05.03 Key Points: Transit — Transcript

05.03 Key Points: Transit — Transcript (English)

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Transcript

Welcome to this Key Points lesson where we’re going to look at the TRANSIT focus.

Because the TRANSIT focus focuses on the movement transitions between the forms, I’m going to mainly explain the details of these transitions between the forms.

So let’s take a look.

We start in a standing position and from here we want to go into High Lunge.

So let’s see how we are going to do this.

So first of all, we draw the shoulders down and spread the fingers.

Notice that from here, for the entire sequence, the hands will be with the fingers spread so that we can keep this awareness, like we’re really controlling what the arms and the upper body is doing.

We bring the arms diagonally up to the point where our rib cage doesn’t move.

We draw the shoulders down.

Then we hinge in the hips and we lightly bend the knees.

See, what it does is that it shifts the center of gravity forward.

So we will use the weight of the arms and the upper body to offset the weight of the leg which will go back.

Here there is a movement where we need to shift the weight onto the left leg in this case.

And then we start lifting the foot.

So see from here the position of the pelvis doesn’t move essentially.

And here I want you to watch what happens with the feet.

First of all, when the foot is lifted off the floor, w e push the ball off the foot so the foot is active.

And Satoko is going to perform Intensity Modification for form and effort, whereas I’m going to perform the form with the TRANSIT focus as ideally we want you to be able to eventually perform it.

The difference will be that I will use the offsetting of the weight of the upper body to bring the tiptoe exactly where I want the foot to land.

Whereas Satoko will bring the tiptoe onto the floor first and then she’s going to slide it.

So what she’s going to be doing is gonna be modification for effort.

So watch my performance here.

The knee is extended, the ankle is extended, the back foot is very active and the movement is very, very controlled.

See, it’s slow, controlled, I bring the tiptoe on the floor and this is where it is.

And let me play just one more time, watch Satoko.

So Satoko performs the movement slightly faster and she slides the tiptoe, which is our Intensity Modification.

So let’s watch it one more time.

Bend the knees, hinge in the hips, bring the weight onto the left foot and then watch where the tiptoes land and how they move.

See Satoko’s is sliding and mine is just lending where it’s supposed to be.

So from this point, the knee is extended.

We watch the grid lines and symmetry.

This is the High Lunge.

We’ve done this before.

The important point in relation to TRANSIT is that when your back foot lands, it lands on top of the lines that are the hip width apart lines, right?

So at first your feet were like this.

When you shifted the weight onto the left foot, your center of gravity has to shift here, right?

which means that when you start bringing this right foot back, you have to kind of, you need to think about this hip width apart line is here.

So it should feel like you’re bringing the foot, not just back, but back and a little bit to the side so that when you return your center of gravity to the center, your feet are at hip width apart and you have the midline.

So this is something that you need to think about while you’re performing this TRANSIT movement, right?

So when you lift the foot, you imagine the hip width apart grid lines and the right foot will land on top of that grid line.

And then you return to the midline.

So that’s the TRANSIT focus.

So then we perform the High Lunge.

I’m going to speed it up.

Okay, and from here, we are going to go into Star Tilt.

So in the Star Tilt, the position of the legs is that the front knee will be extended.

The back foot, it’s now on the tiptoe, so the heel will be down and it will be turned 45 degrees and the pelvis will move.

So we need to think about: what is the way to smoothly transition from this position of the legs to that position of the legs.

And then we add all these checkpoints between these positions and we try to perform this transition with as much control and fluidity as we can.

And of course the arms in the T shape will be fixed from this point.

So the upper body is fixed and it is the lower body that is moving here.

So let’s look at what these checkpoints are.

As we begin to extend the knee, we bring the back foot into the position in the Star Tilt.

See, and then we fully extend the knee, and this is where our feet landed.

So in this position, the right tiptoes are still on the hip width apart line, but the right heel went in, right?

So you are still aware of this hip width apart line.

And the pelvis moves to accommodate the position of the legs.

And the shoulders and the hips look in the same direction, and the arms are positioned in relation to the hips.

We’ve talked about this before.

Okay, so we perform the transition, then we go and we perform the form.

We perform the tilt.

I’m also going to speed it up a little bit.

So we tilt.

And then the next form is going to be Split Form Torsion.

And the leg position in that form is the pelvis facing forward, both knees extended, and the feet are parallel to each other, but not together, but like this, right?

Because of that, because of the limitations in the ankle mobility, this means that we will need to make the stance shorter, because from this position you will not be able to turn your pelvis all the way forward and turn your right foot forward, because of the limitations in the ankle mobility, or flexibility, whichever way you want to call it.

So look at how we’re going to perform this transition.

We first begin to prepare by turning the torso forward.

Of course, the arms, they move together with the upper body.

We begin to lean a little bit forward.

And as we do that, we begin to turn the pelvis slightly forward.

So all these movements, they have to happen at the same time in TRANSIT.

We lean more forward so that we can effectively transfer the weight onto the front leg without snapping or momentum.

We bend the knee and then the foot, the back foot lowers.

As you lift the back foot, it has to go slightly more forward to address the limitations in the ankle mobility in this position.

And then from here, you can adjust a little bit your feet, of course, you will be pulling the legs apart.

And here you can see that the stance became much shorter.

So essentially, the stance here will be determined by how far you can bring your back foot while still having both knees extended.

And here again, the feet are hip width apart.

So from here, we’ll perform torsion, and again, I’m going to speed it up a little bit.

So we torsion towards the left leg without moving the pelvis.

The arm line stays as is.

And then from here, we will transition into a lunging position.

So we want to bend the front knee.

Now, bending the front knee will require your pelvis going slightly more forward, which will mean that the ankle will actually have to bend even more.

It is possible that while doing the front torsion, it will affect the muscles at the back of your calf in such a way that it would be possible for you to simply bend the knee from this position and you will feel fine.

However, it is possible that it’s not going to happen, which means that you will still have that limitation in the mobility in your ankle as you had at the beginning of this form, the Split Form Torsion.

And this means that from this position you might have to adjust the back foot and bring it slightly forward so that you could bend the front knee.

All these very, very tiny details, we really want you to be aware of them.

Because while you’re performing all these movements with a TRANSIT focus, you also learn a great deal about the mobility in different parts of your body.

So we bend the front knee.

So here in both cases, both me and Satako were able to bend the front knee or see, I adjusted the back foot a little bit, just a little bit.

So this is what the lunge looks like from the front.

The front knee is above the heel, not forward, not backward, right?

So you need to think about bringing the front knee above the heel, and then the back foot may have to go just a little bit forward.

Here, sometimes it would be possible, for example, to bend the front knee, while slightly rotating your pelvis to the right.

But we don’t want to do that.

So we watch the pelvis, we watch the knee, watch the pelvis.

Okay, is there tension in my calf?

Okay, there’s tension and I need to bring the back foot a little bit forward.

And the form here is essentially first find the straight line, and then we move the rib cage upright or more upright.

Remember no compression in the lower back, so there is Intensity Modification for safety.

We continue of course to pull the legs away.

Look at the hands still spreading the fingers, drawing the shoulders down, then we lean forward.

We extend the front knee, bring the arms to the side, and then we will perform the Split Form Inflection.

We did it before, so I’m not going to explain the details, but in terms of the transit focus, you don’t need to do anything with your feet, because the position with both knees extended is easier on the back calf than it is with the front knee bent, so no adjustments need to be made.

So we will go through split form inflection.

So I’m going to speed it up.

So we’re flexed, we extend.

The position of your upper body may be different depending on your flexibility.

Then we flex again.

We roll out by pressing the feet onto the floor.

You can think about it as if the movement of pressing the feet into the floor is what’s rolling you up.

So first the upper body comes into a position where we have the straight spine and stacked ribcage and the pelvis.

And then from there, our final TRANSIT, our final movement transition here is going to be to return back to standing position, which means that without momentum, we’ll briefly stand on one leg and then we’ll return to standing two legs.

So currently the feet a hip width apart.

So look how we’re going to transition.

We let go of the hands, we bend the front knee, and with control we begin to at the same time shift the weight onto the front leg and bringing the arms diagonally forward.

So the foot was here.

When we move forward, we have to be shifted to the left because we need to be able to not fall.

So the center of gravity has to project on top of our foot.

But when the foot returns back to keep width apart, this is where we return the center of gravity back to center.

So we’ll bring the arms diagonally up.

And then from here, we’re going to go to the other side.

So that’s it for the key points related to the TRANSIT focus.

In the next lesson you’re going to perform this exact sequence.

So make sure you’re thinking about the hip width apart lines.

You can even put tape on the floor, you know, to mark those lines when you perform this sequence for the first time.

And make sure that you can maintain this quality of movement in all the transitions.

That you’re in control.

You know what you’re doing, no momentum nor snapping, very fluid movements.

And whenever you’re actually in the form, you know, the pelvis looks forward, the legs are where they’re supposed to be.

So whenever we are in the form, we do think about grid lines and symmetry.

And also when we do all those leg adjustments, when from the tip toe we bring the heel down, and then we turn the foot and then we bend the knee.

So we have to bring the foot forward - try to really feel what I was talking about, how that limitation in the ankle mobility in your back foot will be defining the stance.

Try to really feel those limitations in your current flexibility and mobility.

TRANSIT focus is a great environment to discover all those details about our bodies.

So let’s give it a go.

Let’s move on to the next practice lesson.

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• Transcribed by: Auto-import
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• Date: 2026-02-03