Sunday, September 29, 2013

Training Log/Blog/Blahg Notes

Sunday September something..29th

field across from flat is amazing .
6 football fields at least with water run going thru it
 nice embankments for

gorilla leaps with bark
side to side, running sprinting
log carry
branch whipping/ sword play
bear crawl up backwards
played on a log balancing then push/rock arounds
 knee walking..shikki in Japanese

rolling forward and sideways
lil bit of tree hanging/yoga

interesting backwards pushback from plank position travel

posture
travelling
holds
moving exploring

experience the movement
become a force of nature

thinking of fun ways to teach...need to work on some games and activities..I'm always training SOLO...so

look to Bujinkan Mexico and systema folks as well as other Primal Movers for ideas!!

OooRah

Jahn

Thursday, June 27, 2013

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

from Peter Lakatos founder of Primal Move

Primal Move is an integrated movement system, where the goal is to create better movement, based on the primal and primitive movements we all once mastered as children. Do you remember when you had no pain as you played, ran, played football, threw a rock or climbed a tree? Do you remember when movement was joyful, fun and you felt the ‘flow’?

 What we learn from Kids
As we were organizing the Primal Move techniques into a logical order, we paid close attention to how kids begin to move. We use the pre-locomotor and the locomotor stages when we talk about movement typically.
The first challenge a baby must face is gravity. In the first 9 months, the babies do not really have to deal with gravity in the womb, and it can be a shocking experience. Leaving mom’s tummy means the baby must work for every single movement, and must work hard. Movement is important, developing a healthy body image is important, as is exploring the environment.

The first movements are all about exploring gravity. They lift their heads, and their legs and arms. Before the locomotion stage, babies have a lot of thing to do: touching hands, legs, hands to mouth, and even toes to mouth, extending and flexing the body. At this stage the baby is improving its self-image, its awareness. Basically it is a system check, learning where the body starts, where it ends, and what type of movement it can do.
Starting in the supine position the baby has lot of things to do – it must master a bunch of movements before she reaches the other positions, like prone position or later being on fours.

Based on Beverly Stokes work – Amazing Babies Moving – she created stage categories, listed below:
1. Spinal movement patterns
2. Symmetrical movement patterns
3. Lateral movement patterns
4. Cross-lateral movement patterns

Spinal movement patterns
Examples: head to tail, extension, flexion lateral flexion and rotation. In this pattern the baby separates the front and back part of the body. Lifting all limbs and head to the air is a typical spinal movement pattern. This is happening around the spinal axis, and a voluntary axial roll might happen. Typical exercises in PM: sweep roll, frog roll, supine and prone skydiver and any spinal axis side rolls.
 Symmetrical movement patterns
Examples: both arms, or both legs together. This patterns helps to separate the upper and lower extremities, and this is where we see push and pull patterns. Being on elbows or push up position is a typical symmetrical movement pattern.
Lateral movement pattern
Examples: same side leg and arm movements. Differentiates and integrates both sides of the body for better lateral line alignment. Reaching for objects on same side.
Cross-lateral movement patterns
Example: opposing leg and arm synchronized movement. This is the stage for creeping, crawling, and later on walking and running.
Everything we know about FMS (Functional Movement System) and early child development says that we should start moving with our clients in supine and prone position, and then move to the locomotor stage. Remember, when FMS test shows problems, we first start clearing up the hip and shoulder movements. If you don’t have good range of motion and motor control to your limbs, you simply can’t master spinal and symmetrical patterns. When these patterns are clear, the next pattern we want to be acceptable is rotational stability. When we check rotary stability, we actually use same side patterning. This does not really check our creeping and crawling patterns, but checks a more primitive pattern, the spinal one. Flexion and extension is what we are looking for, and a lateral movement pattern. If you can’t do a 3, fine – but you still might have issues with spinal axis rolling. So, for 3 points you must have the same side pattern, for 2 points you must show your crawling pattern. Again, we check 2 different patterns is one test. Wicked!

The next pattern we test is the push up. For the push up you must present a fairly good symmetrical movement pattern, and while we see many people who can show a fairly good push up test, most of them fail at rotary stability. Again, it totally makes sense – for rotary stability your inner core muscles should react lighting fast, for the push up the outer ones.

Now our baby stands up, so the next pattern we are looking for is the in-line lunge. Hurdle step shows how well you walk, run and sprint. The last pattern is the squat. Experience shows clearing the shoulder and ASLR (Active straight leg raise) pattern typically creates a very reasonable squat. Aligning the hip and shoulder will already create a lot of changes on the whole chain, and one change in the chain can and will affect the whole.
What we can learn from the babies? Well, babies have to fight for all progressions, if they cannot perform the next step of the progression, they will fall back to the start position. If we are clever parents, we shouldn’t try to make their progression easier – meaning to help them to walk before they can perform half kneeling or even worse. So, lesson number one is simply progression through body awareness, improved body image and motor control – with joy and lot of playful movement.

How can we apply this progression to our Primal Move session? We start with supine and prone position techniques, and progressing to the creeping, crawling variations as soon as possible. Babies are very mobile, we are not – so the preparation is targeting the joint system – especially the ankle, hip, T-spine – with mobility exercises for ROM (Range of Motion) and proprioception. Right after that our goal is to improve static and dynamic motor control. Right after crawling, plank, push up and walking push up variations are the logical choices, and while we keep our hands on the ground, we stand up. Occasionally we can go through seated positions, but let’s not spend to much time there. We don’t need to be better in a position that we are already so good at. Progression from inverted position to back and forward rolls are great progression goals, and the target is the vestibular system. Later on we can go to tall standing position for a few positions.

Primal Move session should be simple, but that does not mean it should not be challenging. 

Challenges form us for what we are now, or what we will become.