Thoughts from Carl Paoli’s gymnastics seminar
Unfortunately I couldn’t take part of Carl Paoli’s gymnastics seminar at CrossFit Uppsala (still regretting it…), but out-and-out CrossFitter Felix Ledin did. Here’s his thoughts and impressions from the day. And tomorrow comes an interview with Carl with some tips for SM. Don’t miss that!
“Learn to move so you can move to learn“. That’s the phrase that sticks with me the whole day, and I can’t stop thinking about it. Learn to move so you can move to learn. It makes sense.
I’m attending Carl Paoli’s gymnastics seminar at CrossFit Uppsala last Saturday and I can honestly say that my body has never felt so anatomically correct, or that I’ve understood movement so well before. I didn’t really know what to expect from a gymnastics seminar, but now I know that, basically, it’s all about movement.
We start off the day with practising handstand push-ups. Seeing and understanding the movement and what the crucial components to a kip are. Why you need that tight body - and especially core - and how to teach and spot it. “Think of it as a reverse thruster“, Carl says to me, and all of a sudden it all makes sense. Why didn’t I think of that before? The same thing with muscle-ups and handstands, “think of it as a push-up“. And yes indeed, when you think about it, the position of the arms and shoulders are aligned the same as in a push-up when doing a correct muscle-up. It’s just a press. To me this opens a whole new door to CrossFit and movement; that everything can be transfered to everything, so to speak - it’s all the same. Tight core, hollow position, and go.
The revelations for me were many already on the handstands and we took some of the cues over to the other movements of the day; pistols and muscle-ups. One in particular seemed to work very well: look at something. When we were doing handstand push-ups we were told to look at our feet to tighten our ribcage, and, of course, it worked wonders on everybody’s form. When doing the pistols we were told to look down and on the muscle-ups and pull-ups to also look down. I think we’re starting to see a pattern here… That something so small as where we look can impact these big and complex movements is, to me, astonishing. All because we get even tighter in our form.
As you may have understood, I learned a ton from Carl’s seminar that will help me both as a coach and as an athlete. Keep practising that hollow position and think about it in every movement is something I would say, but coach Carl says it even better: “slow is smooth, smooth is fast“.
Peace,
Felix
