Video Clips and Commentaries

This is another example of having to relearn something. I had been doing kicking exercises for sometime when I was at my nephew's christening and saw a friend holding his baby, with it's back against his chest and the baby facing outwards, sitting on his arm. This baby was grinning and kicking like fury. I realised at that point what an important exercise this is to start making connections and getting the the strength into the quads and around the knees. I have spent so many hours kicking in one form or another. Left leg, right leg, both together, forward, backwards, holding, small controlled kicks, big long swinging kicks. Started from lying down and gradually sat more and more upright so that it comes more from the legs than the torso and stomach.

All movement has to start from where there is movement. Hence in this video, you see quite a lot of effort coming from my upper body as well as the legs. Step by step, the focus and the desire to control and pushing the energy downwards opens connections and muscles start to react when they were not previously.

At this point leaning over on one side was the only way to separate the leg movements and channel energy and control down one side only. Throughout my whole time I have had to work to not use my hips but use my legs. Though in the beginning it was a question of just using whatever I could to get started. I can see me starting to get really tired when I'm lain on my right side!

Then we switch to trying to lift legs up (Hratch also had someone else working on different exercises. For once it wasn't me “sitting there dreaming”!) You can see there is some tension in the legs. Only one way to improve on this, and it's just more hours of doing this. At times I have been so mind-numbingly bored with all this exercise, while friends have been off doing stuff in their lives. And always I had to reach an acceptance with myself, that this is what I have chosen to do, and that the hours of donkey work are the unsexy part of my impossible dream.