"...after you have done everything, to stand." Ephesians 6:13

Training Drills: Posture or Form and Balance

A great deal of posture and balance are created with proper movement and breathing. Be sure to review the Movement and Breathing drills for further ideas.

Rolls

Various sources

Rolling can be thought of as maintaining form in a ball. It is an essential skill for turning a fall into an attack without injuring yourself. It is one of the fundamentals of virtually any martial art and should be practiced as often as possible on a hard surface to teach your body to be free and soft.

Sonny Puzikas and others recommend doing as many as 50 rolls a day for about a month to become proficient at this fundamental skill.

Get on all fours - hands and knees then put one arm out to the side or underneath your body as desired with the palm up.
Lean forward tucking your head under your body as if trying to touch your nose to the knee opposite the arm you folded and touch your shoulder to the floor.
Push off with your feet to roll over on your back and exhale with the movement. Use the weight of your feet and legs to adjust your roll for direction since you will probably keep rolling to the side of the shoulder at first.
Note: Exhaling with the roll helps you learn to be soft and relaxed during the roll. It is important to begin with this discipline in breathing to develop the proper relaxation.
When you're comfortable with that, work up to starting the roll from a standing position. There are a couple of methods you can try to make this easier:
- Drop forward from a standing position slowly and touch the floor with your hands while bouncing your feet off the ground as if jumping forward. After you are comfortable with this movement, let one arm slowly collapse underneath or off to the side tucking your head under as before. Kick off faster so that the collapse of your arm will add to the momentum and you will feel the roll naturally.
- Or - Have a partner on their hands and knees in front of you with your knees close to their side. Bend over your parnter and lower one shoulder down while folding your arm and tucking your head as before. If you allow yourself to fall gently to your shoulder and kick off the floor to avoid your partner, you will find the roll happens naturally.

Variation
Vary the roll by trying to end it by letting your body go flat on your back slowly and softly like water seeking its own level.

Vary the roll by rolling backwards and ending by slowly laying your body out flat on your stomach.

Vary the roll by starting from a flat on your back into a back roll or flat on your stomach into a forward roll.

Vary the roll exercise with a partner where he attempts to escape and you pursue by only rolling. When you are skilled at "catching" your partner, add takedowns from the roll when s/he is caught.

Floating Walk

from Vladimir Vasiliev

Mr. Vasiliev demonstrates this drill in the "Systema: Hand to Hand" video. It helps you to feel how you should move and retain your form as much as possible.

Slightly bend your knees and push your pelvis forward.
Have your training partner gently push you and move with the tension of his push without losing form - back and head straight at all times. If you are doing it correctly, it will be as if you were floating across the floor.
Allow your partner to continue gently for a while then gradually push a little harder against your head, shoulders, back, or stomach to guide you around the floor as he wishes.

Variation
Vary the drill by wearing a blindfold.

Vary the drill so that your partner uses a training knife or stick to push you about.

The Ninja Walk

from Attack Proof by Perkins, Rindehour, and Kovsky

To be effective in training the muscles associated with balance, it is important to do this drill slowly. Each step forward or backward should take at least 40 seconds to perform.

Stand in a slight forward stance - one leg slightly in front of the other and both feet pointing forward. Be sure your back is straight and you are keeping good posture and that you breath deep into your stomach as in the Relaxed Breathing drill.
Slowly shift the majority of your weight onto the front foot without lifting your back foot off the floor. Your back foot should remain flat on the floor.
Lift your big toe inside the shoe of your back foot without lifting your foot then slowly lift your back foot off the floor keeping it parallel with the floor by slowly straightening your front leg. Do not allow your back foot to push off in order to assist nor let your back leg bend, lift only by straigtening your front leg.
Slowly bend your back leg knee until your back toe is pointing straight down at the floor.
Slowly bend your front knee to squat your entire body and tap your back toe on the floor twice. Be sure not to put any weight on your back toe but just lightly tap it by bending then straightening only your front leg.
Slowly swing your back leg forward until your heal is pointing at the floor in front of you. Again, bend and straighten your weightbearing leg to tap your heal twice.
Set the tapping leg down in front of you flat on the floor and slowly shift your weight to it. You have taken a step forward and it should have taken you about 40 seconds - the longer the better.
Repeat these steps with the other leg so that you are slowly walking forward.

Variation
Challenge yourself by keeping your tapping foot high enough that you have to do deep one-leg squats to bring it to the floor.

Vary the drill by tapping in front first and then behind so that you are walking slowly backwards.

Vary the drill by using a blindfold.

Vary the drill by performing it on a rocky, uneven surface.

Vary the drill by performing it going up or down stairs. Adjust your leg position as needed to avoid hitting the steps with the leg that is in the air.

Vacuum Walk

from Attack Proof by Perkins, Rindehour, and Kovsky

This is similar to the Ninja Walk in the beginning but concentrates more on the balancing muscles around your hips more than in your legs. It also provides an increased sensitivity to the ground surface to improve your ability to move and retain form in the dark or on rough terrain.

Stand in a slight forward stance - one leg slightly in front of the other and both feet pointing forward. Be sure your back is straight and you are keeping good posture and that you breath deep into your stomach as in the Relaxed Breathing drill.
Slowly shift the majority of your weight onto the front foot without lifting your back foot off the floor. Your back foot should remain flat on the floor.
Lift your big toe inside the shoe of your back foot without lifting your foot then slowly lift your back foot off the floor keeping it parallel with the floor by slowly straightening your front leg. Do not allow your back foot to push off in order to assist nor let your back leg bend, lift only by straigtening your front leg.
Bring your rear leg up beside the weight-bearing leg while keeping it the same distsance from the floor.
Slowly make a crescent shape out in front in the air with your foot. Keep your foot level with the floor at the same distance from the floor; to do so, you will need to bend your weight-bearing leg up or down to compensate for the movement.
After making a crescent out to one side away from your body, return it by making a crescent toward the back and back to next to your weight-bearing leg.
Repeat the double-crescent move a second time and then place your foot out front or back as if taking a small step forward or backward and slowly shift your weight to that leg.
Repeat the movements with the other leg. Do as many repetitions as you can. If done correctly, it should be difficult to continue this drill for more than 5 minutes.

Variation
Vary the drill in the same ways as you vary the Ninja Walk.

Box Step

Adapted from Attack Proof by Perkins, Ridenhour, and Kovsky

The box step helps strengthen balance in conjunction with movement.

Mark out a 3 foot by 3 foot square on the floor with chalk or tape.
Start with your right foot on one corner pointing in toward the center of the square and your left foot slightly behind outside the square turned at a 90 degree angle to your right foot.
With your rear foot, step across the square to another corner while turning so that the left foot is now on the other corner pointed toward the center of the square and your right foot is behind at 90 degrees.
Repeat to random corners. Stepping directly across requires a 180 degree turn over the square while stepping to the one adjacent corner will require a 270 degree turn. Attempt not to twirl like a ballerina but instead to float across the square keeping your back straight and head up.

Variation
Vary the drill by wearing a blindfold. You may need to "peek" from time to time to ensure you are not moving too far off the square and that you are correcting your mental picture of the square as needed.
Vary the drill by adding a heavy stick that you hold and swing in a circle over your head slowly with one rotation for each step. Vary it even more, after mastering the stick movement, by replacing the stick with a sledge hammer and weilding the sledge hammer in ways that challenge your balance while moving. In each case, go slowly and attempt to hold the stick or hammer with the minimum grip necessary to keep from dropping it. In this way, you learn to overcome the tendency to grab and hold during a fight.
Vary the drill by asking your training partner to walk toward you or try to enter your corner and then step to a different corner of the square just as he enters the square so that you avoid him while still finding the other corner.
Vary the drill with a training partner and adding strikes as you "land" at the new corner or as you pass your partner. Add a takedown when the opportunity presents.
Vary the drill by having a training partner use a training knife and make an attack as you try to move to the new corner around him and avoid the knife or disarm him as you pass.

Body Writing

Adapted from Attack Proof by Perkins, Ridenhour, and Kovsky

In Attack Proof, the authors provided several "body unity" drills for strengthening one's ability to move various parts of the body independently toward a common task. In this drill, legwork is stressed for an upper-body type of task. Legwork is generally much harder to learn than upper body work of this type.

Stand close to a wall with your writing arm raised as if writing on a board - a real whiteboard or chalkboard will help but not required.
Write your name by moving only your legs. In other words, keep your arm and wrist straight and bend your knees and move your feet as required to write your name as clearly as if you had been able to use your arms. Work more toward accuracy than toward speed in this drill and continue to do it over and over again until you can write your name or, better yet, the alphabet, as well as if you were moving your arm and wrist. The intent is not to move stiff like a statue but make your movements flowing like a wave in a whip.

Variation.From a Scott Meredith description of the Aiki Expo of 2005. Vary this drill by doing it lying down in the situp position and using your legs to trace out numbers 1-10. Start with both legs together then seperate them and use them to indepedently trace the numbers. Then add your arms to be tracing numbers with both arms and legs at the same time.

Unbendable

From "Systema Hand to Hand" video of Vladimir Vasiliev

Stand straight in good form and breathe in and out normally into your person.
Your partner starts to try and bend you starting with one hand on back of your head and other on your chest and pressing.
Move chest hand down to stomach and press to try and bend at stomach. Keep moving down with frontal pressure until your partner is using his knees and feet to press against your legs as if trying to bend you.
Maintain your breathing as your partner attempts to bend you.
Then add strikes to each bending position while you continue to maintain good breathing and form while being struck by your partner.

Pegleg Stand

from Jim King legwork seminar and Pavel Tatsouline

I first heard about this one in a description of work done at a Jim King seminar on legwork. I know that it has been done elsewhere such as in Pavel Tatsouline's books.

Stand on one leg and gain your balance.
Ask your partner to lightly touch you to knock you off balance and allow you to regain it again. Try not to go to two feet but do so if its necessary to keep from falling. The point is to learn to regain your balance as quickly as possible. (Your partner can participate by also remaining on one leg and you can take turns pushing.)
After several minutes, continue on the other leg.
As you get better, ask your partner to increase the strength of his push to challenge you more.

Variation
Vary the drill by asking your partner to kick you lightly in the hips or thighs as well. Do not kick to the knees or lower legs - your knees are very vulnerable in this drill.

Vary the drill by clasping hands and pulling and pushing - with both partners on one leg.

Vary the drill by wearing a blindfold.

Work on this at home by standing on one leg when putting on your pants and shoes. Doing this every day will improve your balance quickly.