by idahorob » Fri Mar 30, 2012 3:43 pm
Right on, guys! Thanks for being so clear. When I got home after that videoing we had company and I only had time to glance at the clips to transfer them to my computer. Even from that the flexion/extension looked inadequate, which was not really a surprise. It occurred to me that the power release drills would address this, but I've done a lot of those and can never keep the stance leg long, free leg short and narrow my stance when I move into the long leg/short leg part of the sequence ("Essentials" video, Flexing and Fore/Aft Balance). In my momentary pessimism I thought maybe those drills just don't work for me or there is something missing I just can't find. The next time I had a moment to think about it, though, I decided to go back to those drills the next time up, which was two days later, and try to be surprised. One strategy was to do the entire sequence, starting with single arcs and when the time came to move to long leg/short leg, to narrow the stance only an inch at a time and see if I could bring the increased flexion with me.
I knew that when I have tried to get more angles and flex the free leg a couple of things usually happened: if my stance stayed narrow, both legs stayed flexed almost the same amount and I was in a crouch. Or my stance widened and there I was weighted on two feet.
I think I made some progress in this yesterday, but it's hard to tell. One thing I discovered was it seemed important to flex the new free leg immediately with the new turn initiation. That seemed much better than letting the flex develop gradually. And, I tried to stick that knee into my arm pit.
I worked on that for about 2 1/2 hours then took a lunch break. Didn't get to do much practice with it after lunch because the temperature raised with a change in the wind and the snow (man, I hate spring) got really sticky and lumped up. It needed short turns and making longer turns was too bumpy for me to feel much of what I was doing. The weather was to crappy for video, so I don't know how successful my study was.
We only have a week left of the season here, so I don't know how much I'll get to work on this, or anything else.
Do you have any suggestions of other ways to work on my problem? I sent you an email, Jay, inquiring about private lessons next season. Maybe that would be one way to approach it.
Thanks again, guys.
No matter where you go, there you are.