Crow Pose Program Session 18

Prepare
Today's GMB Mobility session focusing on Hips

Practice
Today's Vitamin session focusing on Combos using Bent-Arm Monkey, Leg Swoop, Duck Walk

4 sets of Shrimp Squat. Quality: Smooth, Ease: Solid

Play
Playing just a little bit with the mechanics of the Worm from breakdance, getting used to making my feet rise as my chest rolls towards the floor, like a rocking chair, and playing a bit with kicking the feet up and to the rear to get my chest off the floor.

Crow Pose out of Bent-Arm Monkey #3 spread through the day.  Best time about 9 sec.

Push
Relearning the Clubbell Shield Cast and Side Pendulum.  Quality: Rough, Ease: Solid

Ponder
I felt some post-workout soreness in my low back, which puzzled me because it's been a while since I did any kettlebell swings and I haven't done any bridge work for almost a week.  Then I realized it may have been caused by my playing with the Snake Down and Worm moves.

I noticed that I tend to hold my breath when I practice the Crow Pose.  I try to manage by consciously exhaling while practicing.

I stumbled upon this Mark Wildman video featuring Jack Black.  In this video, Wildman touches upon flat feet and claims he can fix Black's flat feet:

I've had flat feet as long as I can remember, and have tried various approaches to build a foot arch, the latest being to try to practice single-leg exercises with "foot tripod".  So I was intrigued enough to check out Wildman's other video on the topic:

If I understand what Wildman is saying, his fix for flat feet is to stand on bare feet, with the feet parallel to each other and swing a weight side to side for high reps.  The theory is that the weight swinging side to side will cause the feet to grab the ground.  As the weight increase, the feet will grab harder and thus build their arches. 

Wildman says he uses 11 different clubbell exercises with his clients for fixing flat feet.  I figure I could keep it simple and just use the Mill and Reverse Mill for this purpose.  I admit the Mill and Reverse Mill are themselves not the simplest movements, but once some competence is achieved in these exercises, it takes a relatively short amount of time to build up to a high-rep set.  Wildman was talking about 50 reps per arm, per exercise in a 3-exercise session for a total of 50 x 2 x 3 = 300 reps per session in the beginning.  His clients typically do 2 sessions/week with him so the total per week would be 600 reps.

So that's why I took up my 15lb. Clubbell today.  I haven't worked on the Mill since last fall, so I have to practice the Shield Cast and Side-Side Pendulum for a while again.