Movement Challenges
With our home country Scotland going into lock-down we face the issues felt by millions all over the world. How do we stay busy, healthy, stimulated and challenged?
Co-founder David Banks has pulled together his movement challenge series to give you a break from the monotony and the opportunity to move. Make sure to give it a go and tag #dbmovementchallenge / #ukemiproject on Instagram so we can see!
Task-based learning provides nourishment for the body and mind. Attempting different tasks and movement riddles will help create a prepared body for any situation.
Some of you will get these in the first session, but for most, it will take time. If you belong to the second crowd, don’t worry, you are getting the most benefits. You have more information to learn, patterns to become comfortable with, and complexity to develop. Enjoy it.
If you are in the first crowd, aim for greater efficiency, control and consistency. Open it up and make it more playful and create your own version.
Ready?
Challenge 1 - Stick Rolls
- Start with your feet facing the ceiling with the stick balancing on them.
- Try to perform a full rotation in any direction.
- Return to the starting position.
Challenge credit @sd_movement
Challenge 2 - Wall Circles
- Put a body part on the wall. An excellent series to start with is finger, hand, elbow and head.
- Perform a 360-degree rotation by twisting the body part at the point of contact with the wall. Try to only rotate and not move the body part up, down, left or right.
- Do the movement in both directions.
- Experiment using other body parts. *perform this slower than is demonstrated and focus on quality. I went fast so I could fit the sequence into the Instagram clip.
Challenge credit @iamscotthouston of @parkoursyllabus
Challenge 3 - Chair Lift Experiment
- Place the chair a minimum of two of your feet away. Stand against the wall with your feet no further than hip-distance apart. Your legs must remain straight, and your bum and heels need to stay against the wall.
- Starting from a stand position, you must pick up the chair from the main cross-section. Each leg needs to come off the ground at the same time.
I was only able to achieve this dynamically. If it’s easy for you to try it with no momentum.
Also, in my heart, I felt like my heels raised ever so slightly although it’s not visible in the video. I will need to return to this challenge in the future to appease the form gods.
Challenge 4 - Table Bouldering
- Find a table.
- Starting on top of the table, you complete a full loop of it without touching the floor.
Increase difficulty:
- Complete the loop going lengthwise on the table.
- Use a lower or more awkward table.
- The lighter the table, the harder this is. The table I used for this video was very light, meaning I had to be very careful with my movements or it would topple over.
𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐞 𝟓 - 𝐒𝐡𝐨𝐞 𝐑𝐨𝐥𝐥
- Take off a shoe.
- Complete a full roll without the shoe falling off.
Scale Difficulty:
- Start with no shoe to get a feel for the movement phase.
- Hang the shoe from your toes. Both these variations are demonstrated in the second and third videos of the post.
- To make it more difficult use different shoes. In general new shoes are a bit harder because they are rigid.
Challenge 6 - Cereal Box Game
Admittedly I've only ever done this at parties before now. I brought it into a class this morning though, and it went down well, so here it is.
- Find a cereal box.
- Pick up the cereal box using your mouth. Only your feet may be in contact with the ground.
- After every successful attempt, tear a bit away from the box to increase the range required.
I'm still recovering from my knee dislocation so getting back up was a challenge in itself.
Challenge 7 - Body Traverse (Level 1 to 5)
- Partner A finds a strong position that they can maintain.
- Partner B has to find a way to traverse around partner A without touching the ground.
Featuring @circus_sam
