16/07/2018
- NOW IS BETTER -
(This could be a bit controversial in some people/teacher's eyes, go to the bottom if you start getting a little mad)
All I teach is based on motor control and adquisition of patterns/movements, because of the skills I teach I encourage, teach and train people to also get stronger and more flexible. Now, this is not the base of my teaching but a help, so:
Do not wait to get more flexible or stronger to start learning skills. There are lots of them you can already start learning and you are scaring yourself from them. Most people I have met that are delaying the skill development have heard certain teachers promoting something like the being in completely perfect shape before to start learning "X", which could lead to years of getting ready for it but neither practice nor learning it...
Imagine that someone denies you from driving just because your ankle dorsiflexion is not good enough..., funny right?
The video shows people from 20some to 50some years of age doing tumbling/tricking/acro skills. All of them with no prior experience or a gymnastics background.
A lot of people that tell me things like: oh! I would love to do that, I always think about going to one of these classes, etc. And pretty much always is followed by: I don't think I am strong enough, I don't think I am flexible enough, I am too old....
WRONG, WRONG, WRONG... Learning a skill is a process that requires practicing the skill itself and you should start as soon as you can.
It takes time to develop the patterns you need to go through and there are things that strength or flexibility cannot help with.
Examples: Spacial awareness & coordination.
I do not promote not getting more flexible or stronger, in fact it is a brilliant idea and most skills (some more than others) need some level of strength, explosivity, flexbility. What I do promote is actually finding if you can start performing or not skills you would like to learn.
Two examples (that I hate) are: you cannot practice handstands until your shoulders are completely open or you learn how to tuck your hips under (Bull.s.s.s.h.h.hh.i.t) or your splits are not good enough to learn aerial/bkick. There might be cases where people are very limited and they actually need to work on that exact thing only, quite often it is not the case.
Glad if I could know your thoughts on it.
Keep Learning,
Yeray M.
