The Soul of Pose

Thursday, January 5, 2011

“Hidalgo”

For time:
Run 2 miles
Rest 2 minutes
135 pound Squat clean, 20 reps
20 Box jump, 24″ box
20 Walking lunge steps with 45lb plate held overhead
20 Box jump, 24″ box
135 pound Squat clean, 20 reps
Rest 2 minutes
Run 2 miles

If you’ve got a twenty pound vest or body armor, wear it.

Diso falling.

This is a long workout to put it nicely.  Get in, warm up, set up, scale as needed, and go for it. 

There is also quite a bit of running in this workout, so I asked our Track night and CFE Coach Frank to write a guest post on his latest and surprising revelation about running.  This just goes to show no matter how into a subject you are, there will always be somebody or something out there to show you just how far you have to go.  As I myself have delved more into the POSE method, I have found it has less to do with technique and mechanics (and there’s plenty to be sure), and more to do with …. I’ll let Frank tell you.

Meeting Dr Romanov at the SMC track was crazy. I was trying to explain it to my friends after, who were not impressed at all with my story, “You don’t understand, that running method I teach, I met the guy who invented it! Ridiculous!” I don’t normally get excited around celebrities, but I’ll admit I was a little nervous and giddy when I realized that Romanov was conducting a one-on-one with a female client at the same track. She was accompanied by her husband, who was filming the session. While Romanov was extremely nice and chatted with us for a while, I was a little disappointed after because I didn’t get any instruction on POSE from him at all. He ran his one-on-one, and I ran my normal track night and that was it.

The next week I was surprised to see the couple had returned for another training session, this time without Romanov. This is when I figured out that the husband was most likely a certified POSE instructor as well. As I ran by them, I could see that they were checking out my form and critiquing me. I mean come on, how many other people are running POSE at the track? Before starting my workout, he approached me and said something very interesting that I will never forget, “Your form is great, but your running has no soul. Just as every body has a soul, the soul of POSE running is the fall. And you are not falling, so your running has no soul. You must FALL.” As he said this he leaned forward at the ankles and began to fall to demonstrate his point. “But I’m scared I’m going to fall too much and start to break form,” I replied. “No, you can never fall too much, your body will tell you when you are falling too much. When you get it right you will feel like you are weightless. When it happens you will know, because you will feel like you are high. You must FALL.” Again he leaned forward to demonstrate the fall.

At first I was shocked. I was ready for some feedback, but telling someone they have no soul was brutal. I quickly got over this because I knew he was right. I have worked diligently on my posture and pull for the POSE method, but have probably neglected the most important part, falling forward and using gravity! I have watched a lot of Romanov videos, and I am not surprised that this coach spoke of the fall as a soul, or compared it to feeling “high” or “weightless”. All of the POSE drills are designed to do one thing: improve your perception of gravity and falling. That is the foundation of Romanov’s teachings, as opposed to Crossfit Endurance who teaches it as a set of progressions and drills. Both methods have their value, and I grateful that this coach was able to change my awareness in my training and coaching of others.