T1/3.4

I just don't get this movement yet. I have two related problems. Either I don't extend well or if I do I slam my back into the mat ungracefully as I don't get it how you're supposed to use your arms in this roll. Any tips ?

Can you post a video Christian? That will help us give better feedback.

Here it is:

This was at home so it's not the usual set up I use. I just can't figure out how do you not die if you don't bend the arms or even how to do this movement slowly (which helped me with the other progressions).

I had the same issue to begin with. I ended up spending some time on my kids trampoline to refine the movement. the softer surface made it easier to deal with the mistakes and removed the fear factor.

You are have some mistakes with your roll simply because there is a lack of technique. we can analyze your execution with a good execution:

-starting position: when you put down your arm on the floor and you begin to transfer the weight  you have open hips angle (no compression) and bent arms. ideally when you begin a rep the position is more similar to a pike press, with straight arms, curled spine and more compression. 

-middle of the rep: when your head is closer to the floor you still have bent arms , your hips are not enough openen at this point because you simply stopped to swing the legs up a bit more. with hips closed the rotational speed is higher and roll will appear faster and without control. on the other side when your head is close to the floor your arms must be extended and you should be in a sort of front support position. this more extended position reduces the speed of the roll.

-final position: i mean with final at the moment when the weight is took of from the hands. your body is completely folded like a bend hollow body hold position and you have your elbows flexed, this makes the roll more faster without control. on the other side when hands begin to leave the floor you should be more like a candle position. body extended and hollowed, weight on the upper back.

Hello Alessandro,

Thank you so much for your feedback. This is exactly what I was looking for.

Is it possible to break down the steps in this roll to do it slower ? For example would be possible to start the roll with hands already on the floor closer to the pike press position. I have great difficulty understanding the transition from the start to about the point of where the back of the shoulders should be contacting the floor, specially how one would to this slowly or would you recommend against this ?

without some momentum is this difficult to to the roll without breaking the line.

the speed it is a function of the alignment, so you can break down the roll in order to find the basic position like plank, candle etc and understand the sensation they are giving. I suppose you are training also foundations.

To get over the fear of keeping straight arms I stacked mats in front of my hands and gradually reduced them as I felt comfortable; less far to come down on straight arms this way

Max

So I've tried this a bit and tried to focus on my first problem which was the issue of the arms bent. I did a lot of reps here in this video, because I want to get a lot of samples:

So I tried keeping my arms locked at all times (they hyperextend quite a bit). However I'm not extending my hips, so there's a lot of pike where I think we are aiming for a hollow. I have a bit of trouble visualizing this as I'm getting in the roll, what should my feet be doing? There are a lot of issues in my roll, but this element is probably the one where things get real so I'm looking forward to fixing them one by one.

the yellow distance must be reduced using your glute and while holding the PPT.

A minimum of basic knowledge about basic position it is necessary, as asked before, are you following foundations?

Hello Alessandro, 

I am following foundations. I just find it difficult to concentrate in all the cues for this movement. How do you go from the pike press position to the hollow position when you initiate the roll? I'm thinking that the direction the hop that initiates the roll should me more up than forward in order to be able to get the extended position, correct?

Yes exactly, the hop it is necessary to open the hips, how much fast do you need to push with feet, when to stop? they are sensations which give you feedback. you need thousands of reps to master a technical aspect of GST.

This is more to log a bit my progress. It still needs some work opening the hip.

Better then before wait a bit more for the upward legs movement. but you are on track.

I didn't get the chance to film this last weeks, but I'm still working on these. I have a theoretical question. While I'm working to improve the coordination of properly extending the legs in order to end up in the candle position, I still don't know exactly what I should be doing on the takeoff.

What ends up happening sometimes is that when my hands touch the floor, if I resist or punch the floor, what happens is that I hit the mat rather unconfortably and don't so much roll as simply hit the floor with the back. If instead I just kind of use the hands as a pivot (similar to what would be a handstand forward roll), sometimes what happens is that if my arms are in too much of a steep angle with regards to the floor I end up grazing my head in the mat instead of the back of the shoulders. So my question is, when the hands first touch the floor what should be their angle to the floor, and what are we looking for here in terms of technique (how should it feel, etc.) ? 

Ideally you should begin in a full squat position with the weight moved over the toes, hands are a bit forward compared to the knees.

I do not understand clearly your question.

If your problem is the beginning you can consider to practice it separately until it is good.

My question is what ideally should be happening between the start of the rep where we put the hands on the mat, similar to a pike press and the middle of the rep where we are placing the shoulders on the floor in a candle position to roll forward. Sometimes I do something wrong and the first contact I have with the mat is below the shoulders. In the last videos I posted you can see this problem in a couple of reps. Sometimes I think I get it right, but I'm not sure how :). 

Is there any assistance exercise one can do to practice it seperately ? 

I understand,well the fact that you do not get the correct execution everytime it is simply because a technical skill requires  about 20 thousand reps before a perfect execution whenever you want.

I think that the point where you need more assistance is the middle. with my kids I used to put a big mat in different positions so that they can learn how body segments are positioned . 

Thanks Alessandro. Practice makes perfect  I guess. 

Hello,

I've practiced a this a bit more. I can attach a video later on, but I think it'll show pretty much the same errors as before, i.e. I need to open the hip a bit more and keep it open a bit more time till the candlestick, however I think I'm still not understanding a fundamental element here, that the video doesn't actually convey very well. 

It may not be apparent in the video, but I don't feel my hands and arms are doing anything to intercept the force of the fall, they feel like they are brushing the mat, I feel this may be very incorrect, as if I fall on the top of my shoulders it's ok (but not something I would ever attempt on a hard surface) but occasionally if I catch this a bit lower in the back or in the head, it's not very pleasant. The point is that I feel I'm not doing anything to absorb the force of the roll  with my arms which feels wrong given that every other progression for back and forward rolls has you press with the arms to absorb the impact so that the tucked head and shoulders when contacting the mat feel little pressure. 

I keep going back to this, but I still don't understand how you absorb the impact with straight arms. I feel like I'm doing a failed attempt at a front handspring sometimes and I would likely break something if I tried this without a mat, like Jeffrey Bittner is doing in the demo video (let alone connecting rolls).

PS: I would think Tumbling would benefit immensely, perhaps more than all the other products, from additional technical explanation videos :).  It would be very usefull to have these in a future release. Atleast think about it.

Actually the hips extension at the beginning reduces the amount or rotational speed. and in this way the impact it is more gentle. the more you rotate faster the more it is the weight perceived on the upper back.

also the arms can work like a planche lean in order to reduce the amount of weight that catch the floor on the shoulders.

Would it be useful to try to enter this rolls from a sort of exaggerated hollow plank position as a progression, in order to search the correct hip extension ?

I feel like I'm not comfortable learning the correct shape from a dive due to this issue of not absorbing the impact, as after one bad rep I unconsciously start to bend the arms to make this smoother.

Yes it should be fine, the handstand forward roll covers this progression.

Cool I'll add this drill and see how it goes. 

Grazie, Alessandro.

You're welcome Christian.