I'm trying to learn a honma on rings, but I'm pretty lost. I don't understand what I need to do in order to get my body above the rings. Every time I attempt the skill, I basically end up inlocating and then falling through a front-lever position to a hang. It feels like either I'm not getting enough height, or the salto is not completing early enough. My inlocates are plenty powerful: I get my shoulders above ring-height going over the top. So there's some part of the technique that I'm just missing. Does anyone have experience training or teaching this skill?
Learning A Honma On Rings.
Started by Joshua Slocum, February 6, 2013 · 10 Replies · 7,823 Views
Hard to tell where the mistake is based only on your description. Video material would be great.
Until then, this video might give you a basic idea of what you're supposed to do:
Ooh, excellent video! Thank you very much! I'll give those progressions a try today.
One of my favorite combos, please learn the honma 
are you planning on learning it to cross, or first something like l sit, support...
Did some more work today. My friend and I both concluded that I'm just not swinging high enough. So I may try them out of inlocates, or just work on my front-swing some more.
alec_ar said:One of my favorite combos, please learn the honma
Hah, first I'm going to learn to support. Then when that's solid I'll play around with yamawakis and honma to cross.
Here's a video from my attempts today. As you can see, I'm not putting enough power into it. It needs much more heel drive to get up and around.
Your swing could be higher and making it better will help the skill, but I think it's already sufficient for a Honma.
The problem I see is that you're initiating the rotation way too late and not aggressively enough. You're letting yourself fall into an inverted hang and right before you're actually in the inverted hang, you pike a little and thus rotate into this chin-up hang.
Ever tried a front dismount from the rings?
You could try doing a front tuck or pike dismount, where you intentionally let the rings go a little too early. That will give you a feeling of how aggressively you have to rotate. But please be safe, don't hurt yourself! If you can, do it over a pit.
I can do a front-layout; it's been a while since I worked them, but I will try to keep in mind the way that tap feels when I do the Honma. I'll try initiating the rotation a lot earlier. Thanks.
So one thing about my swing that I think could be improved is my arm position on the down swing. If you look at this image, you can see that my hands stay far apart on the downswing, and I'm letting my shoulders drop through. I think I could improve the swing if I were to push the rings together, sooner.
I can't offer you any advice on the skill (although I'd like to start training it soon), but when you get a solid honma-l sit, please learn this:
The front part of your ring swing needs to be refined. That will help the rear portion of the swing.
This probably needs to be taken care of first before concerning yourself with the Honma if you want to progress further.
You are push-pulling the rings out too early in the front swing which creates some slack in the swing.
Kick, don't push the rings out until you have pulled the rings back as far as they go with your tap in the front.
Bigger swing in the front = bigger swing in the back, especially when there isn't as much slack.