Brychanus
* Ace Member *
Perpetual Standstill Drill - rationale and pre-requisites:
As I've been learning the BH, I find it increasingly helpful to distinguish isolating and integratingdrills.
Isolating drills focus on posture and individual motions with few degrees of freedom, whereas integrating drills connect prior movements to one another in a smooth flow. I came up with this integrating drill because at this moment in my BH form, I've onboarded a lot of isolated movements, but as you can see if you look at my form thread, the transition from standstill to x-step has been moving quickly but is revealing all kinds of critical breaks in my form since there is a lot to integrate.
It seems almost like an axiom that going back to the standstill to get basic motions right accelerates learning because you can strip away other complexity, and you really need to get what happens between the drive step and plant step right for the x-step to work well.
One thing I see consistently in my form and others' is that getting that smooth, nonlinear, unfurling motion between the drive and plant leg is really challenging, especially for people who start later in life. So, here's a "Perpetual Standstill Drill" - I have pulled together many of the basic motions I've learned between these two critical steps that power the sling. It helps to practice & bind together:
1. The backswing extension & tilt.
2. The weight shift.
3. The off arm.
4. The hip "Figure 8" in X, Y, and Z dimensions.
5. The spinal/head pendulum and shoulder separation entering the hit.
If any of these pieces are unclear, work on the drills that focus on those first to isolate the motions. Then once you have them, this drill is for you!
The Drill:
Video
Instructions:
- Get in your comfortable, neutral standstill stance. Keep feet stationary throughout (other than allowing heels to lift with weightshift).
- Stay leveraged between the ankles outside knees outside hips throughout the motion.
- Level out your swing plane as though you would throw.
- Extend into backswing swinging shoulder back & with shoulder tilt, letting hand/arm lift weight from plant foot.
-Hershyzer/buttwipe into plant w/ drive leg leverage, letting weight shift swing the throwing hand, off arm collecting to hip to assist.
- Allow the spine & head to curve/tilt into backswing, and roll through the curve/tilt into the imaginary "hit" point.
- Follow through upper body until the point when the plant foot would release, then flow back into backswing again, repeat.
You can get it rolling dynamically, and vary the speed and size of the backswing and swing. Try slightly different stances and spine angles. You should feel that 3D hip rock into Figure 8 motions, and your head/spine pendulum tilting back and forth in synchrony when you're hitting it. You can quickly tell when certain motions become decoupled from one another, and then reset/slow down to smooth it out and find balance.
As I've been learning the BH, I find it increasingly helpful to distinguish isolating and integratingdrills.
Isolating drills focus on posture and individual motions with few degrees of freedom, whereas integrating drills connect prior movements to one another in a smooth flow. I came up with this integrating drill because at this moment in my BH form, I've onboarded a lot of isolated movements, but as you can see if you look at my form thread, the transition from standstill to x-step has been moving quickly but is revealing all kinds of critical breaks in my form since there is a lot to integrate.
It seems almost like an axiom that going back to the standstill to get basic motions right accelerates learning because you can strip away other complexity, and you really need to get what happens between the drive step and plant step right for the x-step to work well.
One thing I see consistently in my form and others' is that getting that smooth, nonlinear, unfurling motion between the drive and plant leg is really challenging, especially for people who start later in life. So, here's a "Perpetual Standstill Drill" - I have pulled together many of the basic motions I've learned between these two critical steps that power the sling. It helps to practice & bind together:
1. The backswing extension & tilt.
2. The weight shift.
3. The off arm.
4. The hip "Figure 8" in X, Y, and Z dimensions.
5. The spinal/head pendulum and shoulder separation entering the hit.
If any of these pieces are unclear, work on the drills that focus on those first to isolate the motions. Then once you have them, this drill is for you!
The Drill:
Video
Instructions:
- Get in your comfortable, neutral standstill stance. Keep feet stationary throughout (other than allowing heels to lift with weightshift).
- Stay leveraged between the ankles outside knees outside hips throughout the motion.
- Level out your swing plane as though you would throw.
- Extend into backswing swinging shoulder back & with shoulder tilt, letting hand/arm lift weight from plant foot.
-Hershyzer/buttwipe into plant w/ drive leg leverage, letting weight shift swing the throwing hand, off arm collecting to hip to assist.
- Allow the spine & head to curve/tilt into backswing, and roll through the curve/tilt into the imaginary "hit" point.
- Follow through upper body until the point when the plant foot would release, then flow back into backswing again, repeat.
You can get it rolling dynamically, and vary the speed and size of the backswing and swing. Try slightly different stances and spine angles. You should feel that 3D hip rock into Figure 8 motions, and your head/spine pendulum tilting back and forth in synchrony when you're hitting it. You can quickly tell when certain motions become decoupled from one another, and then reset/slow down to smooth it out and find balance.