Well I was supposed to go out and do some grass tricking with my friends, but I mixed up the times so I went to Desert Devils instead. This was a day I wanted to throw some harder moves and transitions since I have been reviewing my basic skills. Take a look at the footage and lets review.
Lesson Learned:
I feel so much better that I got to do those transitions and finally start some worthy combos. My Grandmaster swipe needs to be more sideways. My Raiz Swing Through Flash Gainer feels great and I can't wait to add on to it. My Aerial to Flash Kick feels okay. Perhaps a bit more squeezing of the leg straight will help a lot, so that will be my next big correction. Really happy with today. The only other thing I can think about is in my Flash Kick out of my Round Off Back Hand Spring. It appears and feels like I have been throwing my head back early, I need to ride out the flip more before arching into it.
And thus had a bit to much energy and was like well lets just do stuff.
So I decided today to start work on trying to swing through my Flash Gainer from my Btwist. Also threw in some 540 variants, my Aerial, and a few Back Handsprings. No major goal but the btwist swing through flash gainer.
Lesson Learned:
Once I get more comfortable with swinging through I will start to straighten out my legs more on the Btwist. Also noticed that my Btwist was getting a little vertical, Probably because I was focusing on making sure I was stacked for the next move. Aerial is feeling great, I am going to have to start doing combos with that soon. THE POSSIBILITIES! My standing Back Hand Springs don't really matter to me, I just have to push more with my legs, squeeze them together, and push with my arms more, then I will be flying, that's all an easy fix.
So yeah I'm almost done being sick. My friend asked me a question about his ankle sprain and I so I made this vid for him to test if it was something else. This is a common injury that occurs in Parkour and I just want him to test to see if it is this. Just so you know if you are training your Cave Man Squat, Correct Pistols, and work your rail balances often this injury should not happen often.
So the reason for no post recently is I have been sick the past couple of days. I thought would take this time to talk about some things involving Tumbling or Tricks in general.
There are a couple of things to think about that will help you to do all of your moves with ease so long as you can get over the fear, fear is just discomfort in a situation, if you focus on slow progressions and foundation movement then you will be comfortable and fear will be less a part of the equation.
Any way.
Obviously we are talking about Tricking or Tumbling by the way and the first part of this talks about flips versus moves like back hand springs.
First of all for any beginner trick you want to focus on extending and reaching every available limb prior to the rotation of the trick. .
For example in a Front Tuck/Flip: Opening the shoulders (Reach up and back with the arm extended) prior to blocking. As you block you extend the hips and the knees while also pushing through the ball of the foot which extends and points your foot and toes. You would be in a completely straight line from head to toe prior to the rotation. Now based on if you are traveling forward this can be slightly varied but for a beginner this is sound advice.
Reach and Extend every possible limb.
Second thing to think about: Rotation and spin are primarily driven by the lower half of the body and how it is moved around the bodies center. Your Arms, Head, and Hips are the areas that people tend to over use but do not yield enough power to make you spin or rotate at the right speed.
For Example: If you are bend over at the hips hoping that the forward bend will speed up your flip, you're only partially right, it will speed up your flip but you will not get sufficient height, so don't bend forward at the hips or arch to much if you want height. The arms if thrown fast into a spin to early will cause you to not fully extend your hips and once again you lose height but you spin very fast. Finally the head. If you throw your head back, forward or turn it to the side it makes you flip or spin very fast but your lose height.
For better rotation in a front tuck for example you want to wait until right before the peak of your jump and then from the farthest part of your legs "your feet" you want to throw those over your body to start rotation and then follow through with chasing them like a mad man with your upper body.
For a back tuck, after you have reached the peak of your jump by extending and reaching all limbs (this means legs are extended pushing through the feet, hips are open, spine and chest are up and open and shoulders are open [it's all OPEN!]) After all that and you feel the lift you pull the legs from the farthest part of the limbs, your feet, up and over your shoulders, this causes your hips to tuck and creates the rolling motion in the air.
It is obvious from the emphasis of feeling the lift of the body in an open position that it is important to work on just the jumps, take offs. and sets prior to any skill.
When it comes to spinning again you want to focus your spinning power coming from the farthest limb away from the center and pulling that in, it also has to be the limb that is not giving you your rotational power unless you are taking off of two feet, in which case you have no choice.
Lets look at some examples of spinning moves off of one leg.
The butterfly twist for starters: So you do your butter fly kick set up, you are extending both of your limbs and it's time to pull the twist. Now most people just pull the arms across and turn their head way early killing the height land very low if they land at all. What I want you to do is pull the trailing leg behind the leading leg and then wrap the arms and turn the head hard this way your starting your spin with the lower half of the body (which is also the heavier part and thus has more leverage) and then adding to the spin with the upper half (the butterfly kick is a flat (horizontal) aerial rotation) Since you are pushing of the ground with one leg you have to use that leg you push off with as the initiator of the spin.
Lets look at a Cork: So you have extended everything you can with your set up and now it's time to spin. Lets say you push off the ground with your left leg and you are kicking with your right leg and all is well. At the peak of the move you snap your jumping leg up and behind the kicking leg initiating your spin. You add to this by pulling the right arm across and looking to the left. Most people twist from the very get go of their Cork and that kills your height, If you are doing a Cheat Gainer set up you want to spin around the kicking leg at the peak of your jump, for most average Joe's that should be your shoulder height.
How about a more complex one the Raiz Twist twisting into the kicking leg the fourth variation shown in the video below.
Any way I push off my right leg and left leg is driving me over the top so I cant use the left leg for my spin because it will make me drop. I chase my entire body after my left leg because it is helping me rotate. Notice I don't tuck in at all because it would make it harder to flip my body.
If you're going off of two legs then you have no choice but to coordinate the spin with primarily the legs and then secondary are the arms of course all of this after a nice stretched vertical take off and figuring out which way your flipping.
An even weirder one is the 540 kick, but it still follows the same principals. You take off upright use the first leg as heel drive for rotation and the second leg over takes the first making the hips cross and creates a very strong spin.
Third thing to think about is what primary shape is your trick: There are technically two types of flips ones that are cross lateral which are off axis or are open limbed based tricks in their simple form, and ones that go straight across the axis that are almost always legs together and follow a more perfect symmetrical look. Many flips are variations or combinations there off.
If you know the shape of your flip then you can actually practice the trick on the floor without jumping at all. you can lye down on your back and just go through the pattern of either the symmetrical flips, or the cross lateral flips and it will help you greatly.
Now before I go to bed I want to talk briefly about back handsprings or any move that has a touch down with the hands in the middle of the trick.
One thing that does transfer from flip tricks versus touch down tricks is that you have to still reach and extend the limbs to the full range of their mobility. The one thing that changes is that with touch down tricks you have to bend your spine a FREAKIN lot. These type of moves like back handsprings, touch down raiz, helecoptero, or front handsprings require a tremendous amount of bending the back and constantly look in the direct of the where the hands are being placed. These moves do not go up and down they stay level and should be done fast with extended limbs. If you see a good touch down raiz the tricker does not jump up but rather bends and glides, watch their hip level, it does not go up and down, the same thing for back handsprings or front handspring, cartwheels. honestly watch videos of them and you will see the best trickers and tumblers do not go up and down they stay level and bend the spine.
Any way I could go into more detail but I feel that will do. As always.
This is the first of a series of episodes involving the Parks of AZ within Phoenix, Tempe, Scottsdale, Mesa, Chandler...etc area. Basically the Valley. I am hoping to do shoot one of these per month and any body is welcome to join me. In any case enjoy the video. I was lucky to enjoy the company of Pedro. Also some random guy in a wheel chair approached me and just started to talk to me about his family and how he liked what we were doing because it reminded him of Capoeira and he used to do it as a child. Another Movement Connection, Imagine that.
Argh, woke up late. Don't care. I had arrangements for later in the day any way. SO today I just did 2 sets of mobility exercises shown below, if you make it through the whole thing I got bored before teaching and decided to do some reading.
Lesson Learned:
Constructive rest is always a plus
Happy as a little school boy today. So after last weeks dead lifts I said okay lets see of the old max still stands. As I said before my last max was 375lbs. My goal today was just to keep adding weight until every Power Lifting Rubber weight was off the rack and on the bar. I didn't want to count the weight, I didn't want to even know or think about it. All I thought about was victory. That each weight just needed commitment and that all I needed to do is keep moving forward, that if I didn't give up the weight would say "This guy won't quit, okay I give up!" and I would lift it. After that I decided to do some Standing Jumps, A Jumps, and Plyo Jumps. I stuck with doing about 10 of each, starting with the hardest variation on two feet, a normal standing jump. In each new variation I increased the speed thus decreasing the amount of force necessary but due to me still putting force in it I was able to jump higher. I handicapped myself so that I could overload the muscles making it easier to jump once I added speed. Is this by any means a very impressive standing jump, not really, to my standards my jump is okay, but it can be so much greater and I know it will.
Lesson Learned:
The feeling of accomplishing your goal (a realistic one) is always going to give you a strong uplifted feeling for the rest of the day. I beat my last max by 10lbs, Now I am up to 385lbs. the next few sessions of dead lifts will be geared toward reps at a lower weight but keeping my back neutral. I don't use a weight belt, i have a very strong core and I feel the weight belt is a luxury versus a necessity that though beneficial at a safety level is not as important if your being mindful. I need to get my butt down more and get my chest vertical. As far as my vertical jump (plyometrics if you will) I just need to push more and feel that lift, I want to be able to vertical jump my shoulder height (that means I will need to get my feet up that high in a tucked position) I can do this from a run no problem but standing still in the blink of an eye I want to spring up like a cat. Some inverted knees might help, Damned Quadrupeds. Happy Training.
