Ah this is great.
http://tinyurl.com/azteu

Study Study Study

Notice how his knees don't bend past 90 degrees for the most part in these rolls, he only put his legs down to quickly push him and control him into the roll. Very good advice and learning material if you don't want to injure your knees.

nice vid

yeah awsome video thx for the vid tyson

Hmm. Is this the "don't let your knees go past your toes" rule that I hear so often?

I wonder if this rule applies to ballet. Anyone know? It doesn't seem to a lot of the time...or maybe it's just me noticing things differently.

take a look at this thread: viewtopic.php?t=667

In Parkour some people go by the "90 degree rule" by how far your knees should bend on any landing, including rolls. What I've found is that if you are letting your butt drop down low on a jump or on a roll, you are not doing it as safely as you can not simply because of the angle but because you are either
(a) not utilizing all the different muscles in your legs to cushion the landing, or
(b) you are not strong enough yet to take that landing safely
-> leading to too much shock going through your legs to your joints.

I had a combination of the two when I started doing precision jumps at my peak distance and that was the same time my knees started to feel really bad. Well I don't anymore and I feel much stronger and safer now (part of that is because I was forced into figuring out how to make everything low-impact because of various foot annoyances, but it helped me out a great deal in the long-run). I know some people who allow their butt to drop so low that hey hit their knees sometimes on rolls, you just gotta build up the strength!

Hmm, don't know how much it matters, but the http://trickstutorials.com/forum/showthread.php?t=199 link doesn't work anymore...

Ah bad luck, looks like they lost all their old threads awhile ago. I they manage to bring it back sometime I'll link it up again.

This is a great vid with important info. I am glad that I saw this before I started and learned the wrong way. I would definetly have bent my knees a long way.

so... question. at the end of the vid, what about that last drop he does? it a really high drop! and he doesnt roll! he just sort of bounces right out of it... being kinda bouncy myself i'm guessing that its really just a matter of leg strength.

but what are the other factors involved? should he have rolled? and what are some excersises that can help develop the ability to take a drop like that?

When your momentum is going straight down it's generally pointless to roll since you aren't carrying any sideways momentum. He bounces because of how hard his legs are pushing back into the ground so that he doesn't collapse fully with the force.

That's a many years of experience drop, the way to build up to it is to just train a lot of small jumps you can take over and over without damaging your body. I recommend sticking to heights that you can jump up onto in the beginning.

Thanks Tyson, it was an enormous pointer I'm glad I picked up before I may have developed a bad habit. I'll be sure to practice before applying it to my routine. Lately it's just been climbing that I've been getting used to again, muscle-overs etc. Appreciate it.

~Mike

So I practiced a little hopping off of a short seat from a picnic table and found the following:

-You lean into your fall far enough to carry the momentum and not to drop your core weight to your legs.

-When bending your knees you will stop at a point and extend your legs straight into the roll as your lean farther into your fall.

-The roll will flow very smooth if you carry a fair momentum to flow with.

Thanks again Tyson for the analysis.

~Mike