Tag: mass

Increase your natural jumping ability

1 Do walks on toes and ball of feet.

2 Do hill sprints.

3 Lose mass you don’t need.

4 Start the jump on an exhale when possible (inhale as you bend and exhale when you spring up).

5 Swing your arms toward the target (forward or up for example).

6 Do a prep light jump to load the “spring” in the legs.

7 Aim in your mind beyond the target.

8 Work on springing to a straight hip spine relation by jumping from sitting on your shins to a squat.

9 Jump rope on one leg at a time and use a heavy rope like a climbing rope.

10 Work on strengthening your toes for the jump especially the big toe by pulling and pushing on a blanket on the ground with just your toes.

And give it time 🙂

A visual aid to print:

jump skeleton sharon friedman

For Emily 🙂

The obstacles are the learning

Any movement and any activity can bring on new lessons and learning.

Here is a simple movement exercise and obstacles on the way to further the learning gained from them.

One can repeat a movement ten thousand times and learn nothing.

One can hone a movement ten thousand times and learn everything.

The smart gorilla drill:

Start by walking on your toes and fists.

Walk forward and back, Walk with your body slightly aimed to the side, Walk with your stomach to the floor and walk with your stomach to the skies, walk with your behind close to the ground and with it high in the air.

Now the learning begins.

  1. Hone the breath – movement connection – Make it so each contact with the ground happens on an exhale so your body mechanics aid in keeping the contact contact and not impact.
  2. Hone the touch – Make it so each contact is silent both on the outside in your ears and inside in your body so there is local increase in pressure on one joint or area.
  3. Hone the eyes – Make it so you look around you with every movement and let the top of the spine articulate and limber under the pressure of the position.
  4. Hone the mass – Make it so the center of the body shifts to better sway the limbs like a wave instead of ticking like a clock from placement to placement. Think of walking as swimming and it will make sense.
  5. Hone the floating center – Make it so a partner or more push and pull on you as you move on the ground. Shift your center of movement and move where you are free under the changing and surface conflicting vectors.

Our progress depends on our focus. Our focus depends on our purpose.

 

Strikes 101

Blunt impact comes in many forms. Preparing to give and receive impact can greatly clear the fog of imaginary outcome and grow your awareness to your thoughts, feelings and your physical body.

Practice these methods of movement with consistency and attention and you will feel progress in your impact.

Solo work:

  1. Rest your arms on the ground and roll your shoulders and body to turn your arms palm up and down. Slowly close your fingers together to form a relaxed fist that has room to compress if met with a wall or hard opposition. Now place your arms to your sides and roll your body and shoulders to shake tension from your arms until they move like chains on the ground. In this you can relearn to move with no excess and unleash if you will, the power a demolition ball.
  2. Stand in an open space and with an exhale, relax your spine from the top downward until your upper body is resting on your legs with your legs unlocked. Inhale and straighten up fully and send the momentum to your entire body so your body motion sends you jumping forward. Repeat with awareness to keeping your body relaxed as possible but maintain the needed framework for moving tension around at will. Watch for small children before making the leap. J
  3. Stand with your legs under your hips. Breathe and relax your knees to a semi squat with each exhale. Focus on moving one hip forward and one back in each release of tension and continue to move with your breath. Focus on your hips-spine-shoulder connection and direct the semi squat to your shoulders to swing your shoulders forward and back, Once this is done, direct the movement to travel to the elbow and then to the wrist and hand. Play with speed and slowly become comfortable with changing speed instead of keeping a consistent pace. This will allow you to release the stored energy from your structure without excess tension or changing your posture unnecessarily.
  4. Place yourself on your fists and feet facing downward. Place your mass on your muscles by keeping angles in all your joints. Breathe and sway forward and back and shift your mass from fists to feet and back. Once this is comfortable, lift one limb up and continue to play shift side to side and forward and back. Continue to place one limb on a wall at a time and then two limbs on the wall and play with the mass shift from angle to angle. Repeat the process on your knees and on your forearms and remember to always allow the joints to move on the impact to avoid fixation and damage to yourself. (Some joints such as the wrist if you are hitting with your fist should remain at a comfortable angle but not move too much to avoid hyper tension in the joint)
  5. Stand with your arms to your sides. Inhale and raise your arms slowly. Feel the blood moving in your arms and repeat with attention to moving the blood inside in sync with the movement of your arms. Awareness to your movement inside will allow you to better impact without bouncing back and with greater affect. This connects with the first point of letting the body move as one instead of fixating and pushing in the moment of impact.

Partner work:

  1. Place your fist on your partner and place your awareness in your hips-spine-shoulders. Allow the elbow to move in all direction and relax to allow the fist to sink in the partner without increasing the tension of your movement. It will be wise to separate the idea of movement and tension. You can move from release and you can move from tension and everywhere in between. Repeat the work with your foot on the partner. Working standing and sitting on your behind will add a lot of awareness to the work.
  2. Have your partner walk randomly and work to place your fist, foot or body on them and sink your contact to turn them and change their alignment on the move. Focus on staying relaxed and playing with the contact instead of trying to land the strike. Stay comfortable and work to see existing openings instead of forcing them.
  3. Close your eyes and have your partner push and pull on you. Relax your body toward them and sink your contact on the go. Let your entire body be the instrument.
  4. Have your partner strike you continuously. Relax your body to avoid absorbing the strikes and move up and down as you are being struck. Maintaining freedom within the contact is a key to freedom from being led and true freedom.
  5. Smile and have a good conversation as you strike your partners and move. Mind to keep breathing freely instead of trying to ride the breathe in and out and find how this releases you from being controlled by outside stimulation and inner pressure. This is a combination of your mind, body and feelings together as you maintain your calm mind active while getting struck and striking. Without this, you must shift each time you strike and that is a misfortune.

Enjoy the path as it has no end.

Three drills for better striking

Here are three drills for better striking. Remember it is better to avoid getting struck than developing a thick hide. There is always a blade somewhere.

 

  1. Lean with your fists on the wall or the ground depending on your current energy level. Start moving your head from side to side with the tempo of your breath, Continue to moving your shoulders with the movement and then increase the movement to your center and allow the movements of your body to lift and rest your fists on the surface. The drill lets you move your arms and make contact without increasing your level of tension and through that create movement that is more efficient. Efficient is Affective.
  2. (Repeat the drill with your back to the surface. It helps a lot to grow your awareness throughout the range of natural movement)
  3. Rest your fists or hands on a hard surface. Breathe and tense each finger at a time. Note how tension bleeds from area to area and continue to breathe calmly. Tense the palm and the back of the hand and then the wrist in turn. Now tense the entire hand and release tension in one part at a time. This drill gives you awareness to levels and areas of tension so you use what is needed and no more. Here, less is more.
  4. Place an object suspended in the air. It can be a rolled up piece of paper rolled into a ball with a shoe string to hang it or any other high tech device. Place yourself a few paces away from it and start walking toward it. Time it so you strike through it on the go and with your eyes relaxed from following and fixating. Repeat from other angles and speeds and laugh and learn when your timing is off. A broken key does not open the door. Keep the key loose from bending.

 

Enjoy the work so you keep doing it. That is a great “cheat” for life and keep your loved ones safe.

There is a thing called mass and usually as a soldier you think you have a bit too much on you. It can range from a 20 litter load of water to a 120 kg of a leaking friend and more. It is important to note how different locations on your body changes the way you feel and move with it. Fore example if you are walking with boots in the mud you will fee a lot of tension in the hips pulling you out and moving all the extra mass on your boots and if you had the same mass on your back you would feel much lighter and able to move. Consider this idea and play with it in your work to make life less stressful and free. Consider also the workability of the situation. Sometimes we need the handgun on the hip rather than on the pack or chest.
This is a drill for three or more. Have two stand next to each other and the third walk toward them to attack one of them. The one who feels the attach coming moves to stand behind his friend and the attacker tries to attack anyway. Find different ways to lower the tension and stop the fight.

Examples:

1. Push the partner on the attacker and run away.
2. Grab the arms of the attacker and wrap him around the third one
3. Collapse the non attacked and move so you are behind him so you have a few more seconds to think and act
4. push the non attacked so he hits the attacker (Mikhail and Vladimir show how to do this on the Summit of Masters DVD)
5. Continue to move around the non attacked so you are at the back of the attacker and work from there.