Talk:Squatting position

"crouching involves lowering the head and shoulders"

Please explain in detail how one does this as you see it, including what is happening to the knees and hips. --Penbat (talk) 20:50, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Hi,

http://www.webster-dictionary.net/definition/crouching says:

Pronunciation: krouch; 129
v. i.	1.	To bend down; to stoop low; to lie close to the ground with the logs bent, as an animal when waiting for prey, or in fear.
[imp. & p. p. Crouched (kroucht); p. pr. & vb. n. Crouching.]
Now crouch like a cur.
- Beau. & Fl.
	2.	To bend servilely; to stoop meanly; to fawn; to cringe.
Must I stand and crouch
Under your testy humor?
- Shak.
v. t.	1.	To sign with the cross; to bless.
	2.	To bend, or cause to bend, as in humility or fear.
She folded her arms across her chest,
And crouched her head upon her breast.
- Colerige.

http://www.webster-dictionary.net/definition/squat:

Pronunciation: skwǒt
n.	1.	(Zool.) The angel fish (Squatina angelus).
v. i.	1.	To sit down upon the hams or heels; as, the savages squatted near the fire.
[imp. & p. p. Squatted; p. pr. & vb. n. Squatting.]
	2.	To sit close to the ground; to cower; to stoop, or lie close, to escape observation, as a partridge or rabbit.
	3.	To settle on another's land without title; also, to settle on common or public lands.
v. t.	1.	To bruise or make flat by a fall.
a.	1.	Sitting on the hams or heels; sitting close to the ground; cowering; crouching.
Him there they found,
Squat like a toad, close at the ear of Eve.
- Milton.
	2.	Short and thick, like the figure of an animal squatting.
The head [of the squill insect] is broad and squat.
- Grew.
n.	1.	The posture of one that sits on his heels or hams, or close to the ground.
(...)

So a position that is squatting can also be crouching, but not all squatting positions are crouching. The cut-off point is, of course, arbitary.

Squatting with the head, shoulders and back straight and erect cannot be called "stooping, bent..." etc – it is actually a relatively powerful, dignified position but it is more difficult than crouching, because the centre of gravity of the body is closer to the heels, behind the balls of the feet, when the heels are on the floor. More difficult on balls of feet too, as centre of gravity is higher.

Does this get us anywhere? The image of the woman at the top of the page is hardly crouching, the person demonstrating the loo probably is.

Best, Trev M  ~  22:10, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

OK the definition you have used for crouching associates it with stooping (which on Wikipedia redirects to bowing. Squatting essentially involves bending at the knees and hips. If there is any bending at the waist (and maybe lowering of the head) then that is considered stooping. Pure proper squatting is not stooping so does that mean that proper squatting is never crouching by your definition ?

Incidentally the pictures are not good (especially the first one where her clothing obscures important detail) but they are all i had available to me. My first ref Hewes GW: ' World distribution of certain postural habits' American Anthropologist, 57, (1955), 231-44 includes about 100 excellent line illustrations of different postures. I may try to get copyright permission to use them on Wiki.--Penbat (talk) 08:58, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Ref "Squatting is sometimes considered a form of standing," that statement was sourced from somewhere but I need to remember where from. The point is that with squatting, like standing, all the body's weight is on the feet.--Penbat (talk) 09:09, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

By all means, please include "squatting is form of standing" as a statement by X when you find a WP:RS statement to that effect, but I challenge implying it's a general opinion in the mean time.

Crouching has stronger connotations of cowering, furtive or predatory behaviour. Crouching would also seem to be less specific about posture – it's mainly about lowering the body without actually sitting, but perhaps more than stooping. Squatting with regard to the posture, is more specifically about folding the buttocks to the heels without placing the buttocks on the ground. The variables are whether the heels are up or down, and the head and torso horizontal or vertical, linked to some extent to how far the feet are apart.

http://images.teamsugar.com/files/upl0/1/12981/02_2008/squat1.jpg is a non-free image that illustrates that a squat doesn't implicitly involve lowering the head and shoulders, contrary to your edit comment when you reverted my removal of the "squat is a synonym for crouch" statement or words to that effect.

So accordingly

• some crouching positions are squats
• some crouching positions may not be squats
• squatting is not implicity crouching
• squatting and crouching are terms with different but overlapping definitions, the former more specific to posture, the latter to motivation
• squat is not a synonym for crouch

It's an ongoing long term project of mine to get together quality free images of yoga postures, so I'll work on this one too.

Incidentally, I was not aware the Yoga squat stub existed until yesterday, and as there's not much more to say about it, I will propose that it be merged to a page of non-notable, non article-size Yoga postures I'm bringing together, with links to the notable postures.

Best, Trev M  ~  10:38, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

I am not bothered about having a big dispute about squatting v crouching. Obviously if possible it would be useful to distinguish between the two - where they overlap and differ but if it is too difficult to pin down then i am happy to ditch that sentence. There are decent images of squatting in the catcher and wicket-keeper articles but of course the context is specialised.--Penbat (talk) 15:40, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

You knocked out a sentence of mine on your last edit, which read: "The point is that with squatting, like standing, all the body's weight is on the feet." Might have had something to do with edit conflicts.--Penbat (talk) 17:50, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Apologies, there was an edit conflict – but as these are usually with myself and I could see no other change, I assumed that was what it was. TM 18:38, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

More about "Asians"?

The article's intro mentions that Asians squat more, and gives as a reference a newpaper article where some journalist notes that when she was in China, she frequently saw people squatting.

I can confirm that people squat all the time in Japan and the Philippines - while eating, drinking beers, waiting for a bus, reading a map, etc.

What other countries? Where are the borders - in which nearby countries do people not squat for long times as relaxation?

Any ideas on why this trend exists? Some bones shorter/longer relative to other bones?

It would be good to have a section about this in the article, but the quality should be higher than "Asians squat more" with a reference to a passing comment by a layperson. Gronky (talk) 20:22, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Subjective article?

It seems to me as if the article portrays squatting in an overly positive light, while the truth seems to be that there is no consensus and only minimal discussion on the subject. Autharitus (talk) 23:36, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

It just happens to be an entirely natural, fundamental and instinctive human posture unlike sitting on chairs etc which is a construct of human civilisation. I have faithfully listed all the negative things i have found on squatting under: Squatting_position#Negative_health_effects

--Penbat (talk) 08:46, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

relevant article

it makes the point that westerners have problems with flat footed squats because of short achilles heal. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2287673/Sitting-send-early-grave-Why-sofas-office-chair-carry-health-warning-.html

--Penbat (talk) 08:57, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

I wouldn't use that for much; the daily mail is perhaps the least reliable source that can be found about anything. They are infamously bad on the topic of health. Unless they explicitly link to a peer-reviewed study, it's best to assume they just made it up, IRWolfie- (talk) 22:48, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

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Reorganization

This page needs to be reorganized. There are sections on specific purposes of squatting (childbirth, urination, sports) and sections on different types of squatting (full, partial, combined with kneeling) that contain multiple duplications of material. I propose a primary separation by type (full, partial, etc) and then by purpose within each type. --Khajidha (talk) 23:53, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

A reorganisation will not work. All the sections (apart from the partial squat section) almost entirely exclusively deal with full squatting already. The fact that there is a small amount of overlap just cant be helped. As the partial squat section is linked to as a redirect from other articles it is best to just keep any duplications in place. There is only one obvious duplication (which is a sentence long) anyway.--Penbat (talk) 08:21, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

Deletions by Drmies

I fundamentally disagree with you @Drmies:. I agree with your campaign to delete trivia from articles but you do not understand this is not one of them. In fact it is the complete opposite. Much of it covers every day actions everybody on the planet does every day, nothing like the trivia you are currently deleting. There are many articles on incredibly obscure and trivial subjects which probably should be deleted but this is a polar opposite. You do not understand the subject. Some of it happens to be culture specific. It is a very atypical article for which WP:IGNORE largely applies. But there are quite a few articles with more images than this - B8 polytope has the most with 2,429. And you are missing the point singling out this which has its own article Russian squat dance and not one of mine. I will write more when I can. --Penbat (talk) 16:58, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

I've reverted you. Far too much unsourced material and the first two sources I checked were someticalled "Weird Russia" and YouTube, neither meeting our criteria. Doug Weller talk 19:12, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

@Doug Weller:This is a way way too superficial analysis of the article. WP:IGNORE for example does exist. Apart from not addressing the points I have given above, I have hardly got started and was intending to write a lot more getting into the actual substance of the article. Deleting text which is being actively discussed on the talk page is almost a fait accomplie as few people are likely to bother to do a diff to examine the deleted text even if they do happen to look at the talk page. The weird Russia link was just one link picked up from a brief precis of the Gopnik article which is not my work, alternative links could have been chosen. It is too superficial to dismiss vast chunks of the article because you do not like some of the links. Do not dismiss Youtube links out of hand. For example one Youtube link is of the short film "How to Do the Asian Squat" produced by Daniel Hsia and mentioned in that article.--Penbat (talk) 19:48, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

Ignore all rules needs consensus, you can't cite it to overrule other policies when you are disagreeing with others. You need to make specific, focussed and small scale proposals here, not a huge chunk. Doug Weller talk 19:56, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

Give me a flippin chance. I already said "I will write more when I can." You are just, for example, saying that the article has too many images when some articles have more images and you have not understood the context of why the images are useful. The images do not lie. Your analysis is way too superficial. There is no research available that contradicts anything in the article. You have not taken the context into consideration.--Penbat (talk) 20:12, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict)If you give me a chance to go into a bit more detail, even though elements of squatting are something we all do every day, it seems to be an odd scientific blindspot. Yet there is tons of scientific research into obscure insect species or plants in South America etc. Even though the images irrefutably show the different styles of squatting in different contexts and cultures, there is not much research. Having scoured all the available research there is nothing out there that refutes what the images show. The images do not lie and they illustrate different aspects of squatting.--Penbat (talk) 20:05, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

Young children for example do it instinctively. It is an entirely natural thing. --Penbat (talk) 20:22, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

Many Wikipedia articles have vast swathes of uncited material. I am sure I would not be allowed to go around Wikipedia deleting every bit of uncited text in sight and then say "Restoring unsourced material is strictly forbidden by policy". Please give me policy link. If it was that simple, why is there not a bot to delete all uncited material automatically. You have not taken the context into consideration.--Penbat (talk) 21:20, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

I am somewhat amused by the idea that "squatting" is somehow so special that IGNORE would apply. IGNORE doesn't apply, simply because that enormous amount of trivial and irrelevant material doesn't improve the project. Can't you just make this a normal content with verified stuff, not YouTube links and Urbandictionary stuff? No--squatting isn't some special cultural whatever, so special that we can just ignore all the rules of writing content. Drmies (talk) 00:48, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

Penbat--did you really add the WikiProject Medicine tag to this? At the same time that you're suggesting we should just throw WP:RS to the wind? Drmies (talk) 00:51, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

Give it a rest @Drmies:. Stop trying to throw mud. You could have easily checked the history to see that it was not me who added the tags. Apologise for the smear. Other editors obviously decided that the tags were reasonable.--Penbat (talk) 11:38, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

The is a discussion relating to this article at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Controversial_behaviour_at_squatting_position --Penbat (talk) 11:30, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Deleted not gonna argue this

Disease section

I think a lot more emphasis in this article needs to centre around the fact that the squat (in the postural sense) is the natural human resting position, also in reference to the disease section the study indicating it could cause a type of palsy is based on one patient and shaky grounds which even the study itself admits to be inconclusive. Jamesniederle (talk) 18:05, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

"SquatForChange" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect SquatForChange. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 July 5#SquatForChange until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. -- Tamzin (she/they) | o toki tawa mi. 07:27, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

"Sorority squat" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Sorority squat has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 April 9 § Sorority squat until a consensus is reached. –Sonicwave ^talk 17:10, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

"Monkey squat" listed at Redirects for discussion

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