Marching Position One With High Hurdle Step (Patreon)

• LMA Curriculum

We're taking Marching Position One and adding a high hurdle step between the stance switches.

After you turn your lead foot out to Position One, lift your rear leg and simulate clearing an imaginary high hurdle by pulling your leg close to your body and flexing your foot up to avoid snagging the hurdle.

(Lifting your leg and tucking the front of your foot up to your shin preloads the teep, making it that much quicker. If an opponent rushes you before you can deliver your teep, since your foot is already lifted, they'll run into the ball of your foot, so you can push them away or even push yourself away.)

With one leg raised, there's a slight lean back to prevent falling forward, but be cautious not to over-lean and lose your balance backward. Wayfind and explore your balance. Balance isn't a fixed point in time or space, it's alive, and you have to adapt your balance based on the conditions. Losing balance is an essential part of the wayfinding process. You're losing balance to find where you are in space. It's fruitful.

The conditions to clear the hurdle are to place your foot on the other side without catching the hurdle with your foot, thigh, or groin. "Placing" means continuous control.

Control should persist from the beginning to the end of the movement, avoiding surrendering control to gravity or momentum. In combat, losing control can lead to dire consequences. Rather than catching the hurdle, you'll catch a counter. In both this movement exercise and life, the hurdle is representative of an obstacle you'd rather avoid than crash into.

There's a tendency to lean too far back to compensate for flexibility or mobility at the cost of balance. Two common examples:

• Leaning too far back to lift your leg higher.
• Leaning back rather than moving your feet.

Rather than rescuing yourself from improvement, explore the areas that need improving.

In both martial arts and daily life, our back often endures the most strain as we frequently use it to compensate. Distribute the load and improve your abilities. You don't know what you're capable of unless you explore it.

– Sam