Side-to-Side Shifts (Patreon)

• LMA Curriculum

Believe it or not, this is one of the most important movements in the curriculum. It not only develops your sea legs, but also teaches you to shift your weight while remaining in stance and keeping your center of gravity low. The ability to shift your weight over and over without fatiguing or losing balance is key to fighting. So many of your combative movements will be variations of this movement, not only standing but also while grappling. You want to get to a point where you can do this continuously for a long time.

First drop your center of gravity then don't come back up. Shift your weight from side to side, leg to leg, making sure you don't lose your balance forward or backward, and that you don't shift to the side so far that you lose ground contact or rootedness in the other foot. Because one foot is driving, the other is the supporting. Make sure you feel most of the weight on your glutes not your knees.

Memorize this feeling, of your weight shifting, so you always have a sense of where your weight and balance is. Because sometimes your weight will shift unconsciously, whether by your own actions or because your opponent forced you into it. Knowing how this feels will make it harder to throw or off-balance you.

Down here will be your home from now on. Keep your abs and glutes tight, and exhale with every shift.

– Sam