Chapter 26: Balancing Movement - The Practice of Natural Movement

Balance is primarily an ability to maintain your center of gravity in vertical alignment with the center of your base of support with minimal sway in any direction; secondarily, it’s the ability to control movement when your center of gravity is intentionally out of vertical alignment with your base of support. So, really movement is just a constant act of balancing yourself, or, in other words, movement is your controlled interaction with gravity.

Balance is required in any of our activities of daily living, even when you don’t notice that you are balancing, such as when you get to your feet to stand. For example, sitting on a chair requires a certain level of balance. Balancing starts the moment that you begin elevating your center of gravity above your base of support, even though balance also occurs while your base of support is entirely above your center of gravity or when you’re airborne.

However, there is a significant difference between the basic balance necessary for day-to-day movement, or even in broad Natural Movement practice on wide, stable surfaces and the advanced balance that we need to negotiate narrow or unstable surfaces. We take the former type of balance for granted, but the latter requires us to be highly attentive.

When we talk about natural balancing specifically, we aren’t talking exclusively about balancing on two feet as we stand and walk in a vertical position, which is commonly referred to as postural balance. There is so much more to practical and adaptable balancing. We also aren’t talking about creative ways to balance in improbable positions that have zero practical relevance, even though that type of balancing can be lots of fun and potentially functionally beneficial (so we shouldn’t dismiss it completely).

Balancing from a Natural Movement perspective implies diverse positions and patterns such as lying, crawling, sitting, getting up, standing, walking, and even climbing, but all movements are done on surfaces that are either narrow, elevated, rounded, uneven, inclined, declined, slippery, unstable, or a combination of these variables. Such variables create complex environments in which we become mindfully absorbed in the highest priority, which is conserving balance to prevent falling and is a much greater risk than when we do movements on wide, stable surfaces. Therefore, it’s the type and level of complexity of the environmental variables that force us to use the skill of balancing.

To practice balancing, we must hold positions that are normally rather easy to hold and do movements that are normally easy to do, but we must do it on surfaces that can easily destabilize us. In that sense, walking on small, unstable surfaces starts to become balancing even in the absence of elevation. Ultimately, practice is done at a certain elevation, which means we must mentally deal with the risk of falling and the possibility of injuring ourselves.

Depending on skill, environment, and mental state, balancing can be play and great fun, but in the real world it can also be a struggle, and you might have to deal with fear as you engage in life-or-death situations.

Benefits of Balancing Practice

 

On top of expanding your real-life physical competency to surfaces where movement effectiveness, efficiency, speed, and safety are immediately challenged, balancing practice provides other benefits. First, the extra sense of balance developed by training on narrow or unstable surfaces might give you increased balance when you do the same movement patterns on wide, stable surfaces. Practicing also dramatically develops greater joint stability, which contributes to greater motor control as well as injury-prevention and rehabilitation. And the benefits aren’t restricted to just the lower limbs, as balance is also controlled through the rest of the body.

These benefits of increased balance to overall movement ability might serve the specialized athlete very well, not only in terms of skill and performance but also for preventing common injuries such as ankle sprain; the growing teenager trying to master his or her new body; or an elderly person who’s trying to avoid the deadly threat of a fall and a hip fracture. Indeed, one out of three people aged 65 and older fall each year; one out of four people older than 50 who break their hip as they fall die within a year after injury because of the extended recovery period and complications related to the injury. This is a very serious risk to all of us. General Natural Movement training, and balancing in particular, decreases the risk that you will lose balance and fall. If you do fall, the risk of fracture also will be decreased because you might fall in a softer way and because regular movement practice keeps your bone density higher than in individuals who are physically inactive. So, don’t wait until you are in your old age and a physiotherapist or occupational therapist introduces balance training in your treatment plan because you’ve lost motor control or suffer from osteoporosis or a neurological condition. You can’t avoid aging, but you can reduce and slow the damage it does to your body, your movement ability and autonomy, and your day-to-day quality of life.

Balancing training can generate instant frustration because it can be quite challenging to do, but you also will get instant gratification because it is always so fun to do. So, get your balancing ON!

How Balance Works

 

Unless it is a deliberate action, avoiding toppling is what moving is all about. We all understand that toppling means losing balance, but what it implies is that the normally vertical line that passes through your center of gravity and the middle of your base of support shifts to an angle. The shifting of the center of gravity outside a vertical line with your base of support—if not remedied rapidly—produces an acceleration that becomes rapidly uncontrollable and results in complete loss of balance, which precipitates a fall.

Sensory Inputs

Three sensory systems work in concert to achieve and maintain the body’s balance both statically and dynamically in relation to the environment and gravity: the vestibular, somatosensory, and visual systems. Will it help your balance to learn in-depth scientific knowledge behind each of them? Not at all. You feel your balance, not think it, and that’s what these systems do: provide diverse sensory inputs to regulate your balance through sensation or “feel,” without any intellectual analysis on your part.

However, here is a basic overview of each of the systems:

• The vestibular system is the input from what’s called your “inner ear”; it detects gravity and both linear and rotational movement.

• The somatosensory system receives input from your joints, muscles, and skin that tells you their position relative to each other and to the surface where you balance. This system reads feedback about pressure and friction in your points of support relative to the surface of support. For instance, if you stand on your feet and more body weight shifts forward, you feel more pressure in the balls of your feet; if the shift wasn’t intentional, the somatosensory system informs you that you need to readjust your body weight distribution; otherwise, gravity will pull you off balance.

• The visual system receives the input from your eyes, which has a lot to do with perceiving how vertical your body and head position is in relation to your base of support and the surface supporting you. In a world ruled by gravity, verticality really matters. When a person balances with their eyes closed, postural sway dramatically increases. Even reduced peripheral vision can challenge balance and increase postural sway, which clearly shows how important visual input is for balancing. For instance, it can be useful to focus on a fixed object, especially a vertical line. But if your feet are positioned in a crooked way on the supporting surface, if they’re numb and you can’t feel them, or if your inner ear is impaired and you feel dizzy, you will feel very off.

No sensory system really prevails. All three systems are equally important and must work together in harmony to interpret all three inputs, generate coordinated reflexes, and avoid unintentional toppling. This process obviously takes place when performing any movement, but it is especially critical when balancing, which again is the skill of maintaining balance while moving on surfaces that greatly challenge our balance.

Righting and Tilting Reflexes

The brain uses two ways of controlling the body’s balance that have been called the righting reflex and the tilting reflex. Both reflexes have to do with deciding what positional adjustments must be made—in terms of direction, magnitude, and timing of body-weight shifting—to stabilize the body. This process can last less than a second or much longer.

The righting reflex helps you correct your position when your center of gravity is taken out of vertical alignment with its base of support while you’re on a stable surface. When you balance on stable surfaces, your body should “right” its position by ensuring balance through optimum joint stability. The fact that the supporting surface doesn’t move should enable “static equilibrium,” which simply means holding a still position. As I describe in Part 2 of this book, even a stable balancing position never goes unchallenged and requires attention and energy to be maintained; we may experience a sensation of stillness, yet almost imperceptible oscillations occur because of the segmental structure of our bodies.

While you balance on unstable surfaces, your base of support, say your feet, moves in space together with the surface that supports it, forcing your brain to do much more complex calculations to keep the center of gravity dynamically aligned with both a moving base of support and moving surface of support. That’s what the tilting reflex handles—anticipating optimum alignment in relation to a constantly shifting support surface. It is a significantly more challenging task than static equilibrium, as holding the exact same position is virtually impossible because of the instability of the support surface.

In a nutshell, the righting reflex enables you to balance in a stable manner on a stable surface of support, and the tilting reflex enables you to balance in an unstable fashion on unstable surfaces of support.

The SAID Principle Applies to Balancing

The righting and tilting reflexes often act together as stable surfaces are not always totally stable, and unstable surfaces are not always highly unstable. The bad news is that the two reflexes aren’t interchangeable or transferable. A gymnast who’s an expert at balancing on a beam, which is stable, does not become an expert surfer who can balance on highly unstable surfaces (or the other way around).

From a general physical competency standpoint, you must possess both reflexes, and the SAID principle informs us that if we want to be good at balancing both on stable and unstable surfaces, we must train on both types of surfaces. The SAID principle also tells us that your proficiency at balancing depends on more than the relative stability or instability of the surface; balance is also affected by factors such as how narrow, flat, rounded, and slippery it is, your experience with specific positions and movement patterns, your ability to maintain breath control, your joint stability and muscular relaxation, and your mental freshness and ability to focus with great intensity. Don’t forget that environmental factors—such as visibility, wind, and rain—can play a significant role. At some point in your balancing practice, you must confront all these variables.

NOTE

 

You can read more about the Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demand (SAID) principle in Chapter 7.

 

Needless to say, fitness methods that claim to improve balance without having you actually practice balancing on diverse surfaces or that limit your practice to a few drills are not fully delivering in the balance area. Unless you frequently expose yourself to various balancing motion patterns on various surfaces, you know little about your actual balance. You want great balance? Then practice all sorts of balancing.

Learning to Not Use Your Arms to Counterbalance

Even on stable surfaces, a certain amount of sway is inevitable. There will always be small disruptions along the kinetic chain, some of which are barely perceptible. The goal of mindful practice is to train your body’s automatic responses to “right” these disturbances quickly before they become out of control. Flailing your arms around is a natural reflex in untrained individuals for maintaining or recovering balance. It is usually a sign that shows that the disturbances are getting out of control or that you lack stability in control where it’s needed to prevent the disturbances or adjust to them rapidly.

From a practical effectiveness perspective, it’s essential that you learn to not rely on your arms to adjust your balance (or that you rely on them minimally). There is both a functional and a very practical reason for this.

The practical (and most important) reason is that you might need to use your arms for something other than helping your balance—for instance, gesturing, throwing or catching a light object, aiming at a target with a weapon, holding or stabilizing a load, or swinging your arms to transition to jumping off the surface. If you haven’t learned to balance without using your arms for counterbalancing, either you will be unable to perform any additional task while your arms are busy balancing your body, or your balance will be threatened as soon as you stop using your arms for that purpose.

The competency aspect of learning to not use your arms for counterbalancing is obvious: Keeping your arms down and loose places a higher demand on the rest of your body in terms of ensuring stability. You may first learn to better counterbalance through your legs by balancing on a single leg while the other is counterbalancing. Indeed, single-leg balance is a great indicator of standing balance. Ultimately, you may become able to primarily adjust your balance through minor hip and spine motions.

NOTE

 

Later I give examples of single-leg positions and movements that are extremely helpful in developing standing balancing.

 

Learning to not rely on your arms might significantly increase sway in your hips and knees in the beginning, but over time you will learn to adjust and will develop much greater lower-body and core stability, and you’ll be able to use your arms independently. The musculature surrounding your ankles, knees, and hips also will strengthen, delaying fatigue in these areas and making your ability to ensure balance more durable.

Obviously, this is a practice perspective, not a real-life one. If you are balancing in the real world and suddenly find yourself off balance, then counterbalancing with your arms immediately to avoid a fall is a no-brainer—especially if the surface is significantly unstable, in which case you need to do all you can to counterbalance your whole body.

Cause or Symptom?

Imagine that you’re practicing balance on a 2x4 board at ground level, standing and walking forward. Seems straightforward and easy, right? However, you might find yourself flailing your arms (or trying to prevent yourself from doing so), stiffening your arms, and holding your breath. Your hips might be badly swaying, and your knees might badly shake. You have no choice but to go off balance, step off the board, and try again. You may try to focus more and do your best to prevent your knee and ankle joints from being so wobbly, yet your balance isn’t improving at all. Have you mistaken the symptom as a cause? Maybe your feet are not centered and aligned; they’re crooked on the board, and from there a whole inefficient kinetic chain is formed. It originates in your lack of positional control, affects your ankles, knees, and hips, and everything else that can go wrong along the line. You won’t fix what happens “up the chain”—that is, the symptom—before you fix the cause (your ill-positioned points of support). This is true for any natural movement, but it’s especially important in balancing. Rather than checking your positional control from “head to toe,” check it from “toe to head” (or from whichever body part is your base of support)!

Breath Control, Tension, Relaxation

Maintaining impeccable breath control is one of the main keys to skillful balancing. Joint stability is not created by overall tension but by selective tension in the muscles required for some joints to be stable in a position. Without breath control, you’re nearly guaranteed to be tense all over and prevent relaxation. A lack of relaxation in balancing doesn’t just cost you extra energy; it also prevents both the righting and tilting reflexes from doing their jobs and adjusting your position. You may “instinctively” think that tensing your whole body will reduce sway. It might do that, but it also can make you fall like a marble statue that topples off its pedestal. Keep breathing abdominally, so both tension and relaxation can do their part properly and harmoniously.

Losing Balance or Falling? Crashing or Landing?

 

Despite consistent skill training and mindfulness in movement, no one is ever unfailing. Whereas physical action may most of the time be effective despite being inefficient, sometimes it’s neither efficient nor effective. Your training is not an absolute guarantee against ineffectiveness. Losing balance may happen because you’re not paying attention, because the supporting surface is unpredictable and causes slippage, because you’re pushed, or because you want to fall for a reason. When you get slightly off balance momentarily, you often can recover by counterbalancing to get back to the same original position or by changing position without falling—for instance, by promptly lowering your center of gravity or by using some of the vertical transition techniques that I cover in this chapter.

Falling off the supporting surface is clearly the worst scenario. The danger you face when you fall off an elevated surface without an ability to land on your feet depends on the height, but your position upon impact and the impact surface also play an enormous role in the likelihood of injury and its severity. In short, you may crash or land. Crashing implies a complete lack of control over your landing position or movement, whereas landing implies total or partial control over it. The aim of landing is to avoid collision and crashing by intentionally positioning your body, or moving it, in a way that optimizes the dissipation of impact forces and turns the fall into a controlled landing (or a landing that’s as controlled as possible). This is a self-protective reflex similar to a sprawl when you run and stumble rather than face-planting.

While no amount of technique or training will prevent you from severe body damage if you fall from a great height, sometimes a shorter fall is more dangerous than a longer one because there is too little time for positional control before impact. A longer fall increases the velocity of the trajectory and potentially the force of the impact, but it might enable you to position yourself in a way that enables optimum dissipation of the greater downward kinetic energy—through a front roll, for instance. The distance gives your brain enough time to become aware of the nature of the fall (speed, body position, angle/trajectory, duration, landing surface) and come up with a reflexive movement strategy to attempt landing and reduce the chance of trauma as much as possible. If you fall while balancing at a short height in a bad position, you might crash badly on your back or hit your head. If you fall the same way from a greater height, you might have enough time to land on your feet—if you know how to change your position while you’re airborne and probably scared.

Practice and Progressions

 

The more challenging the surface, the more the risk of falling increases, which, in most cases, forces us to significantly reduce our speed to ensure control and safety. Falling is an inherent part of balancing practice. Consequently, it’s recommended that you start at a low level of complexity and danger, just as you do with all other skills.

I advise to work through the following general progressions tips:

• Start on flat, stable, wide surfaces at ground level then slowly transition to rounded, elevated, and slightly unstable ones. If you aren’t stable on non-moving, flat surfaces at ground level, why would you try to be stable on unstable, rounded surfaces that are elevated?

• You need to know what happens if you do fall. What is your ability to recover safely? One of the simplest answers is to step down if you’re balancing close to the ground or to jump down if you practice at a greater elevation. But can you land safely and repeatedly from the height where you’re practicing?

You must have satisfying answers to these questions before you engage in balancing.

Hold Your Position
(or “Slow Down Cowboy”)

From a technical standpoint, the ability to effortlessly or comfortably hold balancing positions is essential to your ability to move in balance efficiently. Indeed, balancing movements are nothing but the step-by-step establishment of balanced positions in a sequence. Positions that are flawed, uneasy, unstable, or inefficient will become apparent as you try to move dynamically through a sequence. For instance, beginners asked to walk across a balance beam will do it too rapidly, not just for fun but because they try to use speed to help them get across before they lose balance entirely. In this case, speed is a conscious or unconscious strategy to hide and compensate for a lack of stability. Instead of speeding the movement, you need to slow it down to expose your inefficiencies so you can start addressing them. Knowing that your ability to hold static stances is essential to your ability to perform dynamic balancing movements efficiently, the practice of static positions and slow-motion movements is the best way to expose flaws and improve balancing when you begin.

This is the reason I start with the positions that first need to be held with control; the goal is more dynamic, coordinated movements based on positional control and solid fundamental positions. From a practical standpoint, holding stable positions, even briefly, goes beyond supporting efficient movement; we often start and finish balancing with static equilibrium, before we transition to balanced movement. We also need to be able to stop and hold standing positions anytime, to reset our balance and resume moving or to rest, observe, listen, or ensure a smooth transition to a different movement, such as climbing or jumping down.

What, Where, When

To build up your skills and increase your options, you need to practice every position and movement separately and mindfully, and then practice skillful transitions from one to another. You can pick one balancing movement a day and practice a new one every day or every new practice session. Alternatively, you can work on two or three movements within the same session or pick one movement to practice for a whole week or until you feel that you’ve mastered it. The goal in the beginning is to enjoy practice, and changing movements makes the practice more fun by keeping it fresh and satisfying each time. Plus, there is a chance that the gains you make in a certain balancing pattern may transfer to others, at least to some extent. However, some people prefer to establish specific patterns and routines and make sure that they make progress with one thing before they change to something new. If that is your preference, just do that.

For most of these techniques, you can start on a simple 2x4 board on the floor, which is a flat, stable, not-too-narrow surface. It’s also a cheap prop and great for warming up. Warming up in balancing is physiological, of course, but it also has a lot to do with awakening the central nervous system, which is best done at a low level of environmental complexity.

With techniques that involve sitting or transitions to and from balancing (stepping up or down, for instance), you need an elevated surface, but you can keep it at the minimum height necessary for basic practice. As your skills and confidence improve, switch to more challenging surfaces, such as a narrower beam or a surface that’s rounded, smoother, more slippery, slightly unstable, inclined, declined, or uneven, then add elevation or a load (such as a backpack or weighted vest) very gradually.

Adding elevation has a lot to do with the following:

• Training your mental coolness more than your balancing reflexes (even though the difference of visual input can be disturbing at first), especially if you stand above a hard surface.

• Knowing what happens if you do lose balance and assessing with honesty your ability to recover safely from it. You need to find out if you can jump down with control or if you can swiftly sit or hang.

Past a certain level, additional environmental complexity becomes either unsustainable and/or unrealistic. Slacklining is a great example because it presents an approach to movement that is unrealistic. If you had to traverse across a canyon, or above a river on a thin, unstable surface, maybe while carrying a backpack, what would be the fastest and safest way to do it? You wouldn’t balance; you’d hang underneath by your arms and legs. The point is that you shouldn’t minimize in any way the benefits of highly challenging and specialized balancing modes, such as slacklining, surfing, or skiing, nor the immense gratification that stems from them. Instead, you should emphasize that Natural Movement prioritizes the most basic, realistic, useful, natural, and safe applications of human movement potential. For instance, humans may learn to balance on their hands in an inverted position, but fundamental aptitudes of balancing on your feet prevail over the accessory ability of balancing in a handstand. Both balancing on your feet and balancing on your hands have physiological benefit, but the former holds much greater practical value. Without dismissing creative ways of balancing your body, the most useful and frequent techniques should prevail in terms of time and effort dedicated to practice.

Mixing movement skills—for instance, carrying, throwing, or catching something while balancing—is another important step in training. Finally, you learn to integrate your balancing movements with other natural movements within “combos” that you change up frequently. You will soon realize that balancing in isolation and balancing after lifting heavy or sprinting hard is not the same at all. Practicing such transitions will help you develop greater, more realistic experience and a greater sense of your real-life physical competency.

Remember, there is no single “best” balancing position or movement you should confine your balancing practice to. Like other natural movements, the best balancing position or movement is that which adapts best to a given context at a given time. That means you should develop ability with any of the positions and movements listed in this chapter. In the real world, what is otherwise seen in practice as something to avoid, such as counterbalancing with your arms, rounding your back, and even using your knee for support, can be the best thing to do at a given time. The question is, do you intentionally place yourself in a position out of adaptability, effectiveness, and efficiency? Or do you helplessly find yourself in a position or doing a movement because you lack positional control and technique, which forces you into inefficient, risky position and movement options?

Balancing on Feet: Standing

 

Think of making your way across a fallen tree that links the two banks of a river. From a practical standpoint, walking across might not be the only physical action involved. Indeed, you might need to stop and hold a standing, two-footed position at any time to reset your balance, rest, wait, or observe. Learning to maintain joint stability from head to toe, first on two feet and then on one foot, is essential to your ability to hold steady, controlled balancing standing stances and ultimately to walk in balance skillfully. For now, let’s start with the fundamental standing positions and then we’ll progress to movements.

 

1 Step on the beam with one foot in front of the other in a Two-Footed Standing position. Keep your feet aligned with the beam from heel to toes. You should feel that the pressure of your body weight is equally distributed toward the center of your feet. Assume a tall, vertical posture with your arms down and relaxed, your head up, your eyes looking forward. Breathe calmly and minimize postural sway.

2 If you need to look down, do so without tilting your head down (or just barely tilting it).

Don’t fret if things don’t work exactly this way right off the bat. Even if you manage to effectively stay on the beam, inefficiencies might occur: Your feet might move out of alignment with the support surface, your back might be rounded, your torso might lean forward, your head might tilt down too much, your hips might sway, your ankles and knees might shake, your shoulders might shrug, you might be tense all over, or you might hold your breath. All are issues that are likely to lead you sooner or later to lose balance completely.

At this stage, if your immediate reflex is to use your arms to counterbalance and minimize sway in your knees, hips, and torso, try to do it minimally, and with your arms in a set position. Controlling your arms might feel counterintuitive at first, but before you know it, reverting to using your arms because the rest of your body isn’t doing its stabilization job is what will not feel right.

 

1 Practice the same standing position as before with your arms counterbalancing in uneven positions to your sides.

2 Bring your arms level with little sway.

3 Bring your arms straight out in front of you. This position is a little more challenging than keeping them to the sides. It is one step closer to not needing your arms.

Trying to let your arms down too early may result in compensatory issues:

 

1 Your head and torso lean forward to look down at the beam.

2 You look down, clench your fists, and tense your arms.

3 You have a tall posture and look straight, but you shrug your shoulders and press your arms hard against your body.

Once you have mastered a neutral Two-Footed Standing stance with minimal sway and without arm counterbalancing, you can try more challenging variations. Always keep in mind that variations have practical value when balancing is done in context.

 

First while keeping the same base of support:

 

1 Turn your head to the side. You could also tilt it up and down or sideways. Head movements are an easy way to put your vestibular and visual systems in a higher state of alert or confusion and disturb your balance, yet they are very useful for observation and orientation even when balancing. Turn your head very slowly in the beginning without generating instability. Then do swifter head movements as if something required your instant attention in another direction.

2 Rotate your head and trunk. This variation has the same practical purpose as the variation in step 1. Practice it the same way.

3 Tiptoe. This is an essential transitional position that elevates your field of vision or allows you to reach something above you. This drill develops great foot strength and ankle stability. Additionally, once your heels are elevated, you could pivot sideways on the balls of your feet using hip rotation.

 

4 Shift body weight to the front foot in a Half Split Squat. Use this variation to lower your center of gravity to adjust balance, transition to a lower position, or duck under something. It demands more strength and joint stability from the leg and hip that supports most of your weight.

5 Shift your body weight to the back foot with the front heel up. You use this variation to wait or correct balance when stepping forward is challenged or when you’re stepping backward. It demands more strength and joint stability from the leg and hip that supports most of your weight.

6 Assume a deep Hip Hinge while still looking forward. This is useful to duck under an obstacle or to prepare for crawling or sitting down.

Once you’ve mastered, or at least greatly improved, each of these individual stances and movements, start practicing slow transitions from stance to stance and movement to movement in any order you want. Over time, start to do faster transitions. Because you’re in a split stance, make sure to switch your front and back feet regularly. Additional movements could include extending one arm or both arms in various directions or turning or tilting your head to change your line of vision; all are positional changes that could quite easily affect your balance and even make you lose it, but that can easily happen in real-world situations. Really, you can do any variation of position you can think of that you can assume intentionally and with control. An additional, useful, and fun drill, which I like to call “the noodle,” involves making yourself very loose and intentionally creating as much sway as possible while you stay balanced on the beam.

Balancing on the Balls of the Feet

Holding your balance on the balls of your feet is a practical necessity when the support surface is very narrow. Balancing this way improves foot and calf strength, ankle mobility, stability, and postural alignment. The functional benefits of this movement transfer to a better ability in establishing or adjusting your balance when you’re entering balancing by stepping or landing. Beyond that, it transfers greater stability in any movement on your feet, including walking, running, lifting, and landing.

An innate instinct is to try to center your feet on the surface of support to increase the surface of foot that’s supporting your body weight and reduce ankle instability to make yourself more stable. Although this may occasionally help, it’s a strategy that usually works against you. The reason is that it reduces range of motion at foot and ankle level, but range of motion is essential to letting your righting reflex adjust position. By “locking” your feet and ankles in a set, near-immobile position, all adjustments become the responsibility of the joints above the ankles, which increases postural sway and might throw you off-balance. Although learning to tiptoe makes you much more unstable at first, it also supports the development of much greater ankle mobility and stability, and ultimately much greater ability to balance on your feet. You can start tiptoeing on a 2x4 board with your feet aligned it, but this position will not let you lower your heels below the level of your forefeet. When in a side position with your body parallel to the supporting surface, and you’re on the edge of it with your heels in the void, your heels can move lower than the balls of your feet.

All you need to start practice is a stable low box, a flat stone, a stair, a curb—any surface that is flat, stable, and about 3 inches tall.

Step up to a level stance, heels off the surface and horizontally aligned with your toes. You may start with half your foot on the surface and half off the surface, then progressively slide your feet backward to reduce the surface area of your feet in contact with the surface to make it more challenging. Make sure to maintain a tall posture, have your arms down and relaxed, and your head up. Always control your breathing.

Single-Leg Standing Balancing

Imagine a surface so small that it can hold only one foot, such as a rock that barely breaks the surface of a river. You must jump and land on it on one foot, balance there on one leg for a moment, then do a Leg Swing Jump to reach the next rock that is otherwise too far to step to.

Supporting all your body weight on the small surface of a single foot is not a small feat at all! But if you learn to balance on one foot skillfully, then all movement balancing on two feet becomes much easier.

Single-Leg Balancing is arguably the best indicator of bipedal, standing balance (or lack thereof). Indeed, the balancing version of walking is the same step-by-step replication of a sequence alternating single-footed and two-footed standing positions, only this time it’s on a narrow, rounded, or unstable surface. This makes the single-leg phase of the movement, which is the longer one, significantly more challenging. If your single-leg balance is troublesome, it is guaranteed to directly translate to an ugly struggle when you attempt to walk in balance.

Another practical advantage of the ability to balance on one foot is that you can always counterbalance using your free leg rather than your arms if they are unable to assist (maybe because you are holding something), which is very helpful. Whenever you are practicing single-leg positions and movements, make sure to switch feet regularly!

First, practice following progressions as you did with the Two-Footed Standing position.

 

1 Establish the Single-Leg Balancing position with a tall posture, arms down and relaxed, minimal postural sway, and controlled abdominal breath.

2 Look down if it helps at first.

3 Learn to use your free leg for counterbalancing instead of your arms so you can keep your arms down and your head up. Extend your free leg to the side, ideally as low as possible.

Backward Standing Balancing Walk

Walking in balance is a common way to traverse narrow obstacles such as a fallen tree, a beam, or the ledge of a wall. Moving back to where you came from is sometimes necessary when your forward progression is stopped by an obstacle or danger that you may not have foreseen when you were standing some distance back. Reversing your orientation could be difficult or time-consuming, or it may be necessary to keep an eye on the situation in front of you as you move backward away from it.

You might think it’s counterintuitive to start with Backward Standing Balancing Walk, it is actually very beneficial from a practice perspective. Going backward immediately forces you to place the ball of your foot on the surface of support rather than leading with the heel before you shift body weight backward to the rest of your foot, which is also the safest way to walk in balance when you’re moving forward (except when the surface is wide and stable enough to walk with the usual heel-ball sequence). You’re also hard-pressed to look at your feet while going backward, which forces you to use proprioception and exteroception—in essence, feeling your way rather than using visual input to ensure positional control. Go slow at first and work on minimal postural sway and counterbalancing before you increase speed.

 

1 Start in a neutral Standing Split Stance, with tall posture, arms down and relaxed, head up and looking forward.

2 Shift your weight to your back foot, with your knee slightly bent, then release your front foot and pull your front leg toward the back while maintaining joint stability from feet to head.

3 Shift body weight to the back foot and move the front leg backward as in a regular forward step to place the ball of your foot on the surface behind you. At this point, almost 100 percent of your body weight is still on your front foot. Horizontally align the ball of your back foot and your ankle with the beam so that when you shift your weight to your back foot, your whole foot comes flat in a stable manner and is well-aligned with the supporting surface.

4 Push off your front foot and shift all your weight to your back foot, pressing down so your entire foot comes flat and is well-aligned with the surface. You will find yourself in a Split Standing stance with your back leg slightly bent and more body weight on the back foot, ready to repeat the same sequence.

Here are some progressions or variations that are just as beneficial and practical as only trying to walk faster across the beam:

• Bend your legs more, while keeping your upper body upright.

• Bend your legs more with a slight Hip Hinge (straight back).

• Bend your legs more while crouching (with a rounded back, see the next movement).

• Take wider steps.

• Slow your walk and lengthen the time you spend on a single leg.

• Walk across while changing your head position and field of vision.

• Practice walking with your feet at an angle with the beam. Although this is not recommended as a default pattern, it is beneficial to train this way as an option.

• Walk on slightly inclined and declined beams.

• Add light transverse bars perpendicular to the beam, which forces you to either step over or under as if branches or obstacles are in your way. If you don’t have such props, simulate them.

Standing Side Shuffle

The Standing Side Shuffle with your body parallel to the surface of support and your heels off the support is not as convenient or safe as walking forward because you cannot counterbalance through your legs and must mostly rely on shifting the hips and center of gravity forward and backward—but you can use it when you must keep looking straight ahead at something or when you anticipate stepping or jumping off the surface in a forward direction. How far you step to the side depends on how comfortable you are with the movement or how much friction you get on the surface. If the surface is slippery, it’s safer to take short steps. When practicing, start with small steps and then progressively increase the distance per step.

 

1 Assume a stable standing side stance, then shift your weight to your foot that’s in the direction you are headed (the front foot) so you can pull your other leg forward. Once your weight is on your front foot, you can pull your back leg (the one opposite the direction you’re going) forward close to your front foot. You may slightly lift your foot off the surface or slide it if the surface is sufficiently smooth and even. You may look straight forward, in the direction where you are headed, or in the opposite direction.

 

2 Place your back foot against your front foot. Alternatively, it can be safer to place it some distance forward, but not all the way against your front foot. Immediately shift your weight to your back foot so you can extend your front leg forward.

3 Pull your front leg forward and place your front foot on the surface, ready to repeat the sequence.

Reverses/Reversing

 

Reversing while balancing is an important skill. Reversing means changing body orientation but not necessarily changing travel direction. This simple concept can be confusing, as direction and orientation are often understood as being the same thing. Direction is where you go regardless of where you face. Orientation is where you face regardless of where you go. If you are facing and walking forward and then decide to step backward, you would be changing direction while maintaining the same body orientation. Conversely, if you are facing and walking forward then turn your body 180 degrees to face the opposite direction and resume stepping in a backward direction, you have reversed your body orientation while maintaining your original direction. In most cases, a reverse of orientation implies a change of direction as well because it’s always easier and safer to face the direction where you’re going.

Unless you’re already in a low position, standing reverses are not the most stable options, but they are faster because you don’t need to lower your body then stand back up. For greater safety, you may decide to Straddle Sit to reverse your body orientation, and then stand back up (as in the Straddle Sit Reverse).

Cross Reverse

The Cross Reverse is a step-by-step approach to reversing that is more stable and therefore safer than other standing reverse options, but it’s a little slower. It is a good compromise when you must reverse relatively quickly but safely. The Cross Reverse can be easily modified and used to reverse from a standing side stance to the same stance facing the opposite direction.

 

1 Walk forward.

2 While keeping all your body weight on your back foot, bring the ball of your front foot perpendicularly across the surface of the beam. Another option is to start the Cross Reverse from a Split Standing position, shift your body weight to your back foot, and then rotate your front foot perpendicularly to the beam.

 

3 Once your front foot is in position, you can safely shift your body weight onto it. Bending at the knee helps you balance in this position because it allows more range of motion, such as to rotate your back leg externally.

4 With all your weight on your front foot, you can easily rotate your back leg externally so your back foot pivots on its ball and reverses orientation by 180 degrees. If your stance is too narrow, though, you either are forced to pivot on your heel instead of the ball of your foot or to let the ball of your foot slide forward after it pivots. Your back foot must be well aligned with the beam. You may turn your head in the same direction before, simultaneously, or after the rest of your body moves.

5 You now can shift your body weight to your back foot and rotate your hips. At this point, your back foot has become your front foot because you have fully reversed your body orientation.

6 Bring your back leg to the front and resume walking either in the same direction while oriented in the opposite direction, or in the direction opposite to your original direction (but in the same direction as your body orientation).

Pivot Reverse

The Pivot Reverse is the swiftest of the three standing reverse techniques, and it’s also the riskiest. It doesn’t work well for narrow or slippery surfaces because the risk of losing your balance is too great, including the risk that one of your feet will slide off the surface, which makes you fall instantly. Although it is possible to pivot relatively slowly, doing so might increase friction and cause instability, which defeats the purpose of choosing this technique over others for the sake of speed. If you can’t Pivot Reverse quickly, a safer option is to use the Cross Reverse. You can use the Pivot Reverse to change your orientation 90 degrees rather than 180 degrees; in that case it is not a reverse but a change of orientation from a front to side standing balancing stance (or the other way around).

 

1 Start in a Standing Split Stance.

 

2 Keeping your body weight evenly distributed between each foot, slightly lift both heels at the same time to shift your weight onto the balls of your feet. Lift them just enough to reduce friction. Elevating too high makes balancing more challenging.

3 Start turning your head then swiftly rotate your hips, which makes you pivot. Turning your head first helps your vestibular system get a sense of direction and position in space more quickly and helps you know where to stop your motion when your head and vision are aligned with the direction of the balancing surface. Your body weight must remain evenly distributed between both feet during the turn. Keep your arms relaxed and allow them to swing naturally and follow the rest of the body.

4 Your head should fully face the opposite direction before the rest of your body does.

5 You can now bring the rest of your body to align with your head. Once your whole body is lined up facing the direction opposite the one in which you started, lower your heels to the surface of the beam and resume moving either in the same direction you were moving (although your orientation is opposite what it was originally) or move in the direction opposite your original direction (which is the same as your new body orientation).

Deep Split Squat Reverse

The Deep Split Squat Reverse is a safer way to reverse than standing because your center of gravity is low. In case you go off balance, it’s easy and quick to lean forward to support yourself with your arms or lower yourself to a Straddle Sit position. You can do a Deep Split Squat Reverse in a slow and safe step-by-step fashion or in a swift pivot motion like the standing Pivot Reverse. I recommend starting with the slower version because it exposes potential stability issues and teaches you the pivot sequence better. Increase the speed of the movement progressively until you are ready to switch to the swifter Deep Split Squat Pivot Reverse.

 

1 Assume a stable Deep Split Squat Stance with tall posture and your arms down.

 

2 Shift a bit of weight to your front foot so you can externally rotate your back leg easily.

3 Rotate your front leg internally to position yourself in a Deep Knee Bend. You may pause here to stabilize if needed.

4 Turn your head and trunk in the direction you’re headed while externally rotating the leg on that side.

5 Complete the reverse by internally rotating your back leg, which puts you in the Deep Split Squat position facing the opposite direction.

To perform the faster Pivot Reverse from a squat, lift both heels simultaneously and use a swift rotational motion from your hips to reverse all the way to the opposite direction, which is like the standing Pivot Reverse but is in a Deep Split Squat position. It is essential to constantly keep the balls of your feet centered on the beam during the pivoting motion to maintain foot and ankle stability. With both options, let your arms naturally follow the motion of your body, or you can rest them on your knees.

Balancing on Feet and Hands

 

Going on all fours to lower your center of gravity can be a safer approach to balancing because you are balancing on three or four points of support instead of two. Also, you might be able to transition quickly to the more stable balancing positions of sitting and lying, which is helpful if the surface is slippery, unstable, or both, or if you’re loaded with a backpack. (However, the safest approach of all is to traverse while sitting, which I cover later in this section.) Together with the squatting, lying, and sitting balancing positions, balancing on all fours is the balancing version of ground movement, with a very low center of gravity.

Foot and hand positions also can be transitional stances when you are getting up onto a narrow surface from climbing or sitting or when you’re moving from standing to lower positions, including hanging underneath the surface of support.

I cover positions that start on all fours, two feet and one hand, one foot and two hands, and even one foot and one hand. I cover these plank positions when I talk about ground movement, but practicing them while balancing is a whole different story. Not all of them have the same importance in balancing because some are less likely to be used than others. All the positions require great levels of core and joint stability, and for that reason are excellent ways to develop stability—especially in the case of the positions that have a base of support of fewer than four points. The effort required to elongate your spine and keep it level with your hips as you maintain abdominal breathing also holds phenomenal benefits for postural rehabilitation that can carry over to a whole spectrum of movement.

Positions and Movements on Feet and Hands

   

1 Long base with extended legs, level feet and hands for the foot-hand position. Joints are aligned from ankles to neck, and your arms are in the lockout position.

2 Same as position 1 with your arms fully flexed.

3 Long base with extended legs, slightly staggered hands, and a single-foot support. Joints are aligned from ankles to neck, and your arms are in the lockout position.

Foot-Hand Crawl

The pattern, sequence, and timing of this balancing movement is like the Foot-Hand Crawl movements described in Chapter 24, “Ground Movement 1.” The difference is in the position of the points of support; in the balancing variation, all four points of support are aligned with the body’s midline, which narrows the base of support. If you were to take a photo from the front, all you would see would be a head and two arms, with most of the rest of the body hidden behind. The narrow base of support makes stability quite challenging.

My advice and reminders for efficiency are the same here as they were for the ground movement variation except that I want to stress the importance of all aspects of efficiency in this technique even more than I did before. Any mistake will cause you a moment of imbalance from which you may not able to recover, and that will make you fall off the surface where you’re balancing. Focus on keeping your back level, locking out your arms (especially during the phase where you hold the position on one arm), and breathing abdominally to avoid unnecessary tensions.

This is especially the case when you practice the balancing variation of the 4-2 points of support technique, where you must hold a contralateral stance on one foot and one hand only every cycle. From a practical standpoint, the 4-2 points-of-support sequence is less stable and riskier than the 4-3 sequence, so I don’t recommend using it in a real-life situation unless you are in perfect control. However, from a practice standpoint, it is a formidable way to develop optimal stability in the Foot-Hand Crawl.

One of the most common reflexes when performing the balancing Foot-Hand Crawl is to try to use your hands for stabilization by strongly grasping the narrow surface that’s supporting you. Although this occasionally can be useful, you want to train to rely on positional control rather than grip strength. If you lose balance while on all fours, no amount of grip strength will save you from falling into a hanging position. A better training strategy is to refrain from superfluous tension in the hands and forearms, and a better recovery strategy is to push your body weight away from your hands and toward your feet, which have a much greater ability to support body weight and provide stability.

Before I finish this section about foot-hand balancing, I want to address a few more positions that use feet and hands and can be held and used for a variety of practical reasons but also prove particularly useful in various get-up strategies and techniques. As usual, it’s a good idea to practice these positions so they become stable and efficient before you integrate them within complex movement sequences.

Balancing Sitting on Your Rear

 

Sitting allows you to rest, observe, communicate, look for something in your bag, throw or catch something light from a steady position, and recover your balance or sense of safety.

You may sit on your rear, with both legs on one side or straddling, with or without the support of your hands and feet. You could even traverse in such Straddle Sit positions by using your arms. It creates many possible position variations.

The following sit positions also represent important stances that are essential to getting up and down.

These positions are ideally practiced separately. Once you have mastered them and become comfortable, they naturally integrate with more complex sequences.

 

1 Side Straddle Two-Hand position. Your rear and back of the upper part of the supporting leg bear most of the weight (which is different than the Double-Hand, Single-Leg Hook climbing position).

2 Side Straddle Single Opposite Hand position, leaning sideways. The weight is equally distributed between the leg and the arm.

3 Front Straddle, Two-Handed Sit. Slightly lean forward to shift your weight to your hands and use them for greater stability.

4 Front Straddle, Rear-Hand Sit. Lean backward and shift some weight to your rear hand to help with overall stability. Keep a hand to the front to secure your position.

5 Single-Foot Hook, Two-Handed Front Straddle Sit.

6 Double-Foot Hook, Two-Handed Front Straddle Sit.

7 Front Straddle Sit, no hands. Be ready to lean forward and place your hands on the surface in case you get off balance.

Straddle Sit Movements

Sitting while moving in balance across a surface is a slow but secure way to move. People afraid of heights often manage to overcome their fear by moving in a sit. Though it does make traversing or reversing movement slower than other movements, it also significantly increases stability and therefore safety, especially if you are carrying a load on your back. I would choose this approach if the risk and danger I am exposed to are significant.

If the surface is too wide to Straddle Sit comfortably, then crawling would be probably a better option; on the other hand, if the surface is too narrow and unstable, I would probably hang traverse it from underneath. Movement choice is always a matter of context.

Balancing Lying on Thighs, Belly, Chest, Hands

 

The diverse prone or side-lying positions are great positions for rest, observation, hiding, or trying to reach something. They offer a wide, reliable, and safe base of support, and they even allow you to entirely let go of your legs and arms if necessary. It is always possible to be thrown off balance of even the most stable positions, but the great advantage of the lying position is that you can spin around on the surface and end up hanging from beneath it (if the surface of support is narrow enough for your body to hang from it).

You might notice that there is no photo that shows me balancing on my back in a Supine Lying position, and that’s for a good reason. Although it’s not impossible to use that position when balancing, it’s very unstable. If you lose balance, which is bound to happen, you’re unable to recover by hanging, and a fall is guaranteed. So, a Supine Lying balancing position has very little practical value. However, you may attempt it at a low height—let’s say for movement feedback, experience, or fun. If you ever happen to rest on your back—for example, on a tree branch—make sure it is wide enough. You’ve been warned!

By using your legs and arms, you will be able to traverse forward and even climb in balance if the surface is inclined. As always, you want to practice these positions separately before you train transitions or actual movements.

 

1 Forearms Side Straddle Lying

2 Front Straddle Lying, overhand extended arms

 

3 Front Straddle Lying, relaxed/loose arms

4 Single-Foot Hook Front Straddle Lying, overhand bent arms

5 Side Belly Lying, arm reaching

6 Vertical Hand Press

Getting Up and Down/Vertical Transitions

 

There are many reasons why you might need to elevate or lower your position and center of gravity in relation to the surface of support where you’re balancing. You may do it after entering or before exiting balancing, to move faster, to be more stable and secure, to reverse your orientation, or to prepare a transition to another movement skill or surface (such as climbing down, jumping off, or climbing up).

The purpose of all the techniques I’m presenting is precisely to enable such vertical transitions both upward and downward (except for the fall recovery technique that only works going down). In some way, all these vertical transitions are climbing—up or down—movements as well. However, the nature of the environment (narrow and/or unstable) and the level of balance and stability they require categorizes them primarily as balancing techniques. No doubt movement improvements made to balancing may benefit some areas of climbing. Even though there are fewer balancing get-up options than in ground movement, if you have already become proficient at ground positions and movements, these balancing patterns and sequences will feel familiar, and you will become adept more quickly.

Techniques are shown starting from low and going upward. Like the get-up techniques in ground movement, you simply need to reverse the sequence to learn the downward movement.

I call the lowest balancing position the Vertical Hand Press and explain various strategies for you to move your position up from it, either by sitting first or directly placing your feet on the surface of the support in a foot-hand manner, then moving to either a Deep Knee Bend or a Deep Split Squat. Your initial and final positions when getting up and down depend on your training objectives in practice and on context in the real world, but I cover all your options in this section.

As for which get-up technique you should preferably use in the real world, it depends on a lot of factors:

• Who is doing the movement, in what environment and situation, with what level of efficiency for each of these techniques?

• Which movement is the fastest, or rather which one can you do the fastest?

• Which movement is the safest, or rather which one can you do most safely?

• Which movement is the most adapted to your environment or weather conditions?

• Which movement is the most adapted to the situation you’re facing?

• Which movement places you in the best position for the next move?

• Are you carrying something? If so, is it heavy, and does it impair your freedom of movement or create instability?

• Are you insecure or afraid?

• Are you physically tired? What is the level of danger and the level of risk in relation to the danger?

Given that you can’t predict anything, you’d better train as many techniques as you can for optimum competency and preparedness. That way, if you ever find yourself in a real-life situation, you can choose the most appropriate option without even thinking of it. That’s unconscious competency.

Vertical Hand Press Drills

The Vertical Hand Press is the single most important transitional position between climbing and balancing. It is, in most cases, where balancing starts after you’ve been hanging and you’re climbing up, and sometimes where balancing ends when you’re climbing down to hanging. The Vertical Hand Press is the lowest balancing position; your center of gravity is slightly above the surface of support. You hold your position with your body in a side position, oriented perpendicularly to the surface of support and fully supported by both hands (with some contact and support from the belly); your arms are in the lockout position. Once this stance is established, you can transition to a Straddle Sit and then to the Deep Split Squat, or you can go directly to a Deep Knee Bend.

Your ability to hold the Vertical Hand Press in an efficient and comfortable way has paramount importance. You will find diverse techniques leading to this movement in Chapter 29, “Climbing Movement.”

The following drills are designed to help you develop the essential upper-body strength, joint stability, and short-range motions you need to get up efficiently from the Vertical Hand Press. These drills also tremendously help you with vaulting techniques (in Chapter 28, “Airborne Movement”).

Vertical Hand Press Forward-Leaning Drill

 

1 Assume the neutral Vertical Hand Press position. Your hands are placed just outside your hips, your palms support your body weight, and your arms are in the lockout position with your elbows fully rotated externally for optimum stability. Your shoulders are down and away from your ears.

2 Without bending at the hip or elbow or compromising your straight posture, lean forward until you feel that you can’t lean forward more. Do this drill slowly at first and then do it dynamically.

3 Maintain your arms in the lockout position and keep pulling your body up by leaning slightly forward. Use abdominal strength and elevate your hips above the bar (or to the highest point you can reach). When you perform a transition from the Vertical Hand Press to the Tripod Transition, you might not need to pull your hips as high as shown in the photo, but for the purposes of training strength and positional control, it is useful to reach the maximum elevation you can.

SAFETY NOTE

 

You may use a crash pad or spotter, unless you are physically ready to roll into a Down Hanging position.

 

Vertical Hand Press Body-Weight Shifting Drill

To practice this drill, start in the neutral Vertical Hand Press position and then shift your body weight from side to side, always keeping the supporting arm in the lockout position. You may hold the position on each side for several seconds or switch sides quickly.

Single-Hand Press

Learning to balance in a Vertical Hand Press on a single hand obviously takes more strength and joint stability than using two hands. It can be a practical position if you need to temporarily use one hand for something other than balancing. To stay balanced, you need to vertically center your hand and arm with your body, aligning your base of support and your center of gravity. Hold it for 3 to 10 seconds in the lockout. This drill will greatly help with the Vertical Hand Press Traverse.

Vertical Hand Press Traverse

After you’ve learned to shift your body weight from side to side and hold the Single-Hand Press, it becomes easy to traverse to the other side of the bar. First shift your weight to your front hand (closer to the direction you’re going), which allows you to bring your trail hand closer to your front hand. Then shift your weight to your trail hand so you can bring your front hand farther up the bar. If you want to cover more distance per cycle, try to reach farther with your front hand, but also bring your trail hand right next to the front one.

High Vertical Hand Press

This movement is essential for allowing you to elevate your hips and legs before a balancing Tripod Transition. You can practice this movement separately, but it’s also part of the balancing Tripod Transition techniques and associated drills shown later in this section.

Side Tripod Get-Up

The pattern of this technique is quite similar to the Tripod Get-Up I discussed in Chapter 25, but it’s adapted to the height and narrowness of the surface upon which it is performed. When done while balancing, the Side Tripod Get-Up becomes a highly technical move. It starts or ends either in the Vertical Hand Press position or in an angled Straddle Sit, and it transitions to either a Deep Knee Bend with the body’s orientation perpendicular to the surface of support, or a Deep Split Squat with the body’s orientation parallel to the surface. If the support surface is inclined, make sure to place the supporting hand at a level above the supporting foot.

Vertical Hand Press to Deep Knee Bend

 

1 Assume the neutral Vertical Hand Press.

2 Aim to place one foot on the bar next to the outside of your hand. Start pressing on your hands to lower your shoulders while elevating your hips above the bar. Shift more body weight to the hand opposite the side where your foot will be, then pull your leg up to the other side. Depending on your mobility, you might need to elevate your waist to manage placing your foot right next to the outside of your hand. Accurately and firmly position the ball of your foot on the bar with your leg fully bent, your knee vertically aligned with your foot, and your body leaning slightly forward and very slightly toward your supporting hand.

 

3 Shift your body weight to your supporting foot to create a two-point support base between your foot and the hand on the opposite side; this enables you to release your inside hand. Your supporting arm remains in a strong lockout position. Your center of gravity is well adjusted over your base of support to keep you as stable as possible. Optionally, you could rotate your supporting hand externally if it adds comfort (depending on the surface).

4 Using both your supporting leg and arm for stability, push strongly off your foot to elevate your hips as they move backward and more or less sideways, with your foot supporting most of your body weight (which shifts your center of gravity horizontally closer above your foot than your hand). You want to create sufficient vertical space that you can bend and pull your lower leg up high enough for your foot to smoothly reach the top of the bar. However, limit hip motion, the distance traveled by your rear foot, and the time spent during this transition to as little as possible. You may use your free arm for counterbalancing, if needed.

5 Place the ball of your trail foot right between your supporting hand and foot, shifting most of your body weight to your feet.

6 Push off your supporting hand to fully shift all your weight to your feet, releasing your hand and establishing a stable Deep Knee Bend, with your arms relaxed and resting on your knees.

Faults

Even if you’ve mastered the ground version of the Tripod Get-Up, the balancing version can easily generate mistakes that, at best, will make you lose energy and time; at worst, these faults will make you fall. Let’s review the main issues.

 

1 Having bent arms prevents you from elevating your waist, which in turn prevents you from lifting your leg high enough for your foot to reach the top of the supporting surface.

2 Having your arms in the lockout position, but instead of elevating your waist you sink low in your position with your shoulders higher than they should be and your head lower, which prevents you from raising your leg and foot high enough.

3 Trying to bring your foot on the bar with your leg extended straight out to the side because you haven’t elevated your waist high enough. Even if you manage to put your foot on the bar, your leg won’t be positioned so you can push off it, and you will stay stuck in that position.

4 Placing your foot on the bar way too far to the side. This position creates a base of support that is very wide and unstable. With your leg barely bent, your knee and foot are not vertically aligned, and you’re forced to exaggeratedly lean sideways. You might manage to push off your foot a little, but you’ll have insufficient hip motion range and might not be able to create enough vertical space for your inside foot to reach the top of the bar. Even if you succeed at placing your foot on the bar, you’ll find yourself in a very difficult, unsustainable position. There is also a good chance that the supporting foot will simply slide away as you attempt to push off it, making you fall back to a hanging position.

 

5 This position is almost correct, but the heel is at high risk of abruptly sliding forward as you start pushing off it and release the hand next to the foot. If this happens, you might lose balance backward and fall back to a hanging position or fall all the way off the bar.

6 If you don’t trust your balance in the position using a single supporting arm, you might keep both hands on the support, waiting until the last moment to release your inside hand. You might manage to lift your hips and leg higher, but a lack of mobility may prevent you from shifting your weight to your outside foot and releasing your inside hand. Therefore, you might not be able to create the space necessary to place your trailing foot on the bar, and you’ll be stuck in a very precarious and unsustainable position. This option is manageable only by experienced practitioners who have great mobility.

Other inefficiencies include the following:

• Your supporting arm comes out of the lockout position as you try to elevate your waist and pull your lower leg up, which immediately generates instability and makes it impossible to create the space needed to pass your leg through.

• Having a very narrow base of support in the Vertical Hand Press with your hands close to each other and bringing your foot right next to your hand with a very narrow base of support during the get-up. It can be effective if you have great lower-body joint mobility and upper-body joint stability, but unless the context is such that you must use this narrow base of support, it is not the most convenient and efficient way to do it.

• Having an overly wide base of support in the Vertical Hand Press with your hands apart significantly more than shoulder width. If you place your trail foot outside your hand, your base of support is way too wide and unstable.

Side Tripod Get-Up Beginner Drills

Drill 1

From the neutral Vertical Hand Press stance, elevate your body to the High Vertical Hand Press position, then lift one leg up and to the side. Bring the ball of your foot just outside your hand and just above the bar without touching the surface. You may look at your foot or learn to position it accurately using proprioception only. Get back to the neutral position and lift the opposite leg. (See photos 1 and 2 for Drill 4 on the next page.)

Drill 2

Same as Drill 1, but this time you place the ball of your foot on the support and shift weight on it to enable you to release your inside hand and establish the Side Opposite Single-Foot, Single-Hand vertical position. Stabilize and maintain the position a few seconds, then get back to the neutral position and do the same on the other side. (See photo 3 for Drill 4 on the next page.)

Drill 3

Establish the Side Opposite Single-Foot, Single-Hand Vertical position then push off your foot strongly. Use both your supporting leg and arm for stability, pull your trail leg up and elevate your waist. You need to push your body back (or to the side) toward your foot with your arm to shift your center of gravity close to above your foot. Keep your trail leg straight, instead focusing on elevating your waist as high as you can to create vertical space while maintaining optimum stability. You may use your free arm for counterbalancing, if needed. Once you have reached the highest waist elevation you can, you get back to the Side Opposite Single-Foot, Single-Hand Vertical position, then repeat again. After a few repetitions on one side, switch to the other side. (See photos 4 and 5 for Drill 4.)

Drill 4

Practice the entire sequence from the neutral Vertical Hand Press to the high Side Opposite Single-Foot, Single-Hand Vertical position (photos 1 through 5).

 

Sit to Deep Split Squat Get-Ups

 

The following get-up lets you transition from the Front Straddle Sit to the Deep Split Squat while maintaining the same orientation. It’s more secure and relatively easier to do than a tripod get-up because you are using both hands for support (although you also can do it with single-hand support), and you do the movements without hip rotation.

Single-Foot Hook Get-Up

 

1 Start in the Straddle Sit, with your hands close together in front of you and your upper body leaning forward.

2 Pull one foot up behind your rear and hook it on the surface of the bar. It’s easier to pull your foot onto the supporting surface if you extend your leg behind you with your foot away from your rear, but this widens your stance and limits your ability to elevate your hip. If you lack the flexibility to pull your foot close to your rear, you can elevate your waist by pushing off your arms. You need enough foot surface to be on the support to feel that you will be able to pull from that foot and support body weight on it; just the tip of your toes is not sufficient. However, do not position the upper, harder part of your foot near the ankle on the surface, as it will be uncomfortable, provide little range of motion, and be much more prone to slippage.

3 Having positioned your foot adequately to create friction, you now can pull from it and elevate your waist, while leaning and shifting weight a little more toward the front.

4 Having created the vertical space you need, you can pull your free foot up onto the top surface of the bar and place it flat on the bar.

 

5 Modify the position of your back foot from hooked to bent (dorsiflexion) on the ball of your foot. From there you can push backward off your hands and front foot in a Deep Split Squat.

6 Establish a stable Deep Split Squat with good posture and relaxed arms.

Deep Split Squat Get-Up and Deep Knee Bend Get-Up

On both the way up and down, the Deep Split Squat and Deep Knee Bend Get-Ups are either natural extensions of all the get-up strategies you’ve seen so far, or they’re short, stand-alone get-ups if you remain on your feet from start to finish. It’s essential to realize the importance of being able to swiftly lower your body from standing to the Deep Split Squat or Deep Knee Bend when your balance is challenged, rather than struggling in a standing position too long and compromising any chance of recovery. When the righting reflex fails when you’re standing, or before it does, the “right” thing to do is recover balance by swiftly lowering the center of gravity and even immediately supporting yourself with your hands.

The balancing version of the Deep Split Squat Get-Up is like the same pattern on the ground, but you need to ensure positional control and impeccable joint stability to minimize postural sway. It starts with the ability to hold a stable balancing Deep Split Squat and Deep Knee Bend, of course.

Once you are comfortable enough in these low-center-of-gravity positions, you can start practicing the transition to and from standing.

TECHNIQUE TIP

 

Although you want to start slowly and focus on joint stability, ultimately you want to develop the ability to lower or raise your center of gravity at any speed. However, keep in mind that the ability to swiftly get down is paramount.

For practice, try using the following speeds:

• Down slow and up slow

• Down fast and up fast

• Down fast and up slow

• Down slow and up fast

• Combine any of the above

 

Variations on Balancing

 

So, before reading this section did you think that balancing was restricted to standing and walking on your feet and a list of three or four “functional fitness” drills on a BOSU or slackline? Those activities are great, but they represent a tiny fraction of what balancing has to offer.

Even though balancing from a Natural Movement perspective emphasizes the most realistic and practical ways to balance, overall balancing is open to many more creative and fun ways. There are more ways you can make balancing more adaptable to more environmental variables as shown in the next set of photos. If you want to get creative with non-practical ideas, the list becomes endless!

 

1 Stepping over in a Foot-Hand Crawl position. The obstacle can be attached to something and held in a fixed position, or a training partner can hold it. It should be at a level that is challenging for the person practicing without being impossible.

2 Inclined or declined surface, depending on your direction. The surface can be fixed at a given angle or held by a training partner and adjusted by changing position. For instance, the person holding the bar could be squatting, tall kneeling, kneeling, and so on. It’s essential that the person holding the bar prevents it from rolling sideways.

 

3 Skill-mix balancing and running (or running in balance, if you prefer). This is best practiced safely at ground level. This practice is great for developing accuracy.

4 Skill-mix walking balancing and hand carrying. You could hold a single object with a single hand, or Waist Carry, Chest Carry, or Shoulder Carry a variety of objects with different shapes and weights, on different surfaces, at different speeds, for varied distances. The possibilities are almost endless. Balancing carries on inclined surfaces notably help dorsiflexion, which is one of the main reasons for struggling in the Deep Squat.

So, is that all? Of course not! There is even more potential for skill-mix drills. Also remember all the possibilities I have already mentioned—going fast or very slow; accelerating and decelerating; holding positions; going in various directions (forward, backward, sideways) with different body orientation; looking up, down, or to the side; closing your eyes; reaching with your arms or legs; switching from and to different balancing positions and movements; or alternating balancing moves with other movement skills. Also, you can make volume, intensity, and complexity progressions, such as doing more repetitions; practicing for a longer duration; increasing the elevation or narrowness of the surfaces; making them inclined or declined at a greater angle; making them more rounded, unstable, slippery; or a combination of all the above.

You can turn balancing practice into games, such as trying to destabilize and push an “opponent” off a beam where both “opponents” stand. It’s up to you to always be creative and surprise your body and challenge yourself at a higher level. If you do so, you will never reach a plateau.