How Do I Fall?
A question often asked by people trying to learn how to run with Pose Method. Lots of people overdo it, misinterpret it and basically do it wrong. This of course leads to nothing much changing in the way that they run.
Today I was inspired by reading the forum on Fetcheveryone. They (whoever “They” are) say a picture says a thousand words and this is true.
Here is the sketch he used.
Here are some quick (censored) descriptions of what to do by Avenging Angel from the forum.
“Think that. Body being pulled straight in a diagonal direction, speed relative to the degree, you’ll find your legs just go with.
Don’t USE your legs, just think of your body going in a diagonal direction straight like a missile but not uber forced and you’ll feel when you need to do a minimal pull just to catch up to the body and that be all.”
“Let the body lead and be the motion.”
“Think superman taking off in a diagonal direction, woosh, that’s you.”
Cabletow helpfully added this:
“Another visualisation that helps – the solar plexus is being pulled up and forward from a bungee cord from the sky – angle forward is speed dependent.”
In summary, we do not ever bend at the waist, we lean from the ankles. The lean itself is an illusion in as much as it disappears when we are airborne. We re-create the lean for every step or change of support. Notice I didn’t say forwards because we don’t step forwards. Our bodies move forwards due to gravity. We just change support from one leg to the other – that should be the perception so we minimise effort.
2 Comments
Ian,
Of course we need to be able to still frame our running videos from time to time to look for something to indicate whether there is some element of fall in our runs. For example, as the foot passes the leg, if the angle of the thigh from mid-knee to mid-hip has the hip even slightly ahead of the knee, (I was told) this indicates that a fall is occurring.
Just had a though/ realization: If you are relying on an upper body lean for gravity and not an ankle lean, then if you accidentally lean back to catch your balance, you’ll instantly put the brakes on your run and everything good that’s involved.
Thanks,
Dave
Yes Dave. I found recently that I simply forgot about projecting my hips forwards and had started to slip back. I wondered why the last run or two had felt much more like hard work than they should!