We have talked about the power of play, of expanding what you do of moving in open ended and creative ways, of working towards flow and improvisation.
I believe this is the heart of movement the ideal to move towards. But it’s not all that goes into a good movement practice.
The Basics
You need diligent practice of the basics, in Evolve Move Play we will show you the path to flow and improvisation from the beginning but we will also make sure you understand how to squat and land perfectly. I have long said learning a movement is like learning a letter, or a word its good start but the goal is poetry, there is flip side, if you can’t write words then writing poetry is going to be difficult for you.
Ryan ford and Apex movement use a similar analogy cribbed from charlie parker about playing jazz, first you need to learn the notes, the chords, the scales the instrument, then you need to let it all go and just play.
For a traceur, landing, taking offing, hand placements those are like notes, the full movement a kong, a jump, a flip those are like chords, preplanned routes are like scales. For a striker the footwork for a strike, the proper fist structure, the right timing of the extension of the elbow and shoulder are notes, the full strike is the chord, and combos the scales. In both cases you work towards improvisation and flow but you still need the notes and chords and they need to be refined and made utterly consistent.
This video of Dylan Baker speaks to me of basics.
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You might say whats is basic about this, he is doing huge jumps, giant flips, complex courses, work at heights. It’s true but all that high performance is founded on basics and Dylan flies so high in part because his basics are so strong.
You may be impressed by how far he jumps I am impressed by how perfectly he lands each jump, by the consistency and relaxation in his run up. If you want to be able to feel as comfortable doing crazy things at height, you had better develop the same level of precision, the same consistency in technique.
Identify what is basic to your practice what are the building blocks and refine those, put diligent practice into them don’t be satisfied with good enough. Expanding what we do is awesome but putting the work into the refine what we can already do is critical, it is the balance between them that leads to mastery.
That is your challenge for today find something critical to your practice that you have not given enough time too lately. Focus deeply on it and refine it make it more precise more consistent.
For me today that work went into flipping, I can front flip, back flip, side flip, cheat gainer and various others but none as well as I want, none with the consistency and command I need too feel comfortable applying them as I would like. So today I just put practice into my flips, repeating them over and over focusing on the details. I did not expand, I didn’t work on flow and connections that will come but the basics needed tending first.
