gradually broke through my cold-sensitive constitution, which required a down jacket below 20 degrees Celsius, through standing meditation and the mobilization of internal energy, until now I can wear only a T-shirt in 6-degree weather without feeling cold. The underlying reason lies not in "cold resistance," but in "energy flow." The prerequisite for "energy flow" is structural relaxation. And structural relaxation must begin with squatting. When humans even need a "tutorial" to squat, we have long forgotten that the first action a baby takes to resist gravity is to squat. How much longer can you squat? Can you maintain your balance? Can you close your eyes and calm your mind while squatting? All of this is the first threshold to bodily awakening. So when I ask, "Can humanity still squat?" it is not a joke, but a life-and-death question about whether the entire human civilization can still "live close to the ground." Source: http://www.australianwinner.com/AuWinner/viewtopic.php?t=697082 |