M2M Day 106: The pieces are starting to come together
This post is part of Month to Master, a 12-month accelerated learning project. For February, my goal is to land a backflip.
Two days ago, I prophesied that I would make significant progress during today’s backflip lesson, and I was right.
However, before I started practicing my backflips, I spent the first half of the lesson on the trampoline, drilling pullovers. The purpose of this drill was to get me used to the feeling of driving my hips over my head, which is how I should be initiating my backwards rotation (the tuck just makes the rotation tighter and faster).
After a number of crooked and panicky attempts, I finally got to a place where I could calmly, but powerfully pullover in a straight line. (In fact, in the video below, I generate too much power and almost propel myself off of the trampoline).
Before leaving the trampoline, I also practiced throwing front flips from the trampoline into the foam pit, in order to challenge and improve my spatial awareness in new ways.
After a quick water break, I strapped back into the harness and started practicing my backflips. As a result of the drills on the trampoline, and the technical insights from over the weekend, today’s flips were consistently good.
Sadly, my phone ran out of space while filming a series of 25–30 flips, and only saved video of the first two, which were probably my weakest backflips of the day.
Nevertheless, I pulled some screenshots from the video to analyze my form…
Preparing for takeoff
Today, as I prepared for takeoff, I made sure to keep my body upright and tall. I also only bent my knees to 45 degrees, instead of 90, and focused on generating more power from my calves and toes.
This was a major improvement and prepared me nicely for a high and powerful set.
The Set
My backflips were much higher today, mainly due to my focus on powering myself upwards and not just straight back. As part of this, I was better about using my arm’s full range of motion.
Also, I’ve stopped throwing my head and chest backwards, and keep my eyes locked on the wall in front of me for much longer, which forces my body along the right path.
The Tuck
This tuck isn’t my best, but my tucking in general today was much better (since I was leading with my hips).
Even though this particular tuck isn’t tight, I definitely have enough height to make it all the way around.
Landing
In this instance, I opened my legs too early, cutting the rotation short, and, as a result, landing a bit forward.
Yet, with a bit of weird arm-work, I was able to stay on my feet.
While it’s disappointing that I failed to document more of today’s session, the good new is that I’m headed back to AcroSports tomorrow night.
Currently, my phone is uploading all the photos/videos in storage to Google Photos, so I’ll have plenty of space tomorrow to film.
Read the next post. Read the previous post.
