I’m providing this second link to my last best effort performance before ever dreaming of anything like IRC and taking a good hard look at my own inversions. It has plenty in there that speaks to strength, and plenty evaluate in alignment, posture, and inversion technique. There’s plenty else about it that has room for improvement, but focus on the inverts!
Important note:
Over the course of this course, I’ve mis-remembered where I saved/moved my initial videos from February. However, I’ve found two other videos from March 18, 2022 (pull-up) and April 7, 2022 (waist holds and invert to outside leg hang) that more or less fit a “before” image.
Additional note:
The month of August has been rough – circumstances for travel and illness were such that I didn’t get much movement (much less pole-focused exercise) in for the whole month. There are glimpses of me completing various pieces of ILH, OLH, BMH, Waist Holds, Pull Ups, etc… throughout my case studies videos, but for simplicity and sanity the short collection linked here are recorded September 6, 2022.
Strength Inventory: February 6, 2022
Ground inverts: I can invert rotating, stationary, sitting, standing, etc using two hands. One-handed inversions are not yet in my repertoire.
Ground inverts landing: I can easily reverse the inversion process and land fluidly and silently from anywhere in the inversion process.
Aerial Inverts: I can invert rotating forward, rotating backward, static, etc using both hands. I am unable to complete a one-handed aerial inversion at this time.
Straight Arm Hang: I can hold 30-45 seconds before feeling fatigued.
Chin-ups: I can easily complete 5 chin-ups or pull-ups, hand orientation doesn’t affect me.
Flexed arm hang: I can hold a flexed arm hang 20-30 seconds before feeling fatigued.
Outside leg hook: I can get into it securely while rotating.
Inside Leg hook: I can get into it securely while rotating.
Brass Monkey: I can get into it securely while rotating.
Feedback from Marlo at that time: rotate/roll leg up the pole to eliminate the hiccup in catching the knee hook. Landings can be softer: look for ways to flow through the landing. Drop the head back during the inversion to keep better back alignment and reduce energy leaks. To explore: flexing/engaging the calves differently in pointed feet to protect the knee.
· Important note: I have no more meniscus in my right knee, and I’ve gotten in the habit of flexing my foot through the inversion process in order to avoid the bones uncomfortably rotating and locking in a bent knee position against the pole. This is one of those diabilities that I don’t particularly enjoy discussing and experimenting with since it grinds away at my bones and my doctors and I would like them to last as long as possible, even if a knee replacement is in my future.
Follow-up thoughts on what a strength inventory would look like now:
While my strength and endurance are not what it was in July or at any point throughout this certification, my form and conscientious quality of movement is much better. Endurance will return eventually. I believe things will be easier having a mind for how to adapt my approach based on honestly assessing videos of my own practice. While it may be useful, I’m choosing to not complete a full inventory at this time so that I don’t fixate on “what’s been lost in a really rough month”.
How did I look/feel/function before?
I have been in the habit of rounding my back and translating my head forward, which makes it much harder to hold a classic “chopper” position. A lot of this came from a history of bicycling where my posture continuously deteriorated over a decade. I’ve been hard at work to correct this in every aspect of my movement… except during my inversion process! Now that I know better, I can do better. I felt strong, but not able to comprehend why holding a chopper was so exhausting. I looked hunched in with my shoulders rolling forward. It felt like a lot of effort, especially when rotating into inversions.
How do I look/feel/function now?
I’ve eliminated the hiccup in my “hook-wait-re-hook” in my outside leg hang. My spine – head to tailbone – maintain a much more neutral and strong alignment. My legs, pelvis, and torso rotate with the movement needed to flow into and out of inversions gracefully and silently.
I feel weaker, but feel like I’m spending less effort completing these moves now as opposed to how it felt back in February/March/April of this year. My body doesn’t feel like it’s working against itself to hold or reverse the position at any point in the process, making it feel more fun.
Overall, I’m functioning better and looking more polished going through all the various inversion assessments. My shoulders, in particular have the most improvement in less rounding which makes everything else fall into alignment effortlessly.
What changed?
I’ve become more aware of how to make the different sections of my back move/bend/translate/spiral as their own independent pieces: this is in part to this certification’s focus on breathing, banded spinal flossing, and taking the time to examine and care about what my body is doing and seek improvement.
The duration of this course and our small groups (in my case, a partnership!) kept me accountable for putting in the work.
Watching the methods and techniques be discussed and applied by like-minded instructors to new-to-them students as I observed and chimed in at the live weekend was fascinating. It was a really interesting and insightful experience in considering how to approach my case studio duo. As well, I enjoyed seeing some of the same slip-ups and mistakes I ended up making myself in cueing, guiding, and otherwise encouraging my students along their inversion explorations.
I really loved watching my two case studies take what I said, demonstrated, and questioned to heart. It made me much more aware how much what I do is observed and replicated more so than anything I say or su