Movement Prep Snake - Details

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Here comes a more detailed description of a Warm Up Movement I practice a lot.

Mobility is a mean beast sometimes, and the reason why is: Mobility, like everything else we practice is very specific.

You can isolate certain areas and make them more mobile, yet in the end you have to integrate what you isolated again and make it accessible in the movement patterns you need for your practice.

Low stances in martial arts were not created for the beauty of it. Low stances, agile low stances, are practiced for the very functional ability to lower the body's center of mass as low as possible WHILE maintaining the ability to move in and out of the position in order to perform takedowns, throws and sweeps.

By the why, the condition of your legs, their mobility and strength, is a pretty accurate measure of our overall health and metabolism. "We age from the feet", like Jozef and Linda from Fighting Monkey say. And indeed, the average level of leg strength in our society is WAY BELOW ZERO.

Since our physical structures, like bones and joints, are so unique and different, we have to figure out how to position our feet, our knees and hips in order to gain the greatest range of motion while maintaining the greatest possible control over it. So sometimes when we feel there is a lack of mobility in let's say the hips, we might not need to work with isolating the hips in mobility practice alone, but maybe start by optimizing our stances in a way that we can perform them better.

In most cases though, we need both approaches. Working isolated AND integrative! Later on, we introduce chaos... but that's a different story...

For me these kind of drills are an amazing analyzing tool. Whenever I isolate a certain area of the movement chain to make it more accessible, I return to the more complex patterns in order to relearn how to best move from position to position with the now more accessible area.

A lifetime re-search. Yet like I always like to mention: Just because we call it a lifetime of work doesn't mean you will only get better at it after decades of grueling practice.

Your practice should be designed to make you better EVERYDAY! Step by Step. So the decades fly, while you keep developing and age gracefully.

Enjoy!

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