Hyper Function - Movement and Culture

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Start the new year strong by improving your hip mobility.
Most people train their splits by just doing splits—but that skips hip rotation and the transition pathways between positions.
Instead, break the movement down.
Train each hip position individually, then apply it back to your splits for better control, range, and strength.
This approach is perfect as a warm-up or cool-down after squats, leg day, or lower-body workouts, and it helps build healthier, more resilient hips over time.

Its been an awesome year.
I am always humbled and proud to be part of your physical journey.
May everyone have an amazing holiday period and ill see you in the new year!

Proprioception. The body's ability to understand where it is in space.
Contrary to what you have probably been told your entire life, the mind and the body are not one. It takes years and years of practice to create this connection in any field.
The mind is an elusive, self deceiving, judgment creating and justification making machine. It's ability to understand the body and what it is doing is not great to begin with.
To begin creating a bridge between what you think is happening vs what is actually happening a few things need to happen. Either you have a coach there to tell you consistently that what you are doing/ the shapes you are making are not quite right or you film yourself and review it regularly. Thus slowly creating the eyes of a coach. Only then can you begin to create accurate proprioception.
I am often asked by students what is something they can do to improve their practice to which I consistently reply practice regularly and film your practice. To either watch yourself/ show someone who knows better/ compare it with someone who can do better.
A conversation I have had with many people across a variety of physical disciplines and levels. Unsurprisingly it is only the self limiting individuals who argue against this practice. Also unsurprisingly all the most talented people I have met, film and self review.
It is confronting. Nobody wants to see themselves suck at anything. Unfortunately it is a necessary process. Better to start it sooner or later.
What are your thoughts?

Exhausted, but happy 😁😁 beautiful souls satiated through hard work and camaraderie.
A snapshot of

- Learn an Arm Wave -
This is more of an arm roll than an arm wave. I thought I would keep it simple but I will cover more variations later 😊
Waving and arm waves can help add texture and style to your movement quality. For it's an easy way to add some flair/ style to a routine or act. The arm wave can easily become a full body wave as the shoulder creates a movement connection with the chest and thus torso and head.
On a more practical note, waving is an amazing fascia stretch as it gives the joints and muscles an opportunity to move through their entire ranges of motion. As someone with multiple tears and strains accumulated throughout the years I have benefited greatly from the rehabilitative effects of this type of movement.
Learning how to isolate and move joints independently of each other is a fantastic way to further refine body awareness and control. For example being able to manipulate the elbow crease in and out is something I used in my handstand practice.
I also sometimes use it in my yoga flows as it creates more seamless transitions between poses.
Feel free to share to anyone who might be interested in this type of movement practice

Handstand Form and Alignment.
I do not personally believe there is a wrong or right way to do most things insofar as we are aware and in control over how we are doing them. Ideally we should be able to move freely between different forms with control and intention. Here are two different drills to help you become aware of how each position feels. How does opening the hips feel? Retracting and protracting the shoulders? How about allowing th head to tick between the shoulders compared to reaching forward?
These two drills make for great warm-ups before the bulk of practice.

For all the movement and handstand enthusiasts out there. Handstand entry challenge. Here are 6 different entries into a handstand. Each with its own unique challenges. I dont believe there is any right or wrong way to enter a handstand, insofar as it is done safely and with control.

The classic press entry - great for familiarizing oneself with the track of movement to enter a handstand. Builds control through the entire range. Great for shoulder stability and learning how to articulate through the spine and abdominals.

The B Boy stacking entry - very efficient low energy entry. Requires a greater amount of dynamic control, timing and awareness of shape changing than many other entries.

Kneeling entry (through any shape) - superb drilll for building control through a larger range of motion than is required in a simple jumping entry.

Cartwheel entry - great for learning control through a lateral range. Another dynamic movement which can help us understand how to direct and control momentum with our legs and feet.

Staulder press entry - for a greater challenge than a normal press. The strength used in a staulder press helps immensely with learning how to control the opening and closing of the shoulders. Also forces active mobility through the hips and legs.

Monkey flip entry - highly dynamic movmenet. Forces multiple adjustments through many parts of the body (not my best one but you can see how many types of adjustments I had to employ to save it. All very useful in general)

I believe finding new ways to challenge oneself is important. Especially with a familiar skill set. It can teach you how to save a handstand from various angles and what it feels like to control weight and balance through different parts of the hands and shoulders. Some of these entries are benchmarks in and of themselves. Pressing is obviously something which needs to be developed over some time but will benefit your handstand/ yoga/ acrobatic practice immensely.

I am available for online coaching. Feel free to DM me.

Music by the very talented .celsius

Abdominal and core strength exercises which are great for Yoga, Martial Arts, Calisthenics, Capoeira, Tricking, Handstands and many more movement based exercises and cultures.
Especially useful for those of you who experience leg cramps when trying to lift their leg or who struggle to develop exceptional strength in their lower abdominals and hip flexor muscles.
These exercises will help isolate and strengthen the Transverse and Re**us Abdominals and the Re**us Femoris muscles.
Obviously also very effective for developing a 6 pack.
Comment or DM me for a more detailed breakdown 😊

In my experience flexibility is one of the most misunderstood and under researched elements of movement and exercise. Many people default to static or passive stretching, expecting the elements which are developed through those methods to carry over into heir physical practice.

To build the dynamic type of flexibility which is useful for movement based skills or exercises generally requires 2 things. Strength through a large range in the muscles initiating the movement (agonists) and an appropriate amount of elasticity in the opposing muscle group (antagonists). This also takes advantage of reciprocal inhibition (by contracting the main muscle group, we allow the opposing muscle group to effectively switch off, allowing it to extend through a wider range)

Following are 2 useful exercises to help develop dynamic mobility in a compression. Focusing on the abdominals to pull our body into the compression not only helps strengthen them, but also allows the opposing muscles to relax further.
Unlike static stretching, this type of mobility work does not decrease a muscles ability to exert force afterward and as such makes a great warm up before activity which requires increased range of motion.

Try doing each exercise for 3 to 5 minutes before or after a workout and watch as your compressive flexibility slowly improves!

3 videos of 3 simple warm up and preconditioning methods for the wrist and forearms.

The importance of wrist and forearm strength in regards to handstands is pretty self evident, however having strong wrists and forearms will help with many other activities such as climbing, hanging and most type of weight bearing exercise.

Grip strength is often undervalued,
especially with handstand practice.
Improving one's grip strength in general will benefit one's overall physical practice. On top of this warming up and strengthening the forearms as well as the biceps and triceps will, over time, help protect the elbow from chronic pain.

In my experience, people do not often correlate the well being of their forearms with the well being of their wrists. This leads many to neglect their forearms when it comes to conditioning and warming up, leading to wrist (and or elbow) pain in the future.

To help bulletproof the wrists, forearms and elbows use the following exercises as a warm up and cool down before any weight bearing activity.

3 sets of between 20 and 30 of each.
1 or 2 sets before practice and 1 or 2 sets after practice.