The appeal of it to me are the potential gardening applications. I could transplant in the ground and no tore-up knees, hips and back (even with the knee pad).

I have been getting better and better at this. I can hold it now for a decent amount of time, but it is not comfortable yet. Holding it for a few minutes also ends up hurting my lower back a bit. My guess is I am leaning too far forward to keep my balance

Don't try to force yourself to do a full traditional squat sit within a short time frame. Give yourself time. There are several factors that can make full squatting difficult for modern people who aren't accustomed to it:

> age (the longer you've been sitting in atrophying Western chairs and not squatting, the harder it will tend to be to squat)
> tight or weak calves and/or hamstrings
> weak connective tissues
> joint pain, joint degeneration, fused bones and other musculoskeletal issues
> low torso/leg ratio

That being said, one fellow at the Raw Paleo Forum who has a low torso/leg ratio was told to do squats by the Crossfit instructors and he has made some impressive progress in short order. He is fairly young and fit, though.

The one benefit of chronic back pain in my youth was that I never gave up squatting when my mother started telling me to stop doing it (as do most American mothers at some point as their children age and it's no longer considered socially "appropriate"), because it relieved the back pain (and it also felt more comfortable and natural and required less shifting than chair sitting).

I've discovered that my 11 year old daughter can't do this  we're working on it...

I can do it fine but my feet turn out like a duck to maintain balance. The guy pictured looked like his feet were pointing forward, which I can only hold for about 5 seconds.

It's the same problem I had when I started dumbbell squats.

Yeah, the gramps in the image is doing a partial Western squat. The correct form for a full Asian squat includes the toes pointed outwards, as shown in the lighthearted video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWTmg4dHiKg&feature=player_embedded#!

Notes on the video: full squat sitting is not just Asian, it's also African and ancient European. It was not invented ca. 300 BCE in India--it predates the human race and is used by all primates, not just humans.