Our wrestling coach is quite fond of teach gymnastics as a warm up -handstands, cart-wheels, headstands, forward, backward rolls the list goes on- What's more during this part of the warm up he will take time to make sure everyone is doing them correctly, so not "ninja rolls" but instead perfect wheel like forward rolls are required. First time he introduced us to this warm-up routine I chatted with him afterwards about why he made such a decision and he replied that gymnastics back in Poland were a standard warm up practise for wrestling as they get people warmed up, while teaching them about co-ordination and give better body awareness to people when they are rolling/falling/throwing/stepping/landing when wrestling. Anyone else use gymnastics as a form of warm up?
i think its quite common in eastern europe because of the emphasise of gymnastics in schools. but sounds like the unorthodox ukemi approach to judo used by Lafon. id love to train under this guy. hes really spot on with his science. http://betterjudo.com/articles/turnouts-unorthodox-ukemi/
Some guys who've been through Pancrase, like Bas Rutten and the Shamrocks, have written about this in their books. I wonder if it can be traced back to Judo practice and/or Karl Gotch... I've been through some BJJ and Judo classes where we did basic rolls and have heard about wrestling practices where some of it was used (walking on the hands for example). Personally, I've sometimes done cartwheels or backward rolls into handstands to warm up. I think that doing basic tumbling probably gives one a sense of spacial awareness that could be useful in scrambles. But I guess to answer your question more directly, it's not something I do or have seen done on a regular basis.
also you have to remember that many wrestlers were also involved in circus strongmen at the beginning of the last century. the circus strongmen often did acrobatics.
It's a Sambo thing. Most/many of the people who ended up as sambists during its development in the Soviet Union were acrobats and gymnasts prior, and acrobatics like handsprings are a staple warmup in the more orthodox sambo schools. I think that would explain why it's so common in eastern european wrestling schools.
My old BJJ club did that sort of thing as part of the warm up. Cartwheels, rolls, handstands, gorilla walking, tiger leaps etc. Personally I see a real link between that stuff and parkour, Capoeira, body weight exercises and just generally being able to handle your body through space in different directions and angles. It may not be totally applicable to "real" fighting but for me is still worth doing because of the overall bodily improvement side of martial arts.
I agree, but I have found that my students struggle with this type of warm up, where at 45 years old I have no real problem. My theory is that when I was young I spent my days in the local park, hanging upside down from trees, falling off of my bike, diving into the lake and generally being upside down. Kids now do not go out to the park for fear of being mugged, or worse. Sport is not so encouraged in school and the general rough and tumble in the front yard is frowned upon. Just my opinion.
My teacher made a comment on monday regarding the inflexibility of todays youth whilst watching a bunch of children puffing and moaning there way through simple, basic stretches, and failing at it. He mentioned that when he was teaching in the 70's and 80's it was a rare thing to find a child that couldn't reach under there feet in a stretch, never mind not touch there toes. He blames the modern evolution of technology (wii,ps3 etc) and lack of effective P.E. in schools. That and kids are lazy arses today compared to a generation ago.
Even someone as pragamatic and hardcore as Mas Oyama includes tumbling and handstands in his book "Classic karate" (the one with the TKD people on the cover!). I think watching a vid of Matsui doing his 100 man kumite included him having to do some similar things (walking on his hands etc) beforehand.
It's been in Judo pretty much since it's inception, see 14 seconds into this video for an example of why: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54Nubmy4WsI&feature=player_embedded#at=20
^ few clubs train for this anymore. its much easier to teach slapping the matt safely than a cart wheel.
I think most people would would argue that the turnout is more prevalent now than it ever was: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1ta-o1-C4o"]YouTube - Imposible judo II‏[/ame] The problem with turnouts is that if they go wrong the results are hilarious, which is to say hospitalizing, so really not worth teaching to recreational players.
wow. you're right. recreational player dont get taught it. its just easier for the instructor to go - land like this.
