Footwork/Transition.

I have been playing around with some boxing concepts on footwork within my Kata, not that I change the foot positions, but paying less attention to stance and more attention to active alignment and taisabaki.
I say 'boxing concepts,' but these are readily apparent within the framework of what we are doing once all the fancy stuff is taken out and we really start looking at what is there.

'Stances' are fine to teach positions to beginners, at least in some limited way, but when applying footwork if I follow the 'stance' concept then my footwork is too slow and is often broken in transition.
If I am caught in mid-transition (which is easy to do following the standard framework of Karate) then all my little tools are stopped dead in their tracks in one swift motion and I am in a world of hurt.
There is a concept I have found useful and my source is actually in the application of Boxing Stances to MMA.
They have a high standard and low standard, or high southpaw and low southpaw depending on which position you take, but it is best not to think of them as two separate stances, just aspects of footwork as a whole.
It is the same in Karate, if we follow this framework and stop viewing 'stances' as 'stances' (fancy ways of standing, for which there are many) and more as different aspects of 'footwork' of which there are only 'positions' and one central 'stance' (is any of this making sense??) then things start to fall into place.

If we take the opening of Saifa as an example, stepping through Zenkutsu Dachi, even as a thrusting step to close the distance and move off to 35 or 45 degrees, this takes too long to repost and ends with the body being broken when it should be behind the elbow that is immediately launched as an attack.
As such the opponent can counter and move, you are still taking time to play 'catch-up' and repost (I understand this is from a dueling perspective, but improvement for other areas is a must as well).
A tree without roots (or weak and diseased roots) will topple and die. I don't want to be a dead tree.

Saifa has us starting from a natural position (call it Heiko Dachi if you like, or Musubi Dachi depending on your school) then closing off to an angle with Zenkutsu Dachi.
If you start with one foot forward you have split the distance, combine with an angled version of the 'side-step' (shuffle) and you have both legs in the game within a split second you can launch the elbow strike with all your ducks in a row (and the step just became shorter, not to mention to works in a circle as you pivot and it does not work against the posture).

One of the guiding nuggets of wisdom that I constantly go back to, one of the guidelines of Kris and Lawrence, never leave your weapons behind, always move with your weapons ahead.
Certainly the hands are active weapons and lead the way, at least according to this line of thinking, but the body is a key to their application and if even a foot is trailing behind for longer than it should it will have detrimental effects.

Goju Ryu Kata show numerous leg positions, but the recurring theme in all of them are Neko Ashi Dachi and Sanchin Dachi - the rest, in my mind, are transitory.
I also don't believe these two to be exact or literal, just examples.
In either case, the point is not to break in transit, but to move as a whole unit, to move swiftly and efficiently.
Those big long deep stances are mostly for show.