Second session under new Crow Pose fitness program

I don't think I'll post an entry for every single session but since this is a new direction that is evolving to address my concerns, I guess I'll have to record notes.

Prepare

GMB Knee Health routine, then I used today's GMB Mobility session in its 15-minute entirety for Prepare.  Today's mobility focus was on Spine.

Practice

1 min, 10 sec. Crow Pose practice sets for a total of 3 sets.

Play

3 minutes of Bent-Arm Frogger with the minimum 1-second Crow Pose hold.   I landed a 12-second hold early, then managed several 5-second holds for the rest of the set.

Push

1 minute of Bent-Arm Monkey.  This was mainly a test for the suspect shoulder.  It held up ok.

Kettelbell swings - This isn't directly related to Crow Pose but I want to keep up my swing practice because it's been good for my back.  2 sets of 10 2-arm swings with the 32kg. 4 sets of 1-arm swings with the 24kg.  2 sets of 2-arm swings with the 24kg, trying to go for overspeed eccentrics.

Modified Pigeon and Half-Pancake for cooldown.

Some play with the Forward Roll Setup.

Front and Back Scale practice spread through rest of afternoon.

Ponder

Basically it's working on this blog post.  There's still a dull ache in my left knee MCL when I lock out my left leg to support as I practice Front Scale/Front Scale Leg Lift with my right leg.   This is the same issue that led me to halt Turkish Getup practice.  After perusal of GMB's selection of Advanced Leg Exercises, I decided to replace the Scales with Back Leg Elevated Lunge and Sissy Squat.  So now my path to better knee health looks like this:

1. Improve Quad Strength - Back Leg Elevated Lunge and Sissy Squat

2. Hip Flexibility - GMB Mobility program

3. Unusual Movements - GMB Knee Health routine

First session under new Crow Pose fitness program

Today was the first session under the new program to build towards a solid Crow Pose, inspired by GMB's 5P framework.  Here are my comments on each of the 5Ps for today:

Prepare

I used today's GMB Mobility session in its 15-minute entirety for Prepare.  Today's mobility focus was on Hips, which is suitable enough for the Crow Pose.

Practice

1 min, 10 sec. Crow Pose practice sets for a total of 3 sets. The extra 10 seconds is to account for the gradual, back and forth movements as depicted in the Crow Pose tutorial.  For a first session mostly dedicated to Crow Pose, three sets felt like enough, as I was taking breaks during the 2nd and 3rd sets.

Play

3 minutes of Bent-Arm Frogger with the minimum 1-second Crow Pose hold.  I was surprised to be able sustain holds of 5 seconds or more in the Crow Pose, with a maximum hold around 15 seconds.

Push

This doesn't really count as a Push section specific to Crow Pose.  I just wanted to continue progress through GMB Vitamin.  Today's 15-min. Vitamin session focused on the Plow pose.  My spine was already getting some flexion from Crow Pose training and this took it up a notch.  The session called for more than 3 min. of practice of each of the following:  Plow Setup, Sink Knees into Plow, Work into Full Plow.  My hamstrings have always been tight, though slightly loosened by kettlebell swings and GMB Mobility but I also had tightness in the upper back and back of the hips..

Ponder

Basically it's working on this blog post.  For tomorrow, I'll keep the Practice portion as it is, and add 2 min. of Bent Arm Monkey to the Play section.

Changing fitness routine after today

The Simple and Sinister kettlebell training program has been good for me.  My back feels stronger and less susceptible to pain when practicing Squatting Monkey or any other exercise with deliberate reverse breathing.  My shoulder feels more stable, thanks to Turkish Getup practice.  I will continue to practice the swing exercises to keep improving the strength and stamina of my back, as well as enjoying the other benefits.

However, because of all the Turkish Getup practice sessions in which I allowed the knee to collapse inward, the previously injured MCL in that knee is now more susceptible to dull pain during the movement.  I was hoping the knee mobility routines i started practicing again, as well as the Front Scale and Back Scale exercises would help correct the knee issue, but I can't figure out the correct tweak to make to the Turkish Getup movement to eliminate the risk of continued aggravation to the knee. So I have to give up practicing the TGU for a while.  It's a shame because I'd just worked up to 3 singles per side, per session.  The TGU improved my shoulder stability and mobility as promised but I don't want to continue at the cost of potential knee damage.

The TGU, while being a true hole body exercise, was my only exercise for upper-body strength training.  I've always wanted to work on hand balancing skills but haven't been consistent in this type of training, except when I followed the GMB Elements program all the way through.  Elements is not specifically focused on hand balancing, but the locomotion exercises are beneficial for hand balancing.  In any case, my plan is to replace the TGU with hand-balancing work for training the upper body.

The two hand-balancing skills I want to work on are the Crow Pose and the Handstand.  I haven't worked on bent-arm strength for some time, since the TGU was all straight-arm, so I'm going to try the Crow Pose... again.  This time I intend to be more consistent in my pursuit of this skill.  GMB's Crow Pose tutorial is still the same great tutorial I raved about a few years ago, but it does not say much about how to incorporate it into your training program.  GMB's recently updated Handstand tutorial does have a sample training program, based on their recently develop 5Ps concept, so I will draw upon that to create my new program, which tentatively looks like this:

	Session A	Session B
Prepare	GMB Knee Mobility followed by 15-min. GMB Mobility session	GMB Knee Mobility followed by 15-min. GMB Mobility session
Practice	10 minutes total: • Crow Pose holds with attempts [1 minute work set, rest in between]	10 minutes total: • Crow Pose holds with attempts [1 minute work set, rest in between]
Play	5 minutes total: Choose a movement at an appropriate level and explore. Some examples: • Bent-arm Monkey • Bent-arm Frogger with 1-sec. Crow Pose Pause • Bent-arm Bear	5 minutes total: Choose a movement at an appropriate level and explore. Some examples: • Bent-arm Monkey • Bent-arm Frogger with 1-sec. Crow Pose Pause • Bent-arm Bear
Ponder	5 minutes total: Spend some time reflecting on the session and prepping for the next one.	5 minutes total: Spend some time reflecting on the session and prepping for the next one.

Session A and B are the same for the time being.  I was thinking I might do something different on alternating days but that might be down the road.  There is no Push stage because unlike the Handstand, there's no lower-difficulty version of the Crow Pose other than the Crow Pose itself.  I will have to pay attention to how my shoulder responds to all the bent-arm locomotion exercises.  After all, I halted all upper-body bodyweight training because of the shoulder stability problem.

What I will do on alternate sessions after the Crow Pose training session:

Session A - Kettlebell Swing Practice per Simple and Sinister protocol

Session B - GMB Vitamin session

For cooldown this week I started working on the GMB Forward Roll progression and will probably continue. 

For the rest of the day, I will practice GMB Front and Back Scale exercises to continue trying to rehab and strengthen the knee, with practice sessions spread out about 1-2 hrs apart. For today I skipped this practice because my left thigh was more sore than usual from the intense contraction of the quad that the Front Leg Raise with hold on the last rep demands.

Front and Back Scale for the knee, and progress in the Turkish Getup

I haven't been allowing my bent leg to move very much during the Turkish Getup.  I think this is why I'm starting to feel some soreness in my knee, where I suffered an MCL strain years go.  I'm letting the knee collapse inward too much.

I've started practicing GMB's Knee Mobility routine to help recover.  I've also started practicing the Front and Back Scales to try to strengthen the knee and hopefully improve the alignment between the hip, knee, and foot to make it less susceptible to collapsing inward.  At first I was feeling the hip flexor work hard in the Front Scale leg lift, but lately I've been feeling more intense quadriceps contraction and not so much hip flexor work.  The knee health article recommends anything that will strengthen the quads to go with the mobility routine.  I looked into the pistol squat first, but the questionable alignment between the hip, knee, and foot seems to aggravate the knee in that movement.  The scale exercises are probably a better choice for me since they not only work the quads and balance but also apply a bit more directly towards the L-Sit, a feat which has long eluded me.

I finally did 3 Turkish Getup (TGU) singles per side in one session of Simple & Sinister.  Just one TGU was burning out my CNS just a few weeks ago.  I'm working more often with the 32kg kettlebell for 2-handed swings.

Exercise Update

I've integrated GMB Mobility with my Simple and Sinister sessions by replacing the prescribed warmup with a 15-minute GMB Mobility session.  I have also been practicing 30-min. GMB Mobility sessions on days that I haven't felt like doing Simple and Sinister.

GMB Mobility is organized into 42 sessions. Each session focuses on range of motion for a body area (hips, spine, shoulders, etc) or a cardinal direction (extension, rotation/sidebending, flexion, etc.). Each session has Prepare, Practice, and Play portions, all of which have exercises chosen for the topic of the day.  GMB's Ultimate Guide to Bodyweight Exercise describes their 5P Framework in detail.

The Prepare portion is what I guess you could call a warmup.  The Practice portion gets into deeper stretches under a simplified version of the Focused Flexibility protocol.  The Play portion has a selection of locomotion exercises which you may recognize from Elements - this is where you get to play with the range of motion you worked on increasing in the Practice portion.

GMB recommends that you take breaks if you get tired during any of the Play exercises, because Play is more about trying out your newly increased range of motion and observing how your quality of movement has changed. Play is not meant for conditioning - this is a major difference compared to GMB Elements.   I like bringing my iPad to my workout area and running the session on it. It did interrupt on several occasions to ask me permission to let it use some iPad space, but lately it hasn't done so. I like how each exercise has a looping video for explanation/instruction with cues beneath the video. I like how all the exercises are timed for you, yet you have control over when to start the exercise. With Integral Strength I had to manually enter times into a timer app on my phone.

One change I've noticed is when I work on the kettlebell Turkish Getup with the KB on the right side. There's just a wee bit more restriction/tightness, somewhere between my right shoulder and my left glute, on this side vs. practicing the TGU on the left side. This movement restriction seems to be going away. As for the TGU itself, I'm glad to be able to work on the full-range movement now with the 16kg kettlebell.

I've been wanting to work on something different for the upper body.  GMB recently updated their Handstand tutorial, which led to me taking another assessment of how far I can walk my feet up the wall.  My shoulder stability and strength has improved enough from TGU practice that I can walk my feet up a little further than before.   However for now I'm going to give their Crow Pose method another shot, since I feel like I'm already getting plenty of work on my straight-arm supporting strength.

Violin Double Stop exercises for violin

Double-stop exercises are helpful for improving intonation and control on the violin and viola.  This video shows some really good ones, including some cool polyrhythmic stuff

Chad LB channel for Jazz Music Theory

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCV17kvWvljT0Zw_5CZ4CFcA/videos

K-On! My Love is a Stapler clips

One of my favorite songs from the anime K-On! is Watashi no Koi wa Hotchkiss, which literally means "My Love is a Hotchkiss".  Hotchkiss was a brand of stapler, so the song title is also translated as "My Love is a Stapler".  Click the linked article to see the lyrics - it'll make more sense.

This is a clip of Yui practicing the song by herself.  It's from the opening episode to Season 2 of K-On!, which reintroduces the viewer to the characters and their world in ways that remind us of the passage of time, in particular reminding us that 4 of the 5 members of the Light Music Club (K-On) are now high-school seniors.  It simultaneously draws us into the beauty of the moment, time and place that were are in, as of this opening episode, and reminds us that it is a fleeting moment.
Yui practicing "My Love is a Stapler"

This is a clip of the same song being played by the full band, when there were only 4 members of K-On.  What I find remarkable is how they made the band sound like they're actually playing in a high school auditorium.
The band playing "My Love is a Stapler"

Eugene Friesen Cello Looping Lesson

Nice lesson by Eugene Friesen, which mentions accompanying sheet music:

Kettlebell Simple And Sinister Program - I'm still at it

 An article for home exercise that gives me some ideas for incorporating Front Lever and some other skills into my training.  For the most part I intend to stick to Simple and Sinister as my main exercise program but it's nice to be able to switch to something else once in a while:
https://medium.com/@physicalstrategies/the-gym-dwellers-guide-to-home-training-d99df216153f

An article offering an alternative approach to achieve the Sinister standard under Simple And Sinister.  I will probably never go for it as I don't see a 48kg kettlebell in my future.  If I work up to Turkish Getups and 1-arm swings with my 32kg kettlebell, my base of general physical preparedness would be more than sufficient to pursue other fitness goals that interest me more than achieving Sinister - these include Front Levers, Planche Pushups,  Handstand Pushups, and performing the Flows from the now-discontinued Rings One and Parallettes One programs.  However, perhaps the advice in this article will be useful for transitioning from the 24kg to the 32kg kettlebell when the time comes.
https://thekettlebelllocker.com/blog/f/how-to-progress-with-simple-and-sinister-by-levi-markwardt#7a6b29d3-2439-4a5b-9c8d-099be96b6c85

I sort of kept a training log on a discussion forum, but didn't bother to update my own blog.  So I copied and pasted the log entries from the other forum.   It's interesting to see all these entries in one place.  Among the lessons learned:

1. Check the swing forum thoroughly.  As the entries show, there was a setback in my progress due to swinging with incorrect form and having to relearn it.
2. Start practicing the Turkish Getup at the Prone to Elbow Stage as soon as you can.  Substituting another exercise like the military press will not help with the Turkish Getup.

Aug 20, 2019
Still training in the style of Simple & Sinister with the KBs. Shoulder presses in the mornings, swings in the evenings after biking home. I'm up to 10 sets of 10 2-arm swings w/ the 24kg KB. I will start working in some 1-arm swings in my swing sessions this week. I've temporarily replaced the KB reverse lunge with exercises to strengthen the arches of my feet. I've been told I have flat feet since I was a child but rarely attempted to fix them. After experiencing back and knee issues, I gained a greater appreciation for strong foot arches. There are so many websites and videos teaching foot arch exercises but I decided to go with this simple routine, since it's on a website for powerlifters: https://www.elitefts.com/education/build-your-arch-why-flat-feet-kill-your-squat/

Sep 28, 2019
I've continued pressing the 16kg KB and practicing reverse lunges with it, working up to a 7-rep max in both movements. Shoulders feel a lot more stable. The insteps of my feet don't get sore as easily after practicing the lunge with the "tripod foot" which is mentioned in a couple of articles - just Google "tripod foot squat". There's still plenty of room for improvement in my tripod foot technique but practicing it seems to have activated my foot arch. In the swing portion of S&S I've worked up to 10 sets of 10 swings with the 24 kg KB. I was doing a mix of 1- and 2-arm swings until I realized I was still rounding my back. I got rid of the back rounding by looking up more during the bottom half of the swing while still ensuring the hip hinges back instead sinking down. There's noticeable improvement in my hamstring flexibility as a result of the swing practice. I'm currently working on the prone-to-elbow stage of the Turkish Get-up, as well as reverse lunge with the KB held overhead with a locked-out arm. Both movements are a step up in difficulty for me. The prone-to-elbow movement places a surprising amount of load on the abs and oblique.

Nov 10, 2019
I've been practicing only 2-arm swings with the 24 kg KB, and at the lower volume of 5 sets of 10 reps, as I work on fixing problems with my form. I'd forgotten one is supposed to give the glutes an extra squeeze at the top to protect the back and hips, and on the downswing I should wait until my forearms slam into my gut before hinging at the hip. I improved from struggling to perform just 2 reps of the Prone-to-Elbow stage of the Turkish Get-Up to 5 reps. I'll keep practicing at this stage as my form still needs a lot of work. Once in a while I hit the perfect groove - the perfect combination of the angle of torso movement in relation to the straight leg, coordination of the muscle groups, etc. - but the rest of the reps there's some slop. Part of the problem is my body sliding on the floor a bit but that can't be helped.

Nov 24, 2019
Started practicing the next stage of the Turkish Getup, which is Elbow to Tall Sit. The Simple & Sinister book says to practice the Turkish Getup in stages, with the goal of 5 perfect reps per stage. I asked on the StrongFirst forum if I practice Elbow to Tall Sit by itself until I get to 5 perfect reps or if I practice the TGU from starting position (Prone) to Tall Sit. The responses seemed to indicate that either approach is fine. For me, a "perfect rep" is the one in which the kettlebell is moved with minimal effort, while the arm supporting the KB stays vertical. Practicing Prone-to-Elbow stage in 6-rep sets now. About half the reps are effortless, the other half a struggle.

Jan 11, 2020
Continuing my practice of the kettlebell Simple And Sinister program. Progressed to 7-10 sets of 10 2-arm swings with the 24kg KB. In the Turkish Getup, progressed to lifting the 16kg KB from prone position to tall sit position - an improvement over my starting point in 2019 when just lifting the KB from prone position to elbow position was an epic struggle. Biking to work off to a slow start for 2020 due to a snowstorm and lingering ice on the ground. It's just enough of a workout to get the adrenaline going to start the work day, and wake the body up after the work day.

Mar 13, 2020
Progressed to 6-8 sets of 1-arm swings with the 24kg KB, with 2-arm swings for a total of 10 sets per session. Once I get to 10 sets of 1-arm swings (5 per arm) I'll start increasing the power to further challenge my grip. In the Turkish Getup, I'm working on the transition from the Tall Sit to the Lunge position. I was stuck on the Tall Sit stage until I realized I need to sit a little taller and keep the KB overhead for a little longer, to build up the necessary stamina to keep the KB overhead while slowly working from prone position all the way to Lunge. I currently work into Tall Sit, play with support hand/arm positioning, then raise the hips off the floor to test the support arm. I was climbing up the hill to my house on speed 3 or 2 on my 35lb 8-speed bike. Lately I've been pedaling on speeds 4 and 5. Probably the result of bike commuting more times a week, getting some leg strengthening and gradually refining pedaling technique and stuff. There may also be some carryover from the KB S&S practice. Latest addition to the routine is clubbell practice, for some supplementary forearm strength and conditioning - at least until I get a Captains of Crush grip trainer. To keep it simple I just practice the Shield Cast and Side Pendulum movements, working towards the Mill/Reverse Mill.

Apr 12, 2020
What a difference a couple of weeks make. Got the mandatory telework order, roughly the same time everyone else (who isn't "essential personnel") did, so no more biking to work. Doing 8 sets of 1-arm swings with the 24kg KB consistently, thanks to the grip not giving out as easily. Hanging from a pullup bar was the optional part of the cooldown routine in Simple And Sinister, so I skipped it on days that I got up a bit late and had to rush to the office. But now I have more opportunities to do this hang, and it's great for strengthening the grip, as well as the primary purpose of stretching the shoulders and spine. Still working on getting stronger in going into and out of the Lunge position in the Turkish Getup progression. My latest tweak is to superset Prone to Elbow reps to get stronger in that phase of the movement.

Apr 19, 2020
First session with full Turkish Getup movement using the 16kg kettlebell. The time spent working on strength and control in segments of the movement (Prone to Elbow, Prone to Tall Sit, Tall Sit to Lunge) is paying off. Last year when I tried the full movement it was a mess - nearly fell down and bumped my knees and elbows.

Apr 25, 2020
Completed the first week practicing the full Turkish Getup. 1 single per side seems sufficient for me. 2 singles per side with a couple minutes rest between singles is pushing it a bit - definitely feel the CNS wearing out after the 2nd single. Tried just the Prone to Elbow stage of the TGU with the 24kg kettlebell. Doable for 1-2 reps but with a lot of effort. I got the idea to try partial movements with a heavier KB from a more recent Karen Smith (StrongFirst coach) video. I'll wait until my body adapts to the full TGU with the 16kg before mixing in partial movements with the 24kg. Also started mixing in two-arm swings with the 32kg KB.

Nice Matt Holborn violin lesson on warming up with scales and chords

Will check out Matt's other Jazz Violin Advice videos

Stepping Exercise and good video showing fundamental Suit training

 From a Mike Sigman post:

As in all the Chinese martial-arts, you should constantly keep your weight and the weight of anything you hold or lift in the sole of your foot/feet ... without ever letting the forces rise above the soles of your foot/feet. If you're just standing, always allow your complete weight to rest in the soles of your feet. If you're holding something, feel the weight of that something always resting in the soles of your feet. If you lift a leg for a step, feel the rising leg's weight rest in the sole of the other foot. And so on. If someone put their hand on your rising leg, they should feel the sole of the grounded foot.

As you lower the raised foot, let your weight first sink into the grounded foot, going into the other foot only when it is positioned properly.

 https://vimeo.com/334527996

...another forward and backward stepping exercise that is taken from the Oblique Walk and the Step Back Whirl Arms (Repulse Monkey) of the Laojia Yilu. I'll put a brief clip of Zhu Tiancai showing the movements from the form; mine look slightly different, but it's the same natural winding of the body. The idea is to do the stepping while including the whole-body winding and unwinding (Open and Close) as it moves.

When you're moving forward, as an example, think of your molecules as all moving forward as one group, but imagine/feel that there are elastic spider webs attached to each molecule, slightly resisting your forward movement. Same idea as imagining moving through water, more or less, but I like this particular visualization sometimes.

https://vimeo.com/346631007 

And here is a good video showing good exercises for training Suit fundamentals:

Videos of 3 masters of Chen Taijiquan

I'm learning the Laojia Yi Lu form as taught by Chen Zhenglei. That said, it's interesting to see this form as taught by other teachers.

Chen Ziqiang

Chen Xiaoxing

Zu Tiancai apparently performing some moves from Laojia Yilu from the opposite side (left hand orientation)

Simple Bow Distribution Exercise

Connie Crothers Practice Method for Melodic Improvisation

 The below was posted to the Audiobus forum by another forum member:

Here is the technique Connie Crothers taught me on how to improvise on the piano. Connie's and her teacher Lennie Tristano's, method of teaching jazz improvisation (something many jazz musicians do just to supplement gigs and studio dates to the detriment of many talented players) is indeed a well thought out system of learning to do something that seems to defy understanding by mere words, chord progressions, or played examples. At least for me. The basic requirement is the pushing aside of the judgemental mind (good and bad) but maybe in another discussion.

Lennie's system was based on melody and not harmony. Singing along with the jazz greats was a primary part of this melody based technique. So it is logical that his guidance on improvising was melody based at well. It begins with ingraining the melody in its most accurate note by note construction.

You should, of course, experiment with playing the melody as expressively as possible, change dynamics, accenting notes and even changing the phrasing by adding the first note of the next phrase to the end of the last, for example.

With that in mind, pick a favorite melody. In my time I used jazz standards, which I recommend because they are often more melodically deep compared with today's tunes. Play it straight as much as possible in left and right hands separately. Yes, your left hand! You will find there are two distinct feelings and "voices" in each of your hands. Traditional jazz playing reduces the left hand at its worst to comping a chord accompaniment or the famous "walking bass" so many of us like. Rarely do you hear melodies in the left with comping in the right, or two melodies at once. But even a walking bass line is at heart a melody. Limiting your left hand to the status of solely being an accompanist is perhaps a poor use of musical resources at hand (ouch).

So pick a melody, and play the melody as deeply as possible in each hand. DO NOT IMPROVISE NOTES! Do this for a week as little as fifteen minutes a day. Don't try to improvise during that time. This will ingrain the melody in your head and make you wring the most "improvised" expression from the exact melody notes.

The next week play the melody first with exact melody notes in an improvised way as explained above. Then play the next round with the melody playing in your head like a tape recording. Play any notes you care to. They can even be random, just keep the recording going so your improvisation takes place in real time with the melody (as though you are taking a solo chorus with a band) then play the exact melody notes, then improvise a chorus and so on and so forth. Do this in both hands separately. Try this for another week fifteen minutes a day.

Then the third week record what you are doing.
Do the whole week without listening to what you recorded. Skip a couple of days, have yourself a drink or two, or at least pick a quiet time late at night and listen to what you recorded. The rest is for you to decide. I am reasonably sure that you will see a significant evolution in your playing. For many the change will be quite dramatic. Playing off tunes is great. Playing totally free can be even more satisfying. This melodic immersion will help with your free playing but requires other resources as well. All that for another time. May the melody be with you!

Some Qi Exercises with commentary from Mike Sigman

 Mike Sigman's comment:

this movement is the essence of power store and release in Chinese Martial Arts. He's basically using a reverse breath to pull up the elasticity from the Huiyin/Perineum, pull it up to the Mingmen, and then release with an exhale as the store area at the mingmen drops forward into the abdomen. 

 
Hun Yuan Qigong from Mike Sigman on Vimeo

Stepping Exercise

I learned this stepping exercise from Chen Xiaowang back in the 1990's, but I didn't understand it very well and therefore didn't do it very much. Now I do it a lot more. I assume it's a fairly standard Chen Village exercise because Chen Bing showed it to me, also, and I saw a video once of someone else from Chen Village doing it.

It looks fairly simple and I don't want to over-describe it, making it seem complicated, so let me just say a couple of things:

As in all the Chinese martial-arts, you should constantly keep your weight and the weight of anything you hold or lift in the sole of your foot/feet ... without ever letting the forces rise above the soles of your foot/feet. If you're just standing, always allow your complete weight to rest in the soles of your feet. If you're holding something, feel the weight of that something always resting in the soles of your feet. If you lift a leg for a step, feel the rising leg's weight rest in the sole of the other foot. And so on. If someone put their hand on your rising leg, they should feel the sole of the grounded foot.

As you lower the raised foot, let your weight first sink into the grounded foot, going into the other foot only when it is positioned properly.

This exercise will stabilize your walk and balance very well. It's the first exercise I do in the mornings.

I like to inhale as put my weight onto the new foot, pretending that my leg is a suction-hose pulling my foot down and tight into the floor. The inhale also pulls up the tissues that are lifting the other leg. FWIW 

Stepping Exercise from Mike Sigman on Vimeo

Chen Bing reportedly using the same stepping movement as part of a form
Master Chen Bing’s 13 Energies Form from Embrace The Moon on Vimeo.

Stepping Exercise: Part 2
I said that I did the slow stepping exercise, just about every day, as a warmup, but I usually transition into another forward and backward stepping exercise that is taken from the Oblique Walk and the Step Back Whirl Arms (Repulse Monkey) of the Laojia Yilu. I'll put a brief clip of Zhu Tiancai showing the movements from the form; mine look slightly different, but it's the same natural winding of the body. The idea is to do the stepping while including the whole-body winding and unwinding (Open and Close) as it moves.
When you're moving forward, as an example, think of your molecules as all moving forward as one group, but imagine/feel that there are elastic spider webs attached to each molecule, slightly resisting your forward movement. Same idea as imagining moving through water, more or less, but I like this particular visualization sometimes.
BTW, a lot of people forget the imagined resistance to the legs (like "Mud Walking" in Bagua). It's important, though.
   

windinggong from Mike Sigman on Vimeo.

Maiden Voyage Notes

Here is a chart of the chord changes:
http://brunojazz.com/images/maiden3.jpg

Fareed Haque teaches Maiden Voyage as modal progression rather than a chord progression.  Thus for the chords in the above chart, the corresponding modes would be:

A-/D = D Mixolydian
C-/F = F Mixolydian
Bb/Eb = Eb Mixolydian
C#- = C# Dorian

For smoother transitions from one mode to the next, I thought it would be useful to work out which notes do not change - these notes could be targeted to anticipate the change in modes.

D Mixolydian to F Mixolydian = D, G, A, C
F Mixolydian to Eb Mixolydian = D, D#/Eb, G, A#/Bb, C
Eb Mixolydian to C# Dorian = D#/Eb, G, G#/Ab, A#/Bb
C# Dorian to D Mixolydian = E, F#, B

Cleaning up the enharmonic equivalents, which I used above during my analysis, this should be an easier to read repeat of the above note sets:


D Mixolydian to F Mixolydian = D, G, A, C
F Mixolydian to Eb Mixolydian = Eb, F, G, Bb, C
Eb Mixolydian to C# Dorian = Eb,  Ab,  Bb
C# Dorian to D Mixolydian = E, F#, B

Random Jazz Notes (no pun intended)

From Tim Miller - arpeggios ideas for jazz-blues song form.

F9 - 1-2-5-7-1-3 (scale degrees) arpeggio in the 2121 format
Bb13 - Bb Mixolydian arpeggio or Dmin7b5 2121 arpeggio
F7#9 - F# min/Maj7 arpeggio (transpose up one step 1-b3-5-7
Gmin11 - Gmin pentatonic or G Dorian arpeggios or

Songs to learn (source long forgotten):

Song for my father
Maiden Voyage
Solar
Scrapple from the apple
Blues heads in Bb,F
Rhythm changes in the same keys
All the things you are
Stella by starlight

From my own experience, the jazz songs that get called frequently in jam sessions are Blue Monk, Autumn Leaves, Take the A Train, Well You Needn't, and so on.

The songs that vocalists call a lot are Bye Bye Blackbird, God Bless the Child, Blues in the Night, etc.

https://www.keyboardmag.com/lessons/5-ways-to-play-like-keith-jarrett

How to slow down Amazon Music Player tracks in iPhone:
1. Use IOS' built-in screen recording feature to record myself pressing Play on Amazon Music Player and let it record the song as a video.
2. Use the BeatTime app to open the video directly from Camera Roll (in the Photos app).
3. Use BeatTime to slow down the video

http://www.ralphpatt.com/

Tips for tweaking your amp for playing live vs. tweaking your amp at home

 Posted on the Boss Katana FB group by Alse Elseth

A tip to those who find their sound lacking bottom going on a stage after tweaking your amp at home (I take it for granted that you tweak at stage levels):

Scenario 1
- if it's s in a corner you get approximately 9 db added to your low/mid frequencies.

Scenario 2
- if it's against a wall approx. 6 db is added to your low/mid frequencies.

Scenario 3
- if it's standing free on the floor with around 6 feet from walls you get approx. 3 db added to your low/mid frequencies.

Scenario 4
- if you lift it of the floor nothing is added to your low/mid frequencies.

If you tweak in Scenario 1 and move to a stage with Scenario 4, you're down 9 dbs in the low/mid frequencies and your amp will sound shrill and lacking bottom end.

If you tweak at home in Scenario 4, and move to a crammed stage forcing Scenario 1 placement, your amp will sound bass heavy and dull due to 9dbs added to your low/mid frequencies.

So, the trick is to tweak for the expected scenario to get optimal sound transition from practice to stage.

PS. If you tweak a big fat bottom end to your sound at low levels you'll get an amp that "farts out" at higher level settings.

PPS. Some reading from Universal Audio's blog:https://www.uaudio.com/blog/how-the-ear-works/

Xynthesizr: How one guy used it to play MoogFest

Tips posted in one of video comments:

Xynthesizr tips:

Conway’s Game of Life is just one type of Life. You can select other rules, and even cooler, you can create your own with custom birth and survival rules! That said, Life in the morph section is fun, but more in an academic way than in a purely musical one (IMO)

However, the “Rand” setting between Off and Life, is truly musically useful. Here you set the “Chance” of a random change (between 0.00, aka no change; and 1.00, where things change on each cycle through the pattern. So 0.50 means 50% of the time on a new cycle there will be a change.)

What’s really cool is that you can change the amount of change for X and Y axis independently. The numbers go from 0 (no change) to 16 (meaning the note will move up to 16 steps away in that axis) Since you can set different amounts to the X and Y axis you can control the type of randomization you get. E.g. if you set X to some value, but Y to zero, you will keep the same pitches in your pattern, but the rhythm will change. If you set X to zero, but Y to some value, the rhythm stays the same, but the pitch will change.

What I find works best is to select a small Custom area for the randomization (usually in an upper octave) and set the Chance to a low value and either the X or Y to a small value, while the other remains zero. What you get is a pattern that mostly repeats, but every once in a while a subtle change happens. IMO subtlety in random events is what makes them magical.

 The coolest features of Xynthesizr however are the transposition options.

1- you can create your own scales by setting the number of semitones between steps. Because you set the number of steps and transpositions between steps you can create complex, possibly non-repeating scales (based on 12TET). It’s not microtonal, you can’t shift notes off of 12TET (unless you set a receiving synth to a microtonal scale), but it allows for complex transpositions. E.g. create a custom scale where step 1 (the interval up from your root) is set to 1 semitone. Step 2 is up 2 semitones. Step 3, 3; step 4, 4; and step 5, 5. If your root was C0 you would have a scale that goes: C0, C#0, D#0, F#0, A#0. Then the next grouping would be D#1, E1, F#1, A1, C#2, and so on.

2- each repeating grouping (an octave in a traditional scale, but anything in a custom scale) can be routed to a separate MIDI output channel. Each grouping is individually addressable, so you could have most set to Ch1, but the second grouping set to Ch 3 and the 5th to Ch2.

3- Pressing the Key button (D0 in what’s shown in the video) brings you to the transpositions page. Here you can set the root note and octave. But best of all, you can adjust the scale mode to musically transpose your pattern to that related scale mode. Since you can create those scales, you can create very interesting transpositions, but even using traditional scales, you get very musical results. This transposition can be controlled by incoming MIDI notes, so you can have Xynthesizr follow another sequencer. Add in some subtle randomization and route the outputting notes to various MIDI channels and you get a very sophisticated sequencing system.