Today I got to lead the warmup – pretty standard stretches.  Started again with rolls – this time down a line, so that we can make sure we’re rolling straight every time.  We also worked quite a while on dive rolls.  I’ve always had trouble with getting comfortable with the run-up, and also with getting height.  After a few ok dive rolls, Jenna put down a cone sideways in front of the mat, to force me to take off from further back, and to go higher.  It worked – I committed more to the dive roll, and that made them better.  Then she added a second cone a little later.  Then Aaron replaced them with a barrier of low stools, about a couple of feet high.  I could easily clear it, but it’s more about overcoming the mental part of diving over an obstacle.

This exercise really helped – I don’t think I’ve ever drilled a dive roll like this before.  If nothing else, that’s something I can take back to my gymnastics classes.  Once I got comfortable, Bob told me to come out of the dive roll in a fighting stance – to incorporate it into real actions I might do on camera.  Since I was pretty comfortable with the dive roll at that point, this was no problem.

Then the mini-tramp came out.  We’re jumping off it onto mats, to practice the different kinds of falls we’ll be using for high-falls:  suicides, headers, face-offs, and back falls.  It’s important to really use the mini-tramp to propel you, and to keep proper posture.

The suicide is where you land flat on your back with your feet facing forward.  The header is where you flip forward in the air before landing on your back (feet facing forward).  Face-off is when you are head forward and horizontal to the ground, then do a half twist to land on your back (feet facing back the way you came).  Back fall is when you fall backwards, onto your back (feet facing the way you came).

All of us had the most problems with the face-off:  ducking a shoulder coming down, or twisting too early, or not twisting the whole body at once, or twisting too late, or going sideways, etc.  To help with a progression on the face-off, we worked on front falls – essentially the same as a sprawl in wrestling.  Then we jumped off the mini-tramp into a front fall – to get the proper position we should be having before twisting.  Then onto the full face-off.  This time was much better, as we were able to get it reasonably well.

We finished up with a review and practice of the basic fight techniques we’ve been doing – tweaking to make them smooth and realistic.  We added knees, and worked on tackles as well.  The arm throw looked pretty good – Kofi did it with a front roll into a breakfall, and I did it with a shoulder roll into side fall.  All this is in preparation of some choreographed fight scenes, starting tomorrow.

It hurt to get up this morning.  The parts that ached the most:  neck (whiplash from not falling correctly), and legs (from getting up millions of times after falls and rolls).  Just drives home that the real test is not just absorbing and practicing all the new techniques that are being thrown at us, but also taking care of your body so that you can keep going day after day.

I’d never done something this physically challenging.  All the other times, it would be for a few hours, and then there would be a chance to recover for a day or two (or a week), before coming back for more.  At most, two or three days in a roll.  Now it’s 3-weeks, 5 days a week, 8 hours a day.  It’s quite a difference – I definitely will have to pace myself to make sure I make it through all 3 weeks.  Lesson learned from Day 1 – I didn’t hydrate well enough.  Have to make sure I have water readily available and throughout the day.

On arriving, Bob asked me how I felt.  I replied, “Beat up”.  After jokingly commiserating with the other students how sore we felt, we got ready to get started.  I wore my sneakers on Day 1, but my feet shifted a bit inside them as we did all the rolls and falls.  So I switched to wrestling shoes that I’d used when training in Krav Maga.  What makes them good for wrestling shoes also makes them good for this – snug, good ankle support, thin soles.

After stretching, it’s back to rolls and falls again – review of yesterday, and adding on more.  My neck and legs complained with the first front roll, but as my body got warmed up, the pain receded.  Still need some work on the dive rolls and barrel rolls – I’m sure we’ll do more of those in the coming days.

Then we moved into recap of the basic fighting moves we learned yesterday.  Today we added kicks (roundhouse to the stomach), leg kicks, slaps, chokes (rear naked choke), throws (arm throw into shoulder roll with side fall), tackles (into sit fall).  As always, doing the technique safely is the first requirement, and making it look good is the second requirement.  Making it look good for the camera can sometimes mean doing the techniques very differently than you’d if fighting for real.  For a lot of techniques, the reaction from the bottom man (the one receiving the hit), is what “sells” it and makes it look realistic.

Towards the end of the day, Anthony came in to visit.  He’s one of the instructors who will be teaching us in the third week.  Since we were working on some short choreographed fight scenes, we showed it to him.  My partner and I went first.  We were WILD – going faster than we were in rehearsal, stumbling over each other, all over the place.  The other group went too, more controlled.  Anthony gave us some overall feedback – need to watch where the setups are coming from, and the lines of where the punches are going – otherwise it looks weak and unconvincing.  We only had a few minutes to put it together, and we weren’t expecting to perform it for an “audience” (of a fellow instructor, which still counts), but still, we could’ve done better.

After Anthony left, we did the scenes again.  My partner and I were so much cleaner this time – we were controlled, didn’t fall over each other, good reactions.  Jenna’s comment was that we had “red light fever” – when in a performance situation, we got too amped up, and wild fight scene was the result.  Just have to get used to it, and practice so that we’re smooth and under control, whatever the circumstances.

With that we wrapped up Day 2.  We got a little preview of the coming days – will be focusing mostly on unarmed fighting the first week, weapons the second week, and then everything else the third week.  Of course, there will be the standard basic techniques like rolls and falls, and other things sprinkled throughout as well.  Can’t wait!

Today was the first day of class at Hollywood Stunts, a stunt school located out in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.  We were there for the 3 Week intensive.  And intense it was.

It was a small class – only 3 of us (the class is limited to a maximum of 10 anyway).  After filling out some paperwork and signing our lives away, we met our instructors, Aaron and Jenna.  I’d met them previously at a high-fall class I did a couple of months earlier.  We can keep our stuff in our own lockers over the 3 weeks, which is great.  Bob Cotter, the owner, also warned us not to goof around on our breaks, because people can get hurt that way (and have in the past).  It would be such a shame to not be able to finish the class due to a stupid injury.

We started out with standard stretches – concentrating particular on the neck, shoulders, and legs – because the first things we did were rolls and falls.  Front rolls, shoulder rolls (front and back), sit falls, side falls, back falls, front rolls to back fall, shoulder rolls to side falls, dive rolls, barrel rolls.

From gymnastics and martial arts, I was fairly well prepped in the technique of the basic rolls and falls.  However, nothing I’ve done in the past few months prepared me for doing these for 3.5 hours.  No matter how fit you are in one sport, a different physical activity uses those muscles in a different way.  Plus, if you’re trying to learn new skills, that makes it harder.

Needless to say, by the end of the morning session, we were exhausted.  I’ve always had trouble with dive rolls (something about the run-up), and barrel rolls were new to me.  My back falls needed more work – I was holding back a little, making me ever so slightly off level – I should be completely flat when I hit.

Lunch couldn’t come soon enough – I was starving.  I found a Japanese restaurant nearby, and filled my belly. Then it was back for a little nap before the afternoon session.

The instructors took pity on us, and didn’t make us do rolls and falls for the rest of the afternoon.  Instead, we started basic fight training.  They discussed on and off line, in and out of distance – and ways of making it look good for the camera while remaining safe for all involved.  Then it was onto practice – straight punches, chin drops, gut checks.  My previous martial arts experience was helpful here, as was the introductory stage combat class I’d taken a few years earlier.  Lots of nuances to work on here – from proper punching technique for camera, to realistic reactions to “sell” the hits.

We finished with kicks to the groin.  Yes, that’s right.  They showed us a couple of different ways to do it without hurting your partner – and then off we went to practice.  Nobody got kicked in the groin… today.  We combined the various punches and kicks into a small combo, and practiced some more before they called it a day.

So that’s Day 1.  It’s a marathon, not a sprint – this is only the start of this 3-week class, or of our potential stunt careers.  We left to recover and to get ready for tomorrow.