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Hi, David Weck here. Today, I'm going to teach you a pattern with the RMT Rope called the "Dragon Roll."
It looks like this: I'm bringing the rope in front of me and behind me, going in a side by side motion and the hands are not crossing my center line. Looks like this from the back side. It's here, here, and here, here. This is such an incredibly valuable tool for total body coordination, integration, rotation. It can be tricky to learn so here, let's break it down.
We call it the Dragon Roll because we're going to drag, and then bring it over, and drag. Notice how my hands are staying here, I'm not trying to move the hands across the center, I'm not trying to do it with my hands, I'm trying to make my hands and my body one integrated unit. All you're going to be doing is bringing the rope from here to here. And here to here with rotation [Rotational Movement Training]. So if I start, 45 degrees this way, and I drag, I want to think in terms of hitting the center with the rope as I drag it to one side, then I just flip it over, and I drag it to the other side.
Now the timing on the rotation is the key. So that as the rope is right overhead, that's when I make the turn. And I do the drag a little bit earlier than when I break it down to here and drag, and here and drag. What I do is I go and drag, and drag, and drag. I don't want to bring my hands up because that will effectively shorten the rope and I won't loop it over. I want to focus on the down and the down and the down and the momentum of the rope will cary it overhead.
So I'm going to break it down from behind so that you can follow this video at home: So, hold your rope like this, just rehearse this and this, keeping your hands as low as you can, this and this. Now, we're going to face 45 degrees. We're going to drag the rope over. Now, 45 degrees the other way, so I just turned, I bring it over, let it hit. I drag back to the same direction in the beginning and I bring it over and drag, over and drag, over and drag. Now w'ere going to start to put it together. And drag, and drag, and turn back, turn back, turn back, turn back, turn back. Turn, and turn, and turn, and turn, and turn.
The best way to practice that is very slow at first and pick a defined number of repetitions you want to accomplish. Let's say I'm going to pick three reps, I'm going to say okay, one and two, turn it back, and three. Boom. And then I stop. The reason why I do little chunks like that is because if I'm off by just that much and I keep on trying to go, eventually I'll get sort of so far off that the pattern doesn't work anymore. So I'm not programming it in successfully, I'm programming in failure. So bite off a chunk that you can chew and then pattern that pattern.
You will love this pattern once you do it, it is so worth the time and focus that it takes to learn this pattern. It is so athletic and it forms a nice transition between underhand rolls and overhand rolls, and soon you'll be learning this move right here. I said it once and I'll say it again, there is a latent, blooming athlete within every single person who hasn't trained with a rope. It doesn't matter what your skill level is, as an athlete, if you haven't put the reps in with the rope, you're not as good as you otherwise could be. Now, with this Dragon Roll it can be tricky so send in your comments, send in your videos, and I will help coach you to master this move.
