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An exercise for rooting development: preparation

One of the most important and difficult things to get in martial arts is balance / rooting (read The concept of Dynamic Equilibrium). An excellent exercise is to train to balance ourselves on car tires, let’s see how to do it.

What we need:

We need 2 or 3 used tires but not excessively damaged (no cuts, etc.)
We have to choose tires suitable for our weight (eg. over 95-100 Kg a common wheel may not be enough, the SUV ones should be better)
Let’s clean (as much as possible) the wheel we decided to use and place it on the ground (horizontally naturally)

Preparation:

Let’s jump on the tire with both feet trying to position us on one of its diameters
Let’s distribute our weight so as not to bend the tire and at the same time so as not to lift it
To start we can use arms to help us balancing enough to stand up (read Mobility and balance through the upper limbs)
The requirement to proceed is to be able to keep the balance at least from an erect standing position

Safety:

Let’s volunteer fall a few times, in such a way as to understand what dynamics we must be prepared to face in case of error
We will probably fall a lot the first times and to try to land correctly is mandatory if we want to avoid damages (read Safe training: the 3 errors rule)
Exercise on the move is not recommended for those who do not have a decent basis of spatial intelligence and dynamic balancing (read 3 exercises to develop the dynamic equilibrium)
The most immediate risk is a distortion due to an unexpected fall (let’s evaluate wisely our abilities before starting this practice, read The most important skill in combat)
Even it should be obvious, let’s do not forget warm-up and stretching (read How to correctly perform warm-up and How to correctly perform stretching)

The exercise

The basic exercise:

Let’s simply “walk” circularly on the circumference of the wheel distributing weight, without falling (one food go forward the other go backward)
We must maintain balanced our center of gravity and use coordinated movements of legs and arms to move around
When we realize that we have achieved a certain level of familiarity, we can start to move our arms by sketching parries / attacks / etc.
With time we will be able to transform our clumsy and unbalanced movements into real / complete combat sequences
Our overall vision will also benefit from this training because, slowly, we will no longer need to look actively where to put our feet (read The overall view: see everything, do not look at anything)
As we use our arms, we have to try to always be in motion and connect the fighting actions to our mobility (read Use the body power: the muscle chain)
The typical duration of the exercise is 10 minutes

Variants:

The same exercise can also be performed with 2-3 wheels attached to each other (in this case it is forbidden to place a single foot on two tires simultaneously)
Another possibility is stacking up to a maximum of 2-3 wheels one over the other (this is a rather a dangerous variant, absolutely unsuitable for anyone who is no longer stable on a single wheel)
For those who have reached a good level, we can add to the punch sequences, lifts of our legs and then real kicks (this is a considerable increase in difficulty)
For experienced practitioners, we can also hit / dodge moving targets (eg. a speedball hanging from an elastic string, read Basic tools: the Hanging Speedball and Preparing body to dodge punches (“U” motion)) with punches and kicks
Another difficulty increase is adding, to all the rest, bending to the ground and jumping without falling off the tires (always integrating motion and defensive / offensive actions, very hard)
The ultimate tires training for rooting can be also performed with partners that try to unbalance us (extremely dangerous and useless if we do not have learned the theory behind this skill, more about this later)

The first few times we will easily experience some pain in the inner part of the thighs, nothing worrisome, let’s allow our body a recovery period before going back on the wheels training.

In future articles, we will discuss deeper the concept of rooting (read Kung Fu rooting: the pyramid concept).

In-depth articles

How to improve balance: tricks and exercises – A few tips on how to improve our balance level
Kick without losing balance: another trick – How to kick without losing balance

Questions

Reply in the comments and share your experience:

How do your legs react to this kind of workout?

Author: Master Kongling

Founder of 6 Dragons Kung Fu.

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