These 4 Junan Taiso movements help mobilize the hips and core to provide a basic foundation for freedom of movement. Music by: soundcloud.com/tesk

Join me as we explore my friend Captain Stefano's backward shoulder roll + coffee cup challenge on IG. We'll quickly break down the way to do it and I'll give you a few ideas to try on your own. We'll take a look at a few variations and a bonus challenge for you!

This is a functional movement drill that challenges your single-leg balance and hip mobility in an interesting way. This is also a way to develop the prerequisite mechanisms for the @MovNat Leg Swing Jump, as well as the set up for certain kicks, and many more different natural movements. If you give it a try, let me know what you think, and if you like the background music, check out Tesk for more at www.soundcloud.com/tesk. Visit www.naturalmobility.net for more info about what we do.

Vaulting can be pretty intimidating. Running up and jumping, reaching out to place your hands on an obstacle and swinging your legs over without bailing is not an easy place to start with this, physically, or psychologically. The Front Vault, as we call it in MovNat Natural Movement, is also called the Kong Vault in Parkour. This vault requires very good mobility to bring the lower body between the arms and obstacle without clipping the feet or butt on the way through. Luckily, we can build this skill as a ground movement to develop confidence and competence before applying it in a riskier context. As a rule of thumb if you can't do the front vault on the ground, you shouldn't try using it to get over an obstacle. This vault is easier and safer as a means to get onto an elevated surface, so that's a good place to progress before moving on to vaulting over a fence or something. Exercise 1 involves a simple bodyweight transfer from the feet to the hands as you move between a deep knee bend and foot hand position. Exercise 2 progresses to continue with the same drill, adding the element of hopping the feet off the ground. This is also a good drill if you're interested in developing your hand balancing skills. Exercise 3 turns this into a locomotion by inching forward with every hop. Think "grazing bunny". Exercise 4 involves swinging the legs through to a sitting position with the legs extended out in front of you. Exercise 5 is the full Front Vault on the ground. From here you can start on the "balls" of your palm if you have the mobility to give your legs extra space to pass through. You can do this with your palms flat for an added challenge as that will make you depress your scapula and challenge your core stability and mobility to make it through. I hope you found this helpful. If you like the background music, check out Tesk for more at soundcloud.com/tesk. Thank you and see you next time. www.NaturalMobility.net

This wrist flexibility sequence is a great warm up/cool down for any activity that relies on grip strength, or results in compression of the wrist. These stretches can potentially prevent injuries, and definitely increases flexibility over time. This routine is from Bujinkan Taijutsu's Junan Taiso, which are exercises for improving mobility for use in the martial arts. These are ideal for martial arts conditioning, but also great to prepare the body for hand balancing, pressing exercises, throwing, and more. This is an easy set of exercises that you can pull out almost any time, any place, and the benefit of doing it regularly is great, but something that you should experience for yourself. Please let me know what you think in the comments. Enjoy!

This ankle flexibility sequence is a good warm up before activities that will engage the legs and feet. There are many things we can do, and this is focused on passive mobilization, meaning the foot we are working on isn't moving at all, rather you use your own hands to move the joint. For many people it's hard to keep a joint relaxed as they move it. This exercise is a perfect way to learn how to better control the joint in that sense if this is the case. Doing this and other mobility drills before dynamic activity can prepare the body to bear loads at the ends of your ranges of motion, which is where injuries often happen. If the body is prepared to move in those ranges, it's less likely to result in injury if we were to roll over our ankle or something. This routine comes from the Junan Taiso warm up practice of the Bujinkan Taijutsu martial arts, but is ideal as a warm up before running, jumping, and other dynamic physical activities.

Tuck jumping is a environmental adaptation for a vertical jump. When you need to jump up onto or over an elevated obstacle, tuck jumping will often be your fastest and safest option. In MovNat we have the Vertical Jump technique. Everything before the take-off is the same for this jump, they are both jumps that aim to go high but a vertical jump is about reaching up with the arms, and the tuck jump is about getting your legs out of the way. This involves jumping up and raising your feet in front of your hips (not under your) and letting your knee extend out to the sides. Jumping this way gets your feet out of the way and prevents them from being clipped by the obstacle. Tuck jumping with the feet under your hips is a common mistake when this is used a fitness exercise without much consideration to practical application. A good way to get familiar with this position is active mobility exercises in the open bent sit position, which mimics the top position of your tuck jump. Make sure you're not stumbling back into the same pattern as you land; stick your landing and make sure you have total balance and control before stepping from there or jumping again.

Jumping to a Square Landing and then transitioning to a Deep Knee Bend, is a good practice in training your reaction to quickly drop your center of gravity when you start to lose balance, instead of flailing your arms around. For this drill we will use flat ground and just use anything to make the "boundaries" of your target landing. Usually with a precision landing we are coming to land in a half squat with the heels touching down, but for this variation we will be transitioning to a deep knee bend before the heels come down. You can do this landing from a Forward Jump, Split Jump, or Leg Swing Jump. Don't worry about making it a jump from as far away as you can, and rather just focus on good technique; getting the knees high before landing, landing softly and quietly, and smoothly transitioning to the deep knee bend.